ng of the
Erie Canal, connecting Lake Erie with the Hudson River, in 1825, made
central New York the great highway of commerce and of travel, and New
York gradually became the leading State of the Union in population,
wealth and trade. There was a strong agitation in favor of a general
system of roads and canals, connecting the various parts of the country,
and to be constructed at the expense of the nation, and not of the
States. The party known as National Republicans, direct successors of the
Federalists, supported this proposition, and also advocated a high tariff
on imports and an extension of the charter of the United States Bank,
about to expire in 1836. The Democratic Republicans, now known simply as
Democrats, denied the constitutional authority of the national government
to construct roads and canals, or to impose a tariff except for revenue,
or to charter a national bank. During the administration of John Quincy
Adams the National Republicans succeeded in having tariff laws enacted in
1824 and 1828, which gave substantial and, in the view of the Democrats,
excessive protection to domestic manufactures.

General Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828, after a most bitter
contest, in which John Quincy Adams was his opponent. Jackson
claimed--and the evidence seems to support his claim--that the United
States Bank had used all its influence against him, and had even made
antagonism to Jackson a condition of mercantile accommodation. He had
long before been prejudiced against the bank through the stupid red
tapeism of an agent of the bank in New Orleans who stood by a rule not
intended for emergencies when Jackson needed money for his army. He was
convinced that not only all the power of the bank, but all the power
which the Federal Government could exert to defeat him had been exerted,
and being victorious in despite of this opposition, he resolved to crush
the bank and to make a clean sweep of the officeholders. The old
pamphlets in the Astor Library which tell the story of the bank's
struggle to escape annihilation are almost pathetic reading. The giant
was prostrate, and his enemy had no mercy. In 1832 Jackson vetoed the
bill to renew the charter of the bank. Re-elected President in 1832 by an
overwhelming majority of votes in the Electoral College, Jackson, in the
following year, removed the public money which had been deposited in the
United States Bank, and distributed it among various State banks. Th