But they foresaw that to wind up the business of the Bank in 1836 it
would be necessary to call in loans and to withdraw a vast amount of
currency from circulation, with the result of a general disturbance,
if not a severe crippling, of business. This, they thought, would
bring about an eleventh-hour measure giving the Bank a new lease of
life.

Jackson, too, realized that a sudden termination of the activities of
the Bank would derange business and produce distress, and that under
these circumstances a charter might be wrung from Congress in spite of
a veto. But he had no intention of allowing matters to come to such a
pass.

His plan was rather to cut off by degrees the activities of the Bank,
until at last they could be suspended altogether without a shock. The
most obvious means of doing this was to withdraw the heavy deposits
made by the Government; and to this course the President fully
committed himself as soon as the results of the election were known.
He was impelled, further, by the conviction--notwithstanding
unimpeachable evidence to the contrary--that the Bank was insolvent,
and by his indignation at the refusal of Biddle and his associates to
accept the electoral verdict as final. "Biddle shan't have the public
money to break down the public administration with. It's settled. My
mind's made up." So the President declared to Blair early in 1833. And
no one could have any reasonable doubt that decisive action would
follow threat.

It was not, however, all plain sailing. Under the terms of the charter
of 1816 public funds were to be deposited in the Bank and its branches
unless the Secretary of the Treasury should direct that they be placed