Description
Book SynopsisDrawing on insights from the fields of political history, the history of journalism, and financial history, this volume brings to light a revolving cast of newspaper editors, financiers, and postal workers who appropriated the financial resources of preexisting political institutions to enrich themselves and further their careers.
Trade Review"This welcome and highly readable book breathes new fire into Jackson’s dramatic Bank War of the 1830s. It successfully links this epoch-turning event with a modern awareness of the power of government institutions, the functioning of the press, and a measured awareness of how the nation’s financial and economic system actually worked. Through the words and actions of key players, notably Nicholas Biddle and Amos Kendall, it demonstrates that the key disputes were not over the powers of ‘the state’ but whom should benefit from their exercise."—Donald Ratcliffe, author of The One-Party Presidential Contest: Adams, Jackson, and 1824’s Five-Horse Race
"A fresh assessment of Andrew Jackson’s famous Bank War has been long overdue. Deftly interweaving the threads of party politics, finance, journalism, and communications, Stephen Campbell’s The Bank War and the Partisan Press offers a revealing new take on this pivotal yet dimly understood episode. Observers of American government and banking, and of the interconnections between the two, will find this book essential reading."—Daniel Feller, professor of history and director of The Papers of Andrew Jackson, University of Tennessee
"Campbell breathes new life into the history of the Bank War by examining how the burgeoning partisan press, the US Postal Service, and the wider network of internal improvements nationalized this conflict. With this new spin on an old topic, the battle between Nicholas Biddle and Andrew Jackson over the fate of the Bank of the United States offers much insight into how critical American institutions worked in the 1830s and how they led to the formation of a new political order."—Sean Patrick Adams, professor of history, University of Florida
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Public Printers, Private Struggles: The Party Press and the Early American State
- 2. “A Very Able State Paper”: Amos Kendall and the Rise of the Globe
- 3. The Monster Strikes Back: Nicholas Biddle and the Public Relations Campaign to Recharter the Second Bank, 1828-1832
- 4. Monster News! Veto and Reelection
- 5. Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Panic of 1833-1834 and the Loss of Public Support
- 6. An Unholy Trinity: Banks, Newspapers, and Postmasters during the Post Office Scandal, 1834-1835
- Conclusion: 1835 and Beyond
- Appendix 1: How the Bank Worked
- Appendix 2: Average Percentage of Domestic Bills of Exchange Purchased at Each Branch Office According to Region, 1832
- Appendix 3: BUS Note Circulation, Divided by Branch Offices in Slave States and Free States, February 1832
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
