With the Bank Recharter and Nullification Crises Swirling Around Him, President Andrew Jackson Relies on His Statement of Faith: ‘The Lord’s will be done.”

His hatred of banks is not far from the surface: “My son recollect I pay no interest.”.

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Jackson shows contempt for politicians and bankers, denouncing “those scenes of corruption that I am surrounded with, and which I am compelled to witness. But I must be resigned to my fate…”  He asks that his slaves be put to the task of making brick for a stable

The Second Bank of...

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With the Bank Recharter and Nullification Crises Swirling Around Him, President Andrew Jackson Relies on His Statement of Faith: ‘The Lord’s will be done.”

His hatred of banks is not far from the surface: “My son recollect I pay no interest.”.

Jackson shows contempt for politicians and bankers, denouncing “those scenes of corruption that I am surrounded with, and which I am compelled to witness. But I must be resigned to my fate…”  He asks that his slaves be put to the task of making brick for a stable

The Second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816 for a term of 20 years. The time limitation reflected the concerns of many in Congress about the concentration of financial power in a private corporation. The Bank was a depository for federal funds and paid national debts, but it was answerable only to its directors and stockholders and not to the electorate. Jackson had been financially damaged by speculation and a tightening of bank credit early in his business career and retained a distrust of financial institutions throughout his life. In January 1832, the Bank’s supporters in Congress, principally Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, introduced Bank recharter legislation. They felt that Jackson would not risk losing votes in Pennsylvania and other commercial states by vetoing it, but they were wrong. Jackson’s opposition to the Bank became almost an obsession, and his anger over it, and the greed he felt was behind it, grew in the spring of 1832 as the June showdown debate on recharter passage loomed in Congress.

A high tariff was enacted in 1828 during the administration of John Quincy Adams. The new bill attempted to protect local producers from foreign competitors by setting the tariff on imported goods. But it was claimed that it did not protect those domestic producers evenly, benefiting the textile industries in the North by forcing people to buy more domestic products, while hindering Southern cotton farmers, because the English textile industry couldn’t buy as much cotton. It resulted in strong opposition throughout the South, and South Carolina state politics increasingly organized around the tariff issue. Its opponents expected that the election of Jackson as President would result in the tariff being significantly reduced. When the Jackson administration failed to take any actions to address their concerns, the most radical faction in the state began to advocate that the state itself declare the tariff null and void within South Carolina. To respond to the South’s grievances, in the Spring of 1832 a new tariff bill was debated, with Jackson’s support, that would lower some of the impositions. Southerns in Congress argued that the reductions were not enough and for the first time talked of disunion, and Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina contemplated resigning over the issue to resume his seat in the Senate, and this caused a bitter break between him and Jackson. The President regarded the nullification movement the same way as he did the national bank, as a conspiracy against republican liberty prompted and led by a demagogue’s ambition.

Right at this moment, with the Bank Recharter and Tariff of 1832 debate and passage imminent, two of the biggest crises of his administration, and with partisan and self-interested scenes all around him, a contemplative yet combative Jackson emerges in a letter home to his son. Autograph letter signed, as President, 3 pages, Washington, May 31, 1832, to Andrew Jackson Jr. “I have this moment received your letter, with one from my dear Sarah enclosed, of the 19th of May instant. It always affords me great pleasure to hear from you, and particularly as I find you are happy & enjoying health. I too could be contented to be with you in retirement freed from those scenes of corruption that I am surrounded with, and which I am compelled to witness. But I must be resigned to my fate, and be always ready to say ‘The Lord’s will be done.’

“I have not time now to write to Sarah, but with affectionate regard say to her I will answer her affectionate letter, this morning received, the first leisure moment. I have only time to say to you that I have duly noted that part of your letter which relates to the purchase of Samuel & Alexander’s lots of land adjoining me. I wish you to conclude the purchase. The note for which the steed colt was sold becomes due in July next for $500. It is payable in Bank. Get it from Mr. Steel, and apply it to the purchase of Alexander’s, and agree that the balance shall be paid on next Christmas, which shall be complied with by me, on William Donelson & John giving a bond that Alexander will convey when he arrives at full age. With Samuel you will close the contract, and on his executing a Deed to his son agreeable to the survey, you are authorized to draw upon me for fifteen hundred dollars at ten days sight which will be honored & paid by me.

“My son recollect I pay no interest. Therefore let Samuel make arrangements for letting it out on interest. He can sell your bill on me for cash at Nashville. Should I leave here, I will appoint an agent to take up the bill drew by you above for $15,000 in favor of Samuel. I wish if it can be done by Steel that brick be made by the hands on the farm, to put up the stable for the horses. You will surely have the carriage put in good repair. I shall meet you and Sarah at Guendot with my carriage to bring Sarah, & on to this place. So soon as I determine whether I go to Tennessee or not, I will write you fully. I was fully aware of the goodness of Mrs. Love. I wish you & Sarah to cherish her friendship & society. She is an amiable lady, & when you see her present me in the tenderest manner for her kindness in visiting Sarah with her daughter. With my respects to inquiring friends, & request that you ask Mr. Hutchings why he has forgot his promise to write, believe me your affectionate father, Andrew Jackson.” Surprisingly, this important letter is unpublished.

Jackson was a religious man and relied on God, and was known to say and write that God’s will be done. However, we cannot ever recall seeing a letter reach the market with that heart-felt statement of faith, and a search of public sale records going back 40 years fails to turn up even one other example.

In 1808, the Jacksons took in one of the infant twins of Rachel’s brother Severn Donelson and raised him as their own. They named him Andrew Jackson Jr. He married Sarah Yorke of Philadelphia on November 24, 1831. After an extended honeymoon at the White House, the new couple left for the Hermitage, Jackson’s plantation in Tennessee. They remained at the Hermitage managing the plantation until a fire destroyed much of the main house in 1834. The couple and their two young children then went to Washington to live with President Jackson. Sarah served as White House hostess and unofficial First Lady from November 26, 1834 to March 4, 1837. The William and John Donelson mentioned were brothers of Rachel Jackson. Andrew Jackson Hutchings was the grandson of Rachel Jackson’s sister Catherine Donelson Hutchings.

Jackson vetoed the Bank Recharter Bill on July 10, 1832, just six weeks after writing this letter, arguing that in the form presented to him it was incompatible with “justice,” “sound policy” and the Constitution. He said in his veto message that it gave the bank considerable, almost monopolistic, market power, specifically in the markets that moved financial resources around the country and into and out of other nations. That market power increased the bank’s profits and thus its stock price, “which operated as a gratuity of many millions [of dollars] to the stockholders,” who, Jackson stated, were mostly “foreigners” and “our own opulent citizens.” The people were with Jackson, and he was overwhelmingly elected to a second term the following November. After his reelection, Jackson announced that the Government would no longer deposit Federal funds with the Bank and would place them in state banks. Supporters of the Bank in the Senate were furious and took the unprecedented step of censuring Jackson. The President held fast, however, and when the Bank’s charter expired in 1836, it was never renewed.

The Tariff of 1832 was passed on July 14, 1832, but reductions were too little for South Carolina; on November 24, 1832, a state convention adopted the Ordinance of Nullification, which declared that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina after February 1, 1833. Military preparations to resist anticipated federal enforcement were initiated by the state. Calhoun resigned as Vice President, becoming the first VP to resign. On March 1, 1833, Congress passed both the Force Bill, authorizing the President to use military forces against South Carolina – and a new negotiated tariff, the Tariff of 1833, which was less obnoxious to South Carolina. Nullification, the President told the people of South Carolina, was ‘in direct violation of their duty as citizens of the United States’ and ‘subversive of its Constitution.’ In Jackson’s straightforward logic, nullification was tantamount to secession. The president must execute the law; resistance to such execution would have to forcible. Calhoun’s arguments for peaceful nullification were specious, Jackson declared. ‘Do not be deceived by names Disunion by armed force is treason.’ Jackson warned a South Carolina congressman that ‘if one drop of blood be shed there in defiance of the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man of them I can get my hands on to the first tree I can find.” Strong words indeed. As a result of all this, the South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance on March 15, 1833, but three days later nullified the Force Bill as a symbolic gesture to maintain its principles. The sectional crisis was over, at least until 1861.

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