Nicholas Biddle letter to Charles Ingersoll, 11 February 1832

Phil'a. Feby. 11. 1832

My dear Sir,

. . . Here am I, who have taken a fancy to this Bank & having built it up with infinite care am striving to keep it I from being destroyed to the infinite wrong as I most sincerely & conscientiously believe of the whole country. To me all other considerations are insignificant I mean to stand by it & defend it with all the small faculties which Providence has assigned to me. I care for no party in politics or religion have no sympathy with Mr Jackson or Mr Clay or Mr Wirt or Mr Calhoun or Mr Ellmaker or Mr Van Buren. I am for the Bank & the Bank alone. Well then, here comes Mr Jackson who takes it into his head to declare that the Bank had failed & that it ought to be superceded by some ricketty machinery of his own contrivance. Mr Jackson being the President of the U.S. whose situation might make his ignorance mischeivous, we set to work to disenchant the country of their foolery & we have so well succeeded that I will venture to say that there is no man, no woman, & no child in U.S. who does not understand that the worthy President was in a great error. . .

It remains to see how its evil consequences may be averted. It seems to me there is no one course by which his friends may extricate him not merely safely but triumphantly. He has made the Bank a Power. He has made the Bank a deciding question as to his own selection. Now let him turn this power to his own advantage. As yet the Bank is entirely uncommitted the Bank is neither for him nor against him. In this state let his friends come forward boldly, & taking the Bank out of the hands of their enemies, conciliate back the honest friends whom their rashness has alienated, and who think that the only difficulty which he has yet to overcome is the dread of their internal convulsion to which the prostration of the Bank will lead. The most extraordinary part of the whole matter is that the President & the Bank do not disagree in the least about the modifications he desires. He wishes some changes The Bank agrees to them and yet from some punctilio which is positively purile his rash friends wish him to postpone it. Do they not perceive that his enemies are most anxious to place him in opposition to the Bank ? And should not every motive of prudence induce him to disappoint their calculations ? The true & obvious theory seems to me to disarm the antagonists of their strongest weapon to assume credit for settling this question for the administration. If the present measure fails, it carries bitterness into the ranks of the best part of the opposition. If it succeeds without the administration it displays their weakness. If the bill passes & the President negatives it, I will not say that it will destroy him but I certainly think it will & moreover I think it ought to. I can imagine no question which seems more exclusively for the representatives of the people than the manner in which they choose to keep & to manage the money of the people.

... I suppose the President has been made to believe that the Bank is busy in hostility to him you know how wholly unfounded this is. For myself I do not care a straw for him or his rivals I covet neither his man servant nor even his maid servant, his ox nor any of his asses. Long may he live to enjoy all possible blessings, but if he means to wage war upon the Bank if he pursues us till we turn & stand at bay, why then he may perhaps awaken a spirit which has hitherto been checked & reined in and which it is wisest--^ not to force into offensive defence.

Ponder over these things and believe me