President · 1767–1845

Andrew Jackson

In 1832 he vetoed a new charter for the Second Bank of the United States.

Portrait of Andrew Jackson, white-haired, in a dark coat.
Andrew Jackson, by Thomas Sully (1845), printed as the Andrew Jackson Portrait Poster.CC0 — National Gallery of Art, Washington (1942.8.34).

Congress sent Andrew Jackson a bill to recharter the Second Bank years before the charter expired. He vetoed it. The veto message attacked the Bank as unconstitutional privilege. The campaign that autumn made the Bank the issue. He won.

There was no Federal Reserve. That statute is 1913. This is an earlier fight over who held the government’s balances and who issued the country’s paper.

Jackson and the Bank →