Andrew Jackson’s election in 1828—like Thomas Jefferson’s in 1800 and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s more than a century later—marked a significant change in American social and political thought, for Jackson thoroughly symbolized the widespread democratic impulse of the 1820’s and 1830’s. A half-century earlier Jefferson had declared as the philosophical basis of the Declaration of Independence the proposition that “all men are created equal”; and in the bloodless “Revolution of 1800” a crumbling Federalism had been laid low by the determined disciples of Jeffersonian Democracy. Yet the Jeffersonians were themselves essentially aristocratic in outlook and suspicious of popular rule. They believed in government of and for the people, but not necessarily by the people, as the classic, late-in-life exchange of letters on aristocracy between Jefferson and John Adams attested, and it was not until the Age of Jackson that equalitarianism became a pervasive theme of American life.
Now, however, political institutions underwent a profound transformation, and political control was rapidly transferred from an aristocracy of education, position, and wealth to the common man, the average American. Early in the republic’s history each of the original states had imposed severe restrictions upon the suffrage, but the newly admitted Western states had enfranchised almost all of their adult white males and constitutional revisions soon brought the older states into line. Property qualifications for office were similarly abolished at the example of the West; terms of office were limited, as were the numbers of appointive or non-elective positions; and by the time of Jackson’s first election each state, with the exception of Delaware and South Carolina, had provided that Presidential electors be chosen popularly rather than by the state legislatures. Important, too, was the widespread insistence that Presidential candidates be chosen by open party conventions instead of by tightly inbred legislative caucuses.
Jacksonian Democracy also brought a new equalitarian conception of public office: that all men were essentially of equal talents, that each American of normal intelligence was capable of holding any position in government, and that democracy required a rotation in office to prevent the development of an untouchable and undemocratic political bureaucracy. And though it was frequently abused by venal politicians for private gain, this notion that “to the victors belong the spoils” was a forthright expression of the simple democratic instinct for replacing office holders whose party had been repudiated with those who were more clearly “the people’s choice.” Leveling doctrines pervaded every area of social life as well, and there were some, like the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic “Democracy in America,” who wondered whether Americans’ liberties would long survive the nation’s penchant for equality. For at times the tyranny of the majority proved even more oppressive than minority rule, and “King Numbers” seemed as despotic a sovereign as any in history.
Meanwhile Americans’ democratic sympathies found ample expression in the myriad social and economic reform movements of the Jacksonian period. Determined to cleanse and purify the national life, they enthusiastically devoted their energies to such varied causes as free public education, women’s rights, abolitionism, temperance, and the care of criminals and of the insane. With the steady growth of industry in the Northeast the labor movement also received an important impetus, for the squalor and impoverishment of the new urban working class were in striking contrast to contemporary ideals of equality and material well-being for all Americans.
Undoubtedly many of the new labor unions and workingmen’s parties fervently supported the political ascendancy of Andrew Jackson. Yet the warrior-statesman’s rough-and-tumble ways and his disdain for rank and ceremony identified him even more closely with the West, where a continuous frontier experience bred a firm faith in the capacity of the common man; and his hatred of privilege and monopoly made him equally the champion of the struggling entrepreneur. Thus in 1828 and again in 1832 Jackson, though a wealthy planter, was able to rally to his support the democratic forces of the nation—the workers, farmers and small businessmen—and to make the new Democratic party a symbol of the leveling spirit of the age.
Ultimately it was his spectacular war upon the second Bank of the United States that most clearly illustrated Jackson’s libertarian instincts and his intolerance of monopoly. The charter of the first Bank of the United States (which Jefferson had emphatically opposed and Hamilton as firmly supported in their famous letters to Washington in 1791) had expired in 1811 and had not been immediately renewed. But in 1816, after the harsh fiscal experiences of the War of 1812, and in the midst of the nationalistic fervor that gripped the nation at the war’s conclusion, Congress had enthusiastically chartered a second Bank, granting it important monopolies in the national banking business. By the 1820’s, however, the “Era of Good Feelings” had been supplanted by a period of intense sectional and class conflict, and though conservative business leaders were well served by the Bank and by its aristocratic president, Nicholas Biddle, popular enthusiasm gave way to suspicion and distrust. Soon representatives of the underprivileged classes spoke of the Bank as a “financial octopus” and protested its vast power over the economic life of the nation.
Jackson fully shared this popular prejudice against the Bank, and like Jefferson before him he argued against its constitutionality. His real objections, however, were personal and political, for Biddle had used the Bank’s resources to support anti-Jackson Congressmen and to defy the popular President. At the insistence of Henry Clay, Jackson’s bitter rival in the West, Biddle actually precipitated the conflict himself. Jackson had early made known his hostility to the Bank, but there was no sure indication of his plans in regard to its recharter. Nevertheless in the early summer of 1832 Biddle forced a recharter bill through Congress. Since the old charter would not expire for four years, it was obvious that the Bank Bill had been timed to present Clay with a convenient campaign issue in the coming Presidential election, for the conservative National Republicans (soon to emerge as the new Whig party) erroneously believed that a Presidential veto would be extremely unpopular.
Instead, Jackson’s forceful veto message gained him widespread support from all who feared the “concentration of power in the hands of a few men irresponsible to the people.” Though his enemies denounced the Bank veto as “demagogic” and dictatorial and dubbed Jackson “King Andrew I,” great numbers of “the humble members of society” saw in his veto message a clear expression of the era’s growing democratic ideology. Once again they elected the hero of New Orleans to the highest office in the land.
Adams to Jefferson
July, 1813
. . . I recollect, near thirty years ago, to have said carelessly to you that I wished I could find time and means to write something upon aristocracy. You seized upon the idea and encouraged me to do it with all that friendly warmth that is natural and habitual to you. I soon began and have been writing upon that subject ever since. I have been so unfortunate as never to be able to make myself understood. Your “aristoi” are the most difficult animals to manage of anything in the whole theory and practice of government. They will not suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their subtilty, industry, and courage, but they employ the commonalty to knock to pieces every plan and model that the most honest architects in legislation can invent to keep them within bounds. Both patricians and plebeians are as furious as the workmen in England to demolish labor-saving machinery.
But who are these “aristoi”? Who shall judge? Who shall select these choice spirits from the rest of the congregation? Themselves? We must first find out and determine who themselves are. . . .
“Nobility in men is worth as much as it is in horses, asses, or rams; but the meanest-blooded puppy in the world, if he gets a little money, is as good a man as the best of them.” Yet birth and wealth together have prevailed over virtue and talents in all ages. The many will acknowledge no other “aristoi.” Your experience of this truth will not much differ from that of your old friend. . . .
Adams to Jefferson
August, 1813
. . . Has science, or morals, or philosophy, or criticism, or Christianity, advanced, or improved, or enlightened mankind upon this subject and shown them that the idea of the “well-born” is a prejudice, a phantom, a point-no-point, a Cape Fly-away, a dream?
I say it is the ordinance of God Almighty in the constitution of human nature and wrought into the fabric of the universe. Philosophers and politicians may nibble and quibble, but they never will get rid of it. Their only resource is to control it. Wealth is another monster to be subdued. Hercules could not subdue both or either. To subdue them by regular approaches, by a regular siege and strong fortifications, was my object in writing on aristocracy, as I proposed to you. . . .
If you deny any one of these positions, I will prove them to demonstration by examples drawn from your own Virginia, and from every other state in the Union, and from the history of every nation, civilized and savage, from all we know of the time of the creation of the world. . . .
We may call this sentiment a prejudice, because we can give what names we please to such things as we please; but in my opinion it is a part of the natural history of man, and politicians and philosophers may as well project to make the animal live without bones or blood as society can pretend to establish a free government without attention to it. . . .
Adams to Jefferson
September, 1813
. . . Now, my friend, who are the “aristoi”? Philosophers may answer, “The wise and good.” But the world, mankind, have, by their practice, always answered, “The rich, the beautiful, and well-born.” And philosophers themselves, in marrying their children, prefer the rich, the handsome, and the well-descended to the wise and good.
What chance have talents and virtues, in competition with wealth and birth? and beauty? . . .
One truth is clear, by all the world confessed,
Slow rises worth, by poverty oppressed.
The five pillars of aristocracy are beauty, wealth, birth, genius, and virtue. Any one of the three first can, at any time, overbear any one or both of the two last.
Let me ask again, what a wave of public opinion, in favor of birth, has been spread over the globe by Abraham, by Hercules, by Mahomet, by Guelphs, Ghibellines, Bourbons, and a miserable Scottish chief Stuart? By Zingis [Genghis Khan], by, by, by a million others. And what a wave will be spread by Napoleon and by Washington? Their remotest cousins will be sought and will be proud and will avail themselves of their descent. Call this principle prejudice, folly, ignorance, baseness, slavery, stupidity, adulation, superstition, or what you will, I will not contradict you. But the fact in natural, moral, political, and domestic history I cannot deny, or dispute, or question.
And is this great fact in the natural history of man, this unalterable principle of morals, philosophy, policy, domestic felicity, and daily experience from the Creation, to be overlooked, forgotten, neglected, or hypocritically waved out of sight by a legislator? By a professed writer upon civil government and upon constitution of civil government? . . .
Jefferson to Adams
October, 1813
. . . I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly, bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness, and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction.
There is also an artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature, for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And, indeed, it would have been inconsistent in Creation to have formed man for the social state and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy. On the question, What is the best provision? you and I differ; but we differ as rational friends, using the free exercise of our own reason and mutually indulging its errors. You think it best to put the pseudo-aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation, where they may be hindered from doing mischief by their co-ordinate branches, and where also they may be a protection to wealth against the agrarian and plundering enterprises of the majority of the people. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief is arming them for it and increasing instead of remedying the evil. For if the co-ordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they that of the co-ordinates. Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively. Of this, a cabal in the Senate of the United States has furnished many proofs. Nor do I believe them necessary to protect the wealthy; because enough of these will find their way into every branch of the legislation to protect themselves. From fifteen to twenty legislatures of our own, in action for thirty years past, have proved that no fears of an equalization of property are to be apprehended from them. I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by all our constitutions: to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In general they will elect the real good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt and birth blind them, but not in sufficient degree to endanger the society.
It is probable that our difference of opinion may, in some measure, be produced by a difference of character in those among whom we live. From what I have seen of Massachusetts and Connecticut myself, and still more from what I have heard, and the character given of the former by yourself, who know them so much better, there seems to be in those two states a traditionary reverence for certain families which has rendered the offices of the government nearly hereditary in those families. I presume that, from an early period of your history, members of those families happening to possess virtue and talents have honestly exercised them for the good of the people and by their services have endeared their names to them. . . .
With respect to aristocracy, we should further consider that, before the establishment of the American states, nothing was known to history but the man of the Old World, crowded within limits either small or overcharged and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. A government adapted to such men would be one thing; but a very different one, that for the man of these states. Here every one may have land to labor for himself, if he chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence but wherewith to provide for a cessation from labor in old age. Every one, by his property, or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs, and a degree of freedom which, in the hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private. The history of the last twenty-five years of France, and of the last forty years in America, nay, of its last two hundred years, proves the truth of both parts of this observation.
But even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science had liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example had kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun, of science, talents, and courage, against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty, and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe. Science is progressive, and talents and enterprise on the alert. Resort may be had to the people of the country, a more governable power from their principles and subordination; and rank, and birth, and tinsel-aristocracy will finally shrink into insignificance even there. This, however, we have no right to meddle with. It suffices for us if the moral and physical condition of our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good for the direction of their government with a recurrence of elections at such short periods as will enable them to displace an unfaithful servant before the mischief he meditates may be irremediable.
I have thus stated my opinion on a point on which we differ, not with a view to controversy, for we are both too old to change opinions which are the result of a long life of inquiry and reflection, but on the suggestions of a former letter of yours, that we ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other. We acted in perfect harmony, through a long and perilous contest for our liberty and independence. A constitution has been acquired, which, though neither of us thinks perfect, yet both consider as competent to render our fellow-citizens the happiest and the securest on whom the sun has ever shone. If we do not think exactly alike as to imperfections, it matters little to our country which, after devoting to it long lives of disinterested labor, we have delivered over to our successors in life, who will be able to take care of it and of themselves. . . .
Adams to Jefferson
November, 1813
. . . We are now explicitly agreed on one important point, viz., that “there is a natural aristocracy among men, the grounds of which are virtue and talents.” You very justly indulge a little merriment upon this solemn subject of aristocracy. I often laugh at it too, for there is nothing in this laughable world more ridiculous than the management of it by almost all the nations of the earth; but while we smile, mankind have reason to say to us, as the frogs said to the boys, what is sport to you are wounds and death to us. When I consider the weakness, the folly, the pride, the vanity, the selfishness, the artifice, the low craft and mean cunning, the want of principle, the avarice, the unbounded ambition, the unfeeling cruelty of a majority of those (in all nations) who are allowed an aristocratical influence, and, on the other hand, the stupidity with which the more numerous multitude not only become their dupes, but even love to be taken in by their tricks, I feel a stronger disposition to weep at their destiny than to laugh at their folly.
But though we have agreed in one point, in words, it is not yet certain that we are perfectly agreed in sense. Fashion has introduced an indeterminate use of the word “talents.” Education, wealth, strength, beauty, stature, birth, marriage, graceful attitudes and motions, gait, air, complexion, physiognomy, are talents, as well as genius, science, and learning. Any one of these talents that in fact commands or influences two votes in society gives to the man who possesses it the character of an aristocrat, in my sense of the word. Pick up the first hundred men you meet and make a republic. Every man will have an equal vote; but when deliberations and discussions are opened, it will be found that twenty-five, by their talents, virtues being equal, will be able to carry fifty votes. Every one of these twenty-five is an aristocrat in my sense of the word; whether he obtains his one vote in addition to his own, by his birth, fortune, figure, eloquence, science, learning, craft, cunning, or even his character for good fellowship, and a bon vivant. . . .
Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy does not appear to me founded. Birth and wealth are conferred on some men as imperiously by nature as genius, strength, or beauty. The heir to honors and riches and power has often no more merit in procuring these advantages than he has in obtaining a handsome face or an elegant figure. When aristocracies are established by human laws, and honor, wealth, and power are made hereditary by municipal laws and political institutions, then I acknowledge artificial aristocracy to commence; but this never commences till corruption in elections becomes dominant and uncontrollable. But this artificial aristocracy can never last. The everlasting envies, jealousies, rivalries, and quarrels among them; their cruel rapacities upon the poor ignorant people, their followers, compel these to set up Caesar, a demagogue, to be a monarch and master; pour mettre chacun à sa place. Here you have the origin of all artificial aristocracy, which is the origin of all monarchy. And both artificial aristocracy and monarchy, and civil, military, political, and hierarchical despotism, have all grown out of the natural aristocracy of “virtues and talents.” . . .
Your distinction between the aristoi and pseudo-aristoi will not help the matter. I would trust one as soon as the other with unlimited power. . . .
You suppose a difference of opinion between you and me on the subject of aristocracy. I can find none. I dislike and detest hereditary honors, offices, emoluments established by law. So do you. I am for excluding legal hereditary distinctions from the United States as long as possible. So are you. I only say that mankind have not yet discovered any remedy against irresistible corruption in elections to offices of great power and profit, but making them hereditary. But will you say our elections are pure? Be it so, upon the whole. But do you recollect in history a more corrupt election than that of Aaron Burr to be President, or that of De Witt Clinton last year. By corruption here I mean a sacrifice of every national interest and honor to private and party objects. . . .
Where tends the mania of banks? At my table in Philadelphia, I once proposed to you to unite in endeavors to obtain an amendment of the Constitution, prohibiting to the separate states the power of creating banks; but giving Congress authority to establish one bank, with a branch in each state, the whole limited to ten millions of dollars. . . . But you spurned the proposition from you with disdain. This system of banks . . . I have always considered as a system of national injustice, a sacrifice of public and private interest to a few aristocratical friends and favorites. My scheme could have had no such effect. Verres plundered temples and robbed a few rich men; but he never made such ravages among private property in general nor swindled so much out of the pockets of the poor and the middle class of people as these banks have done! . . . What inequalities of talent have been introduced into this country by these aristocratical banks! Our Winthrops, Winslows, Bradfords, Saltonstalls, Quinceys, Chandlers, Leonards, Hutchinsons, Olivers, Sewalls, etc., are precisely in the situation of your Randolphs, Carters, and Burwells and Harrisons. Some of them unpopular for the part they took in the late Revolution, but all respected for their names and connections; and whenever they fall in with the popular sentiments, are preferred, cateris paribus, to all others. . . .
Adams to Jefferson
December, 1813
. . . Aristocracy, like waterfowl, dives for ages and then rises with brighter plumage. It is a subtle venom that diffuses itself unseen over oceans and continents and triumphs over time. If I could prevent its deleterious influence, I would put it all into “the Hole” of Calcutta. But as this is impossible as it is a phoenix that rises again out of its own ashes, I know no better way than to chain it in a “hole by itself” and place a watchful sentinel on each side of it.
A hundred other foreign aristocracies have sown and are sowing their seeds in this country; and we have an abundance of them springing up in this country, not from virtues and talents, but from banks and land-jobbing. . . .
The bill “to modify and continue” the act entitled “An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States” was presented to me on the 4th July instant. Having considered it with that solemn regard to the principles of the Constitution which the day was calculated to inspire, and come to the conclusion that it ought not to become a law, I herewith return it to the Senate, in which it originated, with my objections.
A bank of the United States is in many respects convenient for the Government and useful to the people. Entertaining this opinion, and deeply impressed with the belief that some of the powers and privileges possessed by the existing bank are unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive of the rights of the States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people, I felt it my duty at an early period of my Administration to call the attention of Congress to the practicability of organizing an institution combining all its advantages and obviating these objections. I sincerely regret that in the act before me I can perceive none of those modifications of the bank charter which are necessary, in my opinion, to make it compatible with justice, with sound policy, or with the Constitution of our country.
The present corporate body, denominated the president, directors, and company of the Bank of the United States, will have existed at the time this act is intended to take effect twenty years. It enjoys an exclusive privilege of banking under the authority of the General Government, a monopoly of its favor and support, and, as a necessary consequence, almost a monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange. The powers, privileges, and favors bestowed upon it in the original charter, by increasing the value of the stock far above its par value, operated as a gratuity of many millions to the stockholders.
An apology may be found for the failure to guard against this result in the consideration that the effect of the original act of incorporation could not be certainly foreseen at the time of its passage. The act before me proposes another gratuity to the holders of the same stock, and in many cases to the same men, of at least seven millions more. This donation finds no apology in any uncertainty as to the effect of the act. On all hands it is conceded that its passage will increase at least 20 or 30 per cent more the market price of the stock, subject to the payment of the annuity of $200,000 per year secured by the act, thus adding in a moment one-fourth to its par value. 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. For these gratuities to foreigners, and to some of our own opulent citizens the act secures no equivalent whatever. They are the certain gains of the present stockholders under the operation of this act, after making full allowance for the payment of the bonus.
Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges are granted at the expense of the public, which ought to receive a fair equivalent. The many millions which this act proposes to bestow on the stockholders of the existing bank must come directly or indirectly out of the earnings of the American people. It is due to them, therefore, if their Government sell monopolies and exclusive privileges, that they should at least exact for them as much as they are worth in open market. The value of the monopoly in this case may be correctly ascertained. The twenty-eight millions of stock would probably be at an advance of 50 per cent, and command in market at least $42,000,000, subject to the payment of the present bonus. The present value of the monopoly, therefore, is $17,000,000, and this the act proposes to sell for three millions, payable in fifteen annual installments of $200,000 each.
It is not conceivable how the present stockholders can have any claim to the special favor of the Government. The present corporation has enjoyed its monopoly during the period stipulated in the original contract. If we must have such a corporation, why should not the Government sell out the whole stock and thus secure to the people the full market value of the privileges granted? Why should not Congress create and sell twenty-eight millions of stock, incorporating the purchases with all the powers and privileges secured in this act and putting the premium upon the sales into the Treasury?
But this act does not permit competition in the purchase of this monopoly. It seems to be predicated on the erroneous idea that the present stockholders have a prescriptive right not only to the favor but to the bounty of Government. 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. This seems the less excusable because some of our citizens not now stockholders petitioned that the door of competition might be opened, and offered to take a charter on terms much more favorable to the Government and country.
But this proposition, although made by men whose aggregate wealth is believed to be equal to all the private stock in the existing bank, has been set aside, and the bounty of our Government is proposed to be again bestowed on the few who have been fortunate enough to secure the stock and at this moment wield the power of the existing institution. I can not perceive the justice or policy of this course. If our Government must sell monopolies, it would seem to be its duty to take nothing less than their full value, and if gratuities must be made once in fifteen or twenty years let them not be bestowed on the subjects of a foreign government nor upon a designated and favored class of men in our own country. It is but justice and good policy as far as the nature of the case will admit, to confine our favors to our own fellow-citizens, and let each in his turn enjoy an opportunity to profit by our bounty. In the bearings of the act before me upon these points I find ample reasons why it should not become a law.
It has been urged as an argument in favor of rechartering the present bank that the calling in its loans will produce great embarrassment and distress. The time allowed to close its concerns is ample, and if it has well managed its pressure will be light, and heavy only in case its management has been bad. If, therefore, it shall produce distress, the fault will be its own, and it would furnish a reason against renewing a power which has been so obviously abused. But will there ever be a time when this reason will be less powerful? To acknowledge its force is to admit that the bank ought to be perpetual, and as a consequence the present stockholders and those inheriting their rights as successors be established a privileged order, clothed both with great political power and enjoying immense pecuniary advantages from their connection with the Government.
The modifications of the existing charter proposed by this act are not such, in my view, as make it consistent with the rights of the States or the liberties of the people. The qualification of the right of the bank to hold real estate, the limitation of its power to establish branches, and the power reserved to Congress to forbid the circulation of small notes are restrictions comparatively of little value or importance. All the objectionable principles of the existing corporation, and most of its odious features, are retained without alleviation. . . .
In another of its bearings this provision is fraught with danger. Of the twenty-five directors of this bank five are chosen by the Government and twenty by the citizen stockholders. From all voice in these elections the foreign stockholders are excluded by the charter. In proportion, therefore, as the stock is transferred to foreign holders the extent of suffrage in the choice of directors is curtailed. Already is almost a third of the stock in foreign hands and not represented in elections. It is constantly passing out of the country, and this act will accelerate its departure. The entire control of the institution would necessarily fall into the hands of a few citizen stockholders, and the ease with which the object would be accomplished would be a temptation to designing men to secure that control in their own hands by monopolizing the remaining stock. There is danger that a president and directors would then be able to elect themselves from year to year, and without responsibility or control manage the whole concerns of the bank during the existence of its charter. It is easy to conceive that great evils to our country and its institutions might flow from such a concentration of power in the hands of a few men irresponsible to the people.
Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country? The president of the bank has told us that most of the State banks exist by its forbearance. Should its influence become concentered, as it may under the operation of such an act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory whose interests are identified with those of the foreign stockholders, will there not be cause to tremble for the purity of our elections in peace and for the independence of our country in war? Their power would be great whenever they might choose to exert it; but if this monopoly were regularly renewed every fifteen or twenty years on terms proposed by themselves, they might seldom in peace put forth their strength to influence elections or control the affairs of the nation. But if any private citizen or public functionary should interpose to curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its privileges, it can not be doubted that he would be made to feel its influence.
Should the stock of the bank principally pass into the hands of the subjects of a foreign country, and we should unfortunately become involved in a war with that country, what would be our condition? Of the course which would be pursued by a bank almost wholly owned by the subjects of a foreign power, and managed by those whose interests, if not affections, would run in the same direction there can be no doubt. All its operations within would be in aid of the hostile fleets and armies without. Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy.
If we must have a bank with private stockholders, every consideration of sound policy and every impulse of American feeling admonishes that it should be purely American. Its stockholders should be composed exclusively of our own citizens, who at least ought to be friendly to our Government and willing to support it in times of difficulty and danger. So abundant is domestic capital that competition in subscribing for the stock of local banks has recently led almost to riots. To a bank exclusively of American stockholders, possessing the powers and privileges granted by this act, subscriptions for $200,000,000 could readily be obtained. Instead of sending abroad the stock of the bank in which the Government must deposit its funds and on which it must rely to sustain its credit in times of emergency, it would rather seem to be expedient to prohibit its sale to aliens under penalty of absolute forfeiture.
It is maintained by the advocates of the bank that its constitutionality in all its features ought to be considered as settled by precedent and by the decision of the Supreme Court. To this conclusion I can not assent. Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority, and should not be regarded as deciding questions of constitutional power except where the acquiescence of the people and the States can be considered as well settled. So far from this being the case on this subject, an argument against the bank might be based on precedent. One Congress, in 1791, decided in favor of a bank; another, in 1811, decided against it. One Congress, in 1815, decided against a bank; another, in 1816, decided in its favor. Prior to the present Congress, therefore, the precedents drawn from that source were equal. If we resort to the States, the expressions of legislative, judicial, and executive opinions against the bank have been probably to those in its favor as 4 to 1. There is nothing in precedent, therefore, which, if its authority were admitted, ought to weigh in favor of the act before me.
If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the coordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision. The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than one opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve. . . .
The bank is professedly established as an agent of the executive branch of the Government, and its constitutionality is maintained on that ground. Neither upon the propriety of present action nor upon the provisions of this act was the Executive consulted. It has had no opportunity to say that it neither needs nor wants an agent clothed with such powers and favored by such exemptions. There is nothing in its legitimate functions which makes it necessary or proper. Whatever interest or influence, whether public or private, has given birth to this act, it can not be found either in the wishes or necessities of the executive department, by which present action is deemed premature, and the powers conferred upon its agent not only unnecessary, but dangerous to the Government and country.
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers—who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.
Nor is our Government to be maintained or our Union preserved by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much as possible to themselves—in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection; not in binding the States more closely to the center, but leaving each more unobstructed in its proper orbit.
Experience should teach us wisdom. Most of the difficulties our Government now encounters and most of the dangers which impend over our Union have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate objects of Government by our national legislation, and the adoption of such principles as are embodied in this act. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires we have in the results of our legislation arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union. It is time to pause in our career to review our principles, and if possible revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the Revolution and the fathers of our Union. If we can not at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, make our Government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy.