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The Second Bank of the United States

Richard Ellis E.

in Aggressive Nationalism: McCulloch v. Maryland and the Foundation of Federal Authority in the Young Republic

This chapter focuses on the creation of the 2 BUS and the differences that existed between it and the First Bank of the United States (1 BUS). It also examines the early operations of the 2 BUS and ... More

This chapter focuses on the creation of the 2 BUS and the differences that existed between it and the First Bank of the United States (1 BUS). It also examines the early operations of the 2 BUS and its relationship with the state banks and a federal program of internal improvements.Less

Middle Atlantic: Conservatism and Experimentation

Howard Bodenhorn

in State Banking in Early America: A New Economic History

Bank chartering in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland was contentious, often corrupt, high‐stakes politics. The corruption surrounding bank chartering made it difficult for cooperative interbank ... More

Bank chartering in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland was contentious, often corrupt, high‐stakes politics. The corruption surrounding bank chartering made it difficult for cooperative interbank relationships to develop. Although a regional clearinghouse arose in New England in the 1820s, comparable clearinghouses were not formed in the principal Middle‐Atlantic cities until the 1850s. Corrupt chartering practices also meant that many banks became entangled with state internal improvement schemes, often to a bank's detriment. The financial panic of 1839 threw the region's banking systems into turmoil. New York and Pennsylvania's systems nearly collapsed during the depression of the early 1840s.Less

Two North Carolinians, Same Goal, Different Approaches: An Examination of the Political Lives and Philosophies of Nathaniel Macon and Archibald D. Murphey

Troy L. Kickler

in North Carolina's Revolutionary Founders

The volume’s final substantive essay compares and contrasts the public careers of two of the most important members of that generation of North Carolina politicians who rose to prominence after the ... More

The volume’s final substantive essay compares and contrasts the public careers of two of the most important members of that generation of North Carolina politicians who rose to prominence after the founding era. Archibald D. Murphey was an Orange County judge and state senator who became known as a champion of constitutional reform and state support for education and internal improvements. Nathaniel Macon served 24 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and 13 years in the Senate and acquired a reputation as an archconsevative. This essay suggests traditional accounts may exaggerate their differences. Macon’s opposition to the Sedition Bill of 1798 showed a civil libertarian streak. Both men owned slaves and neither supported any significant steps to end slavery. Both men supported the University of North Carolina. Their differences stemmed in part from the different realms in which they operated. As a member of Congress, Macon felt compelled to address the constitutional limits of federal power, issues which Murphey, as a state politician, did not have to confront.Less

Policy-Constraining Amendments

John Dinan

in State Constitutional Politics: Governing by Amendment in the American States

This chapter, one of three chapters (along with chapters 6 and 7) analyzing policy-related state constitutional amendments, examines amendments that constrain the policy choices of public officials. ... More

This chapter, one of three chapters (along with chapters 6 and 7) analyzing policy-related state constitutional amendments, examines amendments that constrain the policy choices of public officials. The chapter identifies various kinds of policy-constraining amendments and the reasons they have been adopted. As the chapter shows, groups and officials have been led to enact policy-constraining amendments because they have viewed public officials as susceptible to undue influence form powerful groups when making policy in certain areas or likely to act in a short-sighted manner and without due regard for the long-term public interest. An early wave of nineteenth-century amendments prohibited legislatures from chartering or operating lotteries. In the mid-nineteenth century, amendments prevented legislatures from investing in banks and other corporations and undertaking internal improvement projects. Amendments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have constrained state officials’ ability to raise, spend, and borrow money, through adoption of tax-and-expenditure limitation amendments, debt-limitation amendments, balanced-budget amendments, and amendments requiring revenue to be deposited in rainy-day funds and trust funds.Less

Remapping Creek Country

Angela Pulley Hudson

in Creek Paths and Federal Roads: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves and the Making of the American South

This chapter discusses the continued American expansion into former Indian homelands north and south of the Ohio River, which sparked a renewed passion for what American politicians called “internal ... More

This chapter discusses the continued American expansion into former Indian homelands north and south of the Ohio River, which sparked a renewed passion for what American politicians called “internal improvements.” In addition to roads, canals seemed particularly promising. In 1825, the opening of the Erie Canal heralded a new era in commercial transportation, and almost overnight it made Cleveland an Atlantic port by connecting it to the valuable New York trade network. Equally significant were the improvements in steamboat navigation that united Cleveland's rival Cincinnati with New Orleans in a tight bond of corn, pork, and cotton exchange. The push for improved roads to connect local producers to commercial depots also strengthened in the mid-1820s, as men of “small capital” and those of greater means all sought to tap into the new wealth that seemed to be sweeping the Trans-Appalachian region.Less

“As Far as Human Prudence Could Insure”: Marshall’s Retreat from Implied Commerce Powers

David S. Schwartz

in The Spirit of the Constitution: John Marshall and the 200-Year Odyssey of McCulloch v. Maryland

Despite ample opportunity, Chief Justice Marshall did not build on McCulloch v. Maryland to engage in nation-building through his constitutional decisions. In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), Marshall ... More

Despite ample opportunity, Chief Justice Marshall did not build on McCulloch v. Maryland to engage in nation-building through his constitutional decisions. In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), Marshall construed the term “commerce” to include navigation, and struck down a state monopoly over steamboat travel. Gibbons is widely understood as an expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause that joins McCulloch in establishing the constitutional foundations of broad federal legislative powers. Yet Gibbons made no mention of McCulloch and marked a significant retreat from McCulloch’s conception of implied powers. Indeed, from McCulloch’s issuance in 1819 to the end of Marshall’s life in 1835, the Marshall Court never cited McCulloch’s discussions of constitutional interpretation, nationalist constitutional theory, or implied powers. Marshall’s studied refusal to endorse implied commerce powers is best explained as resulting from his desire to keep the Court out of the two incendiary issues of constitutional politics: internal improvements and slavery.Less

The State

Joseph W. Pearson

in The Whigs' America: Middle-Class Political Thought in the Age of Jackson and Clay

This chapter explains Whig understanding of political power, the rule of law, and the proper scope of state or public action.

“The Question Perpetually Arising”: Constitutional Law and Politics, 1819

David S. Schwartz

in The Spirit of the Constitution: John Marshall and the 200-Year Odyssey of McCulloch v. Maryland

In antebellum America, the dispute over national versus state governmental powers—“federalism” questions—defined the major political line of division. While paying lip service to the axiom that the ... More

In antebellum America, the dispute over national versus state governmental powers—“federalism” questions—defined the major political line of division. While paying lip service to the axiom that the Constitution creates a national government of limited enumerated powers, nationalists like Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay argued for liberal construction and implied federal powers, including implied commerce powers, to encompass national economic development and “internal improvements” (infrastructure) projects. Jeffersonian Republicans argued that these policy initiatives were unconstitutional, according to their strict construction of federal powers. They were concerned in part that federal powers would be deemed exclusive and preempt many state laws. Above all, they were concerned that broad interpretations of constitutional powers would disrupt state control over slavery. Chief Justice Marshall was undoubtedly aware of all this as he pondered his decision in McCulloch v. Maryland.Less

“The Legitimate Object of Government”: Constitutional Problems of Civil War–Era Republican Policy

Paul D. Moreno

in Constitutionalism in the Approach and Aftermath of the Civil War

Historians like Herman Belz considered and rejected the view that Lincoln used the Civil War as the occasion to establish a “dictatorship.” This chapter will consider the argument that the ... More

Historians like Herman Belz considered and rejected the view that Lincoln used the Civil War as the occasion to establish a “dictatorship.” This chapter will consider the argument that the Republicans used the war to begin the development of a “leviathan state.” Republican ascendancy after 1860 revived the debate over the Hamiltonian-Whig program of national mercantilism that Lincoln favored, with its attendant constitutional problems. How extensive and how permanent were the alterations that the late 19th century Republicans made to the constitutional political economy of the United States± This is a perennial question that engaged contemporary political actors, the federal courts of the Gilded Age, and several generations of historians. This chapter will synthesize and evaluate the historical claims made by these analysts in the fields of the tariff, national banking system, and internal improvements such as railroads.Less

Black Codes and Bondage, Settling the North, Legislative Follies

Frank Cicero Jr.

in Creating the Land of Lincoln: The History and Constitutions of Illinois, 1778-1870

Chapter 3 covers the years in which the Illinois state capital moved from Kaskaskia to Vandalia to Springfield, focusing on legislative and judicial debates surrounding the Black Code, which limited ... More

Chapter 3 covers the years in which the Illinois state capital moved from Kaskaskia to Vandalia to Springfield, focusing on legislative and judicial debates surrounding the Black Code, which limited the rights of free blacks, and the euphemistic practices of indentured/involuntary servitude and apprenticeship contracts. As antislavery populations surged in northern Illinois, political and legal opinions about blacks shifted. The 1832 Black Hawk War, a land dispute involving the Sauk and Fox, led to the 1833 treaty that removed Native Americans from the state. The Illinois General Assembly, including in 1836–37 representatives Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, chartered state banks that failed; set up internal improvement schemes that indebted the state; and ultimately supported completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal (1848).Less

Afterword

Jeff Broadwater

in Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution

The afterword deals briefly with constitutional issues Jefferson and Madison faced after the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were adopted. These included questions involving the need for Senate ... More

The afterword deals briefly with constitutional issues Jefferson and Madison faced after the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were adopted. These included questions involving the need for Senate approval of the removal of an executive official whose appointment required Senate confirmation; Congress’s authority to charter a national bank, enact a protective tariff, or subsidize internal improvements; the allocation between Congress and the president of power over foreign policy; the constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts; and the president's authority to execute the Louisiana Purchase. The afterword concludes that during the ratification debate, Madison had represented the Constitution as creating a government of limited and carefully enumerated powers, and that he generally honored those representations. Madison, however, advocated states’ rights less aggressively and less consistently than did Jefferson, and unlike Jefferson, was willing to defer to the Supreme Court in resolving conflicts between state and national authority. In fact, after Jeffeson died in 1826, Madison spent much of the rest of his life combating the nullification theory espoused by John C. Calhoun, who claimed a state could lawfully nullity a federal statute.Less

Internal Improvements (1838–41)

Richard Haw

in Engineering America: The Life and Times of John A. Roebling

John left farming in the wake of the panic of 1837 and found work as a surveyor, eventually working on a series of canal projects around western Pennsylvania, where he met Charles Schlatter. Despite ... More

John left farming in the wake of the panic of 1837 and found work as a surveyor, eventually working on a series of canal projects around western Pennsylvania, where he met Charles Schlatter. Despite his evident ability and expertise, John was doing little more than grubbing around for piecemeal surveying work before linking up with Schlatter. In 1838, Pennsylvania placed Schlatter in charge of surveying three potential railroad routes across the state, and he immediately drafted John to help. While submitting his survey report to the state authorities in Harrisburg, John got embroiled with Charles Ellet in a competition to build the first long span suspension bridge in the United States, over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. Ellet won the contract, instituting a rivalry that would last much of the next twenty years.Less

“Has Congress Power to Incorporate a Bank?”: The McCulloch Litigation and Opinion

David S. Schwartz

in The Spirit of the Constitution: John Marshall and the 200-Year Odyssey of McCulloch v. Maryland

Chief Justice Marshall’s ambiguous opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland rejected the hard-line Jeffersonian argument that implied powers were only those strictly necessary to implementing the enumerated ... More

Chief Justice Marshall’s ambiguous opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland rejected the hard-line Jeffersonian argument that implied powers were only those strictly necessary to implementing the enumerated powers. But while McCulloch’s logic of implied powers held hugely expansive potential for national legislative authority, Marshall did not follow that logic to its conclusion and stopped short of aggressively nationalistic grounds for upholding the Second Bank of the United States. The Bank’s lawyers argued for placing the constitutionality of the Bank on broad terms that would endorse a theory of implied powers untethered to the enumerated powers. They also offered a less aggressive but still highly nationalistic theory of implied commerce powers that would support internal improvements. Marshall’s studied avoidance of the Commerce Clause was almost certainly intended to avoid committing the Court to a concept of implied commerce powers, which might have entailed federal powers over internal improvements and slavery.Less

“Acting Directly on the People”: Post–Civil War Nationalism, 1868–1888

David S. Schwartz

in The Spirit of the Constitution: John Marshall and the 200-Year Odyssey of McCulloch v. Maryland

Post–Civil War nationalism meant a partial but significant reversion to prewar constitutionalism, recognizing federal legislative authority over “every foot of American soil” and implementing the ... More

Post–Civil War nationalism meant a partial but significant reversion to prewar constitutionalism, recognizing federal legislative authority over “every foot of American soil” and implementing the antebellum Whig-nationalist economic agenda, but allowing states to retain, or regain control over race relations. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of internal improvements, but declined to embrace implied commerce powers, suggesting instead (as in Gibbons v. Ogden) that the question involved the definition of interstate commerce as an enumerated power. The Court seemed to want to confine McCulloch v. Maryland to taxation, banking, and currency matters. The Legal Tender Cases, which relied on McCulloch to uphold the federal power to issue paper money, were a watershed in the history of implied powers, and were recognized as such at the time by many commentators. Yet the Supreme Court over the ensuing decade and a half seemed unwilling to follow through on McCulloch’s full implications.Less

John Quincy Adams: A Republic of Virtue

Gary Scott Smith

in Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents

John Quincy Adams embodied and expressed the concerns of many of his contemporaries about the importance of a personal relationship with God, of morality to the well-being of the nation, and of ... More

John Quincy Adams embodied and expressed the concerns of many of his contemporaries about the importance of a personal relationship with God, of morality to the well-being of the nation, and of creating a virtuous republic as a model for the world. Although not an evangelical Protestant, Adams incarnated and articulated many of the emphases and goals of the antebellum Second Great Awakening. Neither Adams’s political philosophy nor actions can be understood without comprehending his faith. Throughout his life he engaged regularly in Christian worship and Bible study. His faith was central to his convictions, character, and conduct and strongly influenced his political ideals and practices. Adams’s religious beliefs especially shaped his understanding of human rights, peace, liberty, and the United States’ calling as a nation. As president and later as a congressman, Adams’s faith strongly affected his policies toward internal improvements, the abolition of slavery, and Indian rights.Less

The House: Whig Nationalist

Matthew Mason

in Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett

This chapter explores other key elements of Everett’s House career, centering on his commitment to American nationalism and to the National Republican and Whig Parties’ ethic of “Improvement.” A ... More

This chapter explores other key elements of Everett’s House career, centering on his commitment to American nationalism and to the National Republican and Whig Parties’ ethic of “Improvement.” A staunch supporter of improvements to American infrastructure known at the time as “internal improvements” or the “American System,” Everett vigorously opposed Jacksonian priorities such as Indian Removal. He joined with other nationalists of all parties to combat threats to American unity headlined by the nullification movement.Less

The Future

Joseph W. Pearson

in The Whigs' America: Middle-Class Political Thought in the Age of Jackson and Clay

This chapter lays out Whig views of the future, reconciling their optimism for the world ahead with their skepticism towards the past.

Building Roads, Designing Bridges (1825–29)

Richard Haw

in Engineering America: The Life and Times of John A. Roebling

John spent almost four years in Westphalia as a construction site supervisor laying roads, building bridges, and designing all manner of small buildings. In the process, he received an education in ... More

John spent almost four years in Westphalia as a construction site supervisor laying roads, building bridges, and designing all manner of small buildings. In the process, he received an education in both the Prussian bureaucratic machine and the construction practices that were coming to define the Industrial Revolution. During his time there, John evolved into an excellent general contractor and engineer and received exactly the sort of hands-on apprenticeship he needed to complement his more theoretical university education. Despite working full-time for the state, John also found time to design and submit proposals for two separate suspension bridges, the details of which have only recently been discovered. Both were remarkably sophisticated designs for their time, especially as John had yet to see a suspension bridge in person. Neither proposal, unfortunately, was acceptable to the cautious and reactionary Prussian State Building Directorate, and John returned to Mühlhausen.Less