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348 THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND A DEN OF VIPERS 349
of only thirteen, and, as a young man entering business, had fully
mastered the secret science of money.
With the ability to control the flow of the nation's credit, Biddle
soon became one of the most powerful men in America. This was
brought out dramatically when he was asked by a Senate Committee
if his bank ever took advantage of its superior position over the
state banks. He replied: "Never. There are very few banks which
might not have been destroyed by an exertion of the powers of the
Bank. None has ever been injured." As Jackson publicly noted a
few months later, this was an admission that most of the state
banks existed only at the pleasure of the Bank of the United States,
and that, of course, meant at the pleasure of Mr. Biddle.
The year was 1832. The Bank's charter was good for another
four years. But Biddle decided not to wait that long for Jackson to
build his forces. He knew that the President was up for reelection,
and he reasoned that, as a candidate, he would hesitate to be too
controversial. To criticize the Bank is one thing, but to come down
squarely for its elimination altogether would surely cost him many
votes. So, Biddle requested Congress to grant an early renewal of
the charter as a means of softening Jackson's campaign against it.
The bill was backed by the Republicans led by Senator John Clay
and was passed into law on July 3, just before the election
campaigns began in earnest.
JACKSON OVERRIDES CONGRESS
It was brilliant strategy on Biddle's part but it didn't work.
Jackson decided to place his entire political career on the line for
this one issue and, with perhaps the most passionate message ever
delivered to Congress by any President, before or since, he vetoed
the measure. The President's biographer, Robert Remini, says: "The
veto message hit the nation like a tornado. For it not only cited
constitutional arguments against recharter—supposedly the only
reason for resorting to a veto—but political, social, economic, and
nationalistic reasons as well."
Jackson devoted most of his veto message to three general
topics: (1) the injustice that is inherent in granting a government-
1 J.D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1 789-
1908 (Washington: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1908), Vol. II, p. 581.
2. Robert V. Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson (New York: Harper & Row, 1988),
pp. 227-28.
sponsored monopoly to the Bank; (2) the unconstitutionality of the
Bank even if it were not unjust; and (3) the danger to the country in
having the Bank heavily dominated by foreign investors.
Regarding the injustice of a government-sponsored monopoly,
he pointed out that the stock of the Bank was owned only by the
richest citizens of the country and that, since the sale of stock was
limited to a chosen few with political influence, the common man,
not only is
unfairly excluded from an opportunity to participate,
but he is forced to pay for his banking services far more than they
are worth. Unearned profits are bad enough when they are taken
from one class of citizens and given to another, but it is even worse
when the people receiving those benefits are not even citizens at all
but are, in factforeigners. Jackson said:
It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our
Government. More than eight millions of the stock of this bank are
held by foreigners. By this act the American Republic proposes
virtually to make them a present of some millions of dollars.... It
appears that more than a fourth part of the stock is held by foreigners
and the residue is held by a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly
of the richest class. For their benefit does this act exclude the whole
American people from competition in the purchase of this monopoly
and dispose of it for many millions less than it is worth.
Regarding the issue of constitutionality, he said that he was not
bound by the previous decision of the Supreme Court, because the
President and Congress had just as much right to decide for
themselves whether or not a particular law is
constitutional This
view, incidentally, was not novel at that time. It is only in relatively
recent decades that people have begun to think of the Supreme
Court as being specifically authorized to pass on this question. In
fact, as Jackson correctly pointed out in his veto message, the
founding fathers created a government with power divided between
the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and that the
purpose of this division was, not merely to divvy up the chores, but
to balance one branch against the other. The goal was not to make
government efficient but to deliberately make it inefficient. Each
President and each legislator is
morally bound, even by oath, to
uphold the Constitution. If each of them does not have the power to
:1- Krooss, pp. 22-23.