It was not, however, all plain sailing. Under the terms of the charter
of 1816 public funds were to be deposited in the Bank and its branches
unless the Secretary of the Treasury should direct that they be placed
elsewhere; and such deposits elsewhere, together with actual
withdrawals, were to be reported to Congress, with reasons for such
action. McLane, the Secretary of the Treasury, was friendly toward the
Bank and could not be expected to give the necessary orders for
removal. This meant that the first step was to get a new head for the
Treasury. But McLane was too influential a man to be summarily
dismissed. Hence it was arranged that Livingston should become
Minister to France and that McLane should succeed him as Secretary of
State.
The choice of the new Secretary of the Treasury would have been a
clever stroke if things had worked out as Jackson expected. The
appointee was William J. Duane, son of the editor of the Aurora, which
had long been the most popular and influential newspaper in
Pennsylvania. This State was the seat of the "mother bank" and,
although a Jackson stronghold, a cordial supporter of the proscribed
institution; so that it was well worth while to forestall criticism in
that quarter, so far as might be, by having the order for removal
issued by a Pennsylvanian.
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