The institution and the controversies centering
about it left, however, a deep impress upon the financial and
political history of our fifth and sixth decades. It was the bank
issue, more than anything else, that consolidated the new political
parties of the period. It was that issue that proved most conclusively
the hold of Jackson upon public opinion. And it was the destruction of
the Bank that capped the mid-century reaction against the rampant
nationalism of the decade succeeding the War of 1812. The Bank itself
had been well managed, sound, and of great service to the country. But
it had also showed strong monopolistic tendencies, and as a powerful
capitalistic organization it ran counter to the principles and
prejudices which formed the very warp and woof of Jacksonian
democracy.
For more than a decade after the Bank was destroyed the United States
had a troubled financial history. The payment of the last dollar of
the national debt in 1834 gave point to a suggestion which Clay had
repeatedly offered that, as a means of avoiding an embarrassing
surplus, the proceeds of the sales of public lands should be
distributed according to population among the States.
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