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 of the people from which Jackson mainly drew his
strength.

Nothing came of the President's admonition except committee reports in
the two Houses, both favorable to the Bank; in fact, the Senate report
was copied almost verbatim from a statement supplied by Biddle. A year
later Jackson returned to the subject, this time with an alternative
plan for a national bank to be organized as a branch of the Treasury
and hence to have "no means to operate on the hopes, fears, or
interests of large masses of the community." In a set of autograph
notes from which the second message was prepared the existing Bank was
declared not only unconstitutional but dangerous to liberty, "because