$1,000
Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500
Auction: November 12, 2020 10:00:00 AM EDT
No place, July 10, 1832. Broadside, printed in three columns per side. 18 x 11 1/2 in. (457 x 292 mm). Creasing from old folds, some small scattered separations along same; edges slightly worn; light dampstaining along right side. Lot includes a postcard portrait of Jackson. American Imprints 13106; not in Sabin.
A scarce broadside of President Andrew Jackson's message to the United States Senate, vetoing their bill to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States: "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 privledges 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...to make it compatible with justice, with sound policy, or with the Constitution of our country."
By the election of 1832, the role and influence of the Second National Bank of the United States had become a flashpoint of ideological divide and a major campaign issue for incumbent President Andrew Jackson in his reelection bid against National Republican candidate Henry Clay. Viewing banks with suspicion in general, and in particular the Second Bank as a corrupt overreach of goverment power, Jackson sought to undermine the role the bank held in determining national monetary policy. President of the Bank, Nicholas Biddle, alongside Clay and other National Republicans, sought to exploit the popularity and success the Bank held by renewing its charter four years before it was set to expire, forcing Jackson to make a risky political decision during an election year. Jackson called their bluff and vetoed the bill passed by Congress. He successfully ran his campagin as a populist battle, caricaturizing Biddle, Clay and the National Republicans who supported the Bank, as corrupt elites, while casting himself as a protector of modest farmers and artisans. While his plan worked and he won in a landslide victory, his undermining of the bank and lack of national policy contributed to the Panic of 1837.