The Spoils of Victory: Amos Kendall, the Antebellum State, and the Growth of the American Presidency in the Bank War, 1828–1834

SUMMER 2011 3 The Spoils of Victory Amos Kendall, the Antebellum State, and the Growth of the American Presidency in the Bank War, 1828-1834 Stephen Campbell W hen Amos Kendall departed Frankfort, Kentucky, for Washington in 1828 to take a position in the Treasury Department for the incoming Jackson administration, it seemed unlikely that he would become one of the most influential policymakers of the antebellum era. Fastidious, scrawny, self-righteous, and a New Englander by origin, he had struggled for years to fit into the world of southern politics. Kendall’s political loyalties were also torn between Henry Clay and individuals loyal to Andrew Jackson. Moreover, the Kentucky newspaper editor had accumulated numerous financial debts that exceeded ten thousand dollars. Of Kendall’s three thousand dollar yearly salary, roughly half went to extinguish this debt while the other half supported his growing family. Eight years later, however, Kendall had helped secure Jackson’s reelection, built up one of the nation’s most successful newspaper enterprises, and held the president’s ear on economic policy. In a rousing polemic carrying Kendall’s signature editorial style, Jackson famously vetoed the bill to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States (BUS) in July 1832. The Jacksonian Democrats, once a nebulous coalition centered on a popular war hero, now stood as a cohesive party committed to hard money principles and ideological opposition to a national bank. Politicians opposed to Jackson’s economic policies coalesced into the Whig Party, giving rise to the Second Party System of Democrats and Whigs.1 For generations, the Bank War has drawn the interest of business, financial, and political historians. From Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s The Age of Jackson in 1945 to Sean Wilentz’s 2005 magnum opus, The Rise of American Democracy, Amos Kendall (1789-1869), daguerreotype, c. 1855-c. 1865. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY THE SPOILS OF VICTORY 4 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY historians often describe the war as a cornerstone of Jackson’s democratic triumph over privilege. In the 1980s and 1990s, many Jackson scholars subsumed the Bank War under the market revolution paradigm. Most forcefully advanced by Charles Sellers, this model integrates bottom-up social history with top-down political history in a narrative that pitted an emerging class of enterprising merchants against an essentially pre-capitalist class of yeomen farmers and artisans. Individuals anxious about capitalist development applauded Jackson’s destruction of the “Monster” Bank. An equally compelling approach dating back to the post-World War II “consensus” school claims that Jackson represented a liberal, entrepreneurial spirit. For Richard Hofstadter and Bray Hammond, the Bank’s destruction symbolizes an ascendancy of laissez-faire capitalism.2 A renewed emphasis on institutions as historical agents in the last two decades has signaled a departure from the grass-roots tinge implicit in the market revolution paradigm. Following political sociologist Theda Skocpol’s suggestion to “bring the state back in” to politics, Richard John and Richard Kielbowicz argue that the nation’s postal system helped initiate a communications revolution . In News in the Mail (1989), Kielbowicz demonstrates how the post office profoundly influenced daily life and party politics. John’s Spreading the News (1995) identifies federal executive departments as necessary pre-conditions for the growth of political parties. Through the Post Office Act of 1792, the founding generation subsidized cheap newspaper circulation with the expressed intent of promoting an educated citizenry. Franking privileges, free exchange of newspapers among editors, and cheap postage allowed for the transmission of ideas at low cost. In addition, the State, Treasury, and Post Office Departments The Bank of the United States, Philadelphia. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY STEPHEN CAMPBELL SUMMER 2011 5 doled out lucrative printing contracts that subsidized partisan newspapers, which in turn guided the development of political parties. Historians of antebellum print journalism such as Gerald Baldasty and Jeffrey Pasley add to this literature by locating newspaper editors as major players in the political process. In Pasley’s view, newspaper editors were distinct campaigners who generated an audience “by communicating a party’s message, promoting its candidates . . . and encouraging voters to turn to the polls.” These authors credit powerful institutions and newspapers with helping to create the Second...