For some time it was not
notably successful, partly because of bad management but mainly
because of the disturbance of business which the panic of 1819 had
produced. Furthermore, its power over local banks and over the
currency system made it unpopular in the West and South, and certain
States sought to cripple it by taxing out of existence the several
branches which the board of directors voted to establish. In two
notable decisions--M'Culloch _vs._ Maryland in 1819 and Osborn _vs._
United States Bank in 1824--the Supreme Court saved the institution by
denying the power of a State to impose taxation of the sort and by
asserting unequivocally the right of Congress to enact the legislation
upon which the Bank rested. And after Nicholas Biddle, a Philadelphia
lawyer-diplomat, succeeded Langdon Cheves as president of the Bank in
1823 an era of great prosperity set in.
The forces of opposition were never reconciled; indeed, every evidence
of the increasing strength of the Bank roused them to fresh hostility.
The verdict of the Supreme Court in support of the constitutionality
of the Act of 1816 carried conviction to few people who were not
already convinced.
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