$5,000
Estimate: $400 - $600
Auction: February 18, 2021 10:00:00 AM EDT
(New York: Edward Williams Clay & Henry Robinson, ca. 1836). Lithographic political cartoon, satirizing president Andrew Jackson and his administration's battle with the United States Bank. Scattered minor soiling; title and imprint trimmed away along bottom edge. 9 3/4 x 14 3/4 in. (247 x 374 mm). Includes one engraved portrait of Jackson, one engraved view of the Capitol Building, and a postcard of Jackson's estate, The Hermitage.
Political cartoon depicting a frightened Andrew Jackson, fleeing at the news of the Bank of the United States being rechartered in Pennsylvania. After a protracted battle to dismantle the Second Bank of the United States in 1832, news of the bank's rechartering in Pennsylvania sends Jackson in a frightened sprint, with his typical weapon of choice, the veto (here depicted as his broken cane), rendered useless. Depicted at right is bank president Nicholas Biddle holding the new charter, and proclaiming from the steps of the old bank, "General allow me to introduce an old friend with a new face!" Vice-president Martin Van Buren--heir apparent to the presidency--grasps at the policies of the Jacksonian era, here in the form of his cloak.
"The expiration of the bank's federal charter in 1836, following Jackson's famous veto, freed the bank of many of the restrictions on its private actions attached to its public responsibilities. Under a new charter from the State of Pennsylvania, the bank lost its power to restrain the state banks and the boom-and-bust economy they fueled, but it retained its matchless resources of private capital and credit, enabling it to join in the speculative boom of the Jacksonian era with new abandon...(Nicholas) Biddle tuned his reborn 'United States Bank' into an exuberant investor in economic enterprise on its own account..." (p. 164, Jeffrey Sklansky, Sovereign of the Market: The Money Question in Early America).
The ensuing Panic of 1837, partially the result of Jacksonian monetary policy, would go on to force the closure of the bank in 1841.