DanAllosso

This is the text that economic historians complain is the only thing most mainstream historians have ever read about banking. Hammond focuses on Andrew Jackson’s bank war and specie circular, which he blames for the Panic of 1837. The Second Bank, he says, was a prototype of central banking, which regulated credit and kept the state banks honest. Jacksonians used the rhetoric of agrarianism, Hammond says, to break up the central bank for their own political gain:“The Jacksonians were unconventional and skillful in politics. In their assault on the Bank they united five important elements, which, incongruities notwithstanding, comprised an effective combination. These were Wall Street’s jealousy of Chestnut Street, the business man’s dislike of the federal Bank’s restraint upon bank credit, the politician’s resentment at the Bank’s interference in states’ rights, popular identification of the Bank with the aristocracy of business, and the direction of agrarian antipathy away from banks in general to the federal Bank in particular.” (329) The effect of Jackson’s policies was that “it left the poor agrarian as poor as he had been before and it left the money power possessed of more money and more power than ever.” Since these were the results of the policy, shouldn’t we investigate whether the winners were in any way behind the policy?