Jackson did something very important. He tried to get rid of central banking in the United States. He succeeded for a while.
Jackson did something very important. He tried to get rid of central banking in the United States. He succeeded for a while.
And came close to getting impeached for his efforts. Might be a lesson in that.
No, he didn't. That's a myth. At the very time AJ sought to "kill" the BUS, he had his OWN central bank plan on the books. I was, apparently, the first one to find these documents in the Jackson Papers in Nashville. I have several articles on this, and to my knowledge, while people tried to "pooh-pooh" them, no one has ever written anything disputing my evidence. See my article in Reason Papers, Spring 1987, "How the Jacksonians Opposed Industrialization," and in the Historian, "Jacksonian Ideology, Currency Control, and 'Central Banking': A reappraisal," November 1988.
Remember, ALL the history of the era was written either by big-government Arthur Schlesinger Jr. or Bray Hammond, who was a FEDERAL RESERVE BANKER. Thus, both "major" interpretations would naturally emphasize (positively or negatively) the "destruction" of the "national bank." But Jackson was a power-hungry pol like Clinton. He had no intention of giving up that power, merely changing the party controlling it.