ew months after the inauguration that he did not believe that
Congress had power to charter a bank outside of the District of
Columbia, that he did not dislike the United States Bank more than
other banks, but that ever since he had read the history of the South
Sea Bubble he had been afraid of banks. After this confession the
writer hardly needed to confess that he was "no economist, no
financier."

Most of the officers of the "mother bank" at Philadelphia and of the
branches were anti-Jackson men, and Jackson's friends put the idea
into his mind that the Bank had used its influence against him in the
late campaign. Specific charges of partizanship were brought against
Jeremiah Mason, president of the branch at Portsmouth, New Hampshire;
and although an investigation showed the accusation to be groundless,
Biddle's heated defense of the branch had no effect save to rouse the
Jacksonians to a firmer determination to compass the downfall of the
Bank.

Biddle labored manfully to stem the tide. He tried to improve his
personal relations with the President, and he even allowed Jackson men
to gain control of several of the western branches. The effort,
however, was in vain. When he thought the situation right, Biddle
brought forward a plan for a new charter which received the assent of
most of the members of the official Cabinet, as well as that of some
of the "Kitchen" group. But Jackson met the proposal with his
unshakable constitutional objections and, to Biddle's deep
disappointment, advanced in his first annual message to the formal,
public assault. The Bank's charter, he reminded Congress, would expire
in 1836; request for a new charter would probably soon be forthcoming;
the matter could not receive too early attention from the legislative
branch. "Both the constitutionality and the expediency of the law
creating this bank," declared the President, "are well questioned by a
large portion of our fellow-citizens; and it must be admitted by all
that it has failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and
sound currency." The first part of the statement was true, but the
second was distinctly unfair. The Bank, to be sure, had not
established "a uniform and sound" currency. But it had accomplished
much toward that end and was practically the only agency that was
wielding any influence in that direction. The truth is that the more
efficient the Bank proved in this task the less popular it became
among those elements