“Executive Usurpation”? King Andrew the First | BRIdge from the Past: Art Across U.S. History

0:09 Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Bridge From the Past. This is a series meant to help history students look at important images throughout US history. I’m Mary Patterson. And once again, I’m joined by BRI content director Kirk Higgins. Hey Kirk. Hey Mary. How are you? I’m doing great because we have a really cool image in store for everybody today.

0:30 Kirk and I are going to be looking at an image that examines, I would say, a recurring theme in US. History, which is presidential power. How much is too much? Or what is this president? What is he supposed to be doing exactly? We’ve got a cool image and a really interesting backstory to go along with it. So let’s jump right in. Okay.

0:52 Our image today is entitled King Andrew I, and it is from 1833. And here he is, King Andrew the first. Whenever we’re looking at historic images, we just need to observe and try to think about how we can turn our observations into questions. So, Kirk, what do you observe or what strikes you when you look at this image?

1:17 Yeah, well, my eyes are immediately drawn to the center of the image, which seems there King Andrew’s face. He has a crown, which is often associated with royal power. He has the robes, which are often seen in images of paintings of monarchs in Europe, as well as a scepter right. Showing sort of sovereignty.

1:38 And then his right hand, he’s holding a document. I can’t quite make out what those letters are. But then on the ground, he seems to be standing on top of a shattered constitution of the United States. So it’s a very legal image, projecting authority, I think, and yeah,

1:59 sort of trampling what would be constitutional ballots. I think what I observe about this image, especially compared with some of the other images we’ve looked at recently on Bridge From the Past, we’ve looked at images of the king, and we’ve looked at political cartoons before, and this image is really mostly the image.

2:19 So there are some words, but the last few cartoons we’ve looked at had a lot of really lots of speech bubbles and texts that was kind of hard to read. This one, I think, is pretty clear. This is Andrew Jackson as a king standing on the Constitution, and it was born to command a veto memory on the left and had I been consulted on the right.

2:41 So I’m wondering, what’s the veto? What did he veto and who didn’t he consult? What is this in reference to? So there’s got to be a backstory that goes along with this. So maybe, Kirk, you can fill in some gaps. So what’s going on in 1833 that would make

3:02 someone draw President Andrew Jackson as a king stepping on the Constitution? Sure. So for additional context, too, I would encourage viewers to watch your last Bridge from the Past episode, which is about the election of 1824, which was about the election of 1824, which I think is an important thing to set up because Andrew Jackson comes to power

3:27 after having been out of power losing that election to John Quincy Adams thanks to the action of Henry Clay in the legislature or giving the presidency to John Quincy Adams instead of to Andrew Jackson. So fast forward to 1833. Andrew Jackson has been elected president.

3:47 For more context on that, you can also see a video from our BRI colleagues, Tony Williams who had a really interesting conversation with the star Todd Estes also about this moment, about the veto. But the veto they’re referencing here, I think, is the National Bank, the vetoing of the rechartering of the National Bank. So for the bank to exist, it needed to be given a charter,

4:09 essentially a delegation of authority by the government to be established. That bank was run by a man named Nicholas Biddle, which is kind of a fun name, but he was a financier. And Nicholas Biddle came forward and tried to get the bank recharged so renewed

4:31 for an extended period of time earlier than he needed to be renewed. So the bank, I don’t think, was due to be recharged until 1836. Biddle decides in an election year to move forward with that recharter anyway and to say we’re going to take a chance on this because there’s no way that Andrew Jackson would oppose

4:51 the recharging of this bank during an election, which is interesting. So politics in election years are often contentious. Something like the National Bank that was barely polarizing at the time divided between northern interests and southern interests, which is in Western interests, actually, which is really a way of thinking about agricultural interests and industrial interests.

5:12 They all work with the bank in different ways. They all have different needs from banking. When we’re thinking about banking, what we’re really thinking about is how is it that you get credit to be able to move forward with your business and be able to continue to grow and invest and have your business continue to grow. So Andrew Jackson decides to buck Biddle and say, no, in fact,

5:37 I am going to veto the recharter of this bank even though Congress had passed it. He vetoes it for a few reasons. Firstly, he thinks that it’s only sort of a cabal of interests, of moneyed interests who are working against the interests of the people. So that kind of harkens back to some of the things he may have been saying after the election of 1824, what he called the corrupt bargain.

6:00 Then there’s also this idea that he saw the bank as unconstitutional and the Supreme Court had already ruled on the bank, famously in McCullough v. Maryland, saying that the bank was something that was constitutional, that could exist. But Andrew Jackson contests the Supreme Court’s ability to be the final arbiter of the Constitution,

6:21 instead seeing each branch as being their own interpreters of the Constitution. And so he vetoes it for that reason as well. He goes into the election having vetoed the bank and saying it was done. Biddle in response to this veto, decides to sort of begin to

6:42 I don’t want to say mess with the other banks, but he certainly takes more hard line stances on credit than he could have otherwise. Arguably so that people would really feel the effects of what it’s going to mean when the bank is no longer there in the hopes of somehow impacting the election and denying Andrew Jackson

7:03 another term as president, partly because of his decision to not recharge the bank. And I think that is the had I been consulted piece of the message is the people ought to have been consulted as to whether or not this bank recharter should move forward. And so we have King Andrew acting without

7:24 regard to the people harkening back to these ideas of the American Revolution of consent and that people should be invested, that the people of the United States should have say over whether or not these decisions take place. And so you have King Andrew okay. We’Ve got to back up every second.

7:44 So here on this slide, I have President Andrew Jackson at the bottom and then Nicholas Biddle at the top. So there’s this real struggle between these two men around this issue of the bank of the United States. So this bank, like you said, it was supposed to be recharged renewed not in 1832, but in 1836. But Nicholas diddle wanted it renewed early.

8:07 He basically was so confident that it would go through, I guess, that he was forcing an early retarder. And it goes through, it passes through both houses of Congress. But Andrew Jackson actually vetoes it, which I guess they didn’t think he would do. So this sort of backfired on Nicholas Biddle and then there’s this bank war brewing right between Jackson

8:30 who thinks the bank is unconstitutional, he thinks it’s undemocratic. He thinks that he, as the President, should have more of a say in what’s constitutional, not just the courts or not just Congress. And then Nicholas Biddle who’s trying to use the bank to fight back with him. Is that sort of a fair summary of what’s going on here?

8:52 Yeah, I think that’s right. And I think a little context about the economy is important here too. This is a period of rapid growth and industrialization. And to facilitate that industrialization and that continued growth, there’s a lot of desire to follow what Henry Clay put forward as his American plan, which was building of internal

9:12 improvements and doing other things that would help facilitate the flow of goods from one part of the country to the other. We also have a lot of Western expansion so there’s new individuals migrating west and beginning to industrialize that area as well. And so there’s this need for on the one side people think there’s a need for credit.

9:33 On the other side there’s this desire to ensure that there is continued control over what that looks like in sort of a debate over what the best economic way forward is. And I think that this war over the bank sits right at the heart of that sort of debate over what America’s

9:54 future is going to look like from an economic perspective and what the best economic policies are for the country as it continues to grow. So Jackson officially kills the bank with this veto then. And Biddle, as you said, he’s trying to pull some strings to fight back, but it doesn’t really work out.

10:15 And if you’re on Biddle side, the claim was that Jackson had Executive Usurpation, so executive presidential Usurp to take over. He sort of acted unilaterally and this was out of line and they didn’t agree with his actions. But Jackson is actually taking federal

10:37 money out of that bank and putting it into different banks. So he’s sort of fighting back against Biddle. Is that fair to say? Yeah, that’s right. And those pet banks as I recall, which I think is kind of a fun name we’re being distributed. So state banks instead of a centralized national bank were what Jackson thought

10:57 was a better, more effective way of having that money distributed. And it’s interesting since we’re talking about presidential power, if you think about what Washington saw his role as president as, right. Many people view him as he saw himself as the executor of the laws. Right. He’s in a position where Congress is passing laws,

11:20 he’s moving forward and executing on them, or at least that’s the perception. Right here you see Andrew Jackson in a position where he’s very much invested in what this policy is going to be and in disagreement with what Congress is doing. And so I think that sort of mentality from a certain viewpoint is what’s fueling a lot of this tension.

11:42 Right. So you have a president who’s not only just responding to what’s happening but is actually taking a positive step to enact his own policy, which seems apart from what Congress may have been calling for. Okay, so we’re seeing some change over time here in the role of the presidency, especially with Andrew Jackson.

12:03 So again, Jackson, by taking the money out of the Federal Bank, he effectively kills it. And I love this quote here. Biddle diddled and undone so Jackson and of course he wins in this scenario. So Congress again wanted to recharge it, but he vetoed it. The veto sees through, the money is pulled out and the bank actually dissolves.

12:24 And you don’t have any central banking in the United States until the creation of the Federal Reserve in the early 20th century. So that’s, I mean, he killed it pretty good. I mean it’s gone for a pretty long time. In this cartoon on this slide, there were people who agreed with Jackson because this man with horns here is supposed to be Nicholas Biddle.

12:46 So there were definitely people who sided with Jackson on this issue. But in our main cartoon here, it’s pretty clear that the artist thinks that this was an overstep of presidential power. He’s depicted as a king on a trampled constitution, like, no regard to the Constitution,

13:06 which is pretty interesting given your comment that he thought he should be interpreting the Constitution just as much as Congress and the courts. So really fascinating image here. And I think another really fun part of this story is that it’s unclear when this image was made,

13:26 if it was made in 1832, which was when he, Jackson, vetoes the bank, or in 1833. And that all goes back to when it was cataloged or written down by someone at the New York Public Library. So he sort of decided, this man, he thought it was made in 1832, but it was probably 1833 as a response to Jackson pulling out the money.

13:49 So that’s sort of an interesting side note in this story as well. Yeah, I think that’s always an interesting historiographical question and an important one to pay attention to when you’re a student who’s looking at these images, because it’s important to know where it was cataloged and where it came from, because the person who is preserving these images and labeling them

14:10 has some influence over what that thing is in an interesting way. So I think it’s always important that we’re looking at those citations and looking at those sources so we can see where this is coming from. Whether it’s the original artist or whether it’s been captured in the catalog, what newspaper it was printed in can always be really interesting. Was it a northern newspaper? Was it a Southern or a Western newspaper?

14:32 All of those factors, I think, can be really interesting. And again, as it moves along, sort of coming to us now, a few hundred years later, it’s interesting to see kind of how this image made its journey up to us, can help us shape our understanding of what the image really is. Absolutely. And I think so this image, it’s regarding a specific event,

14:55 and it’s obviously only her 7th president, Andrew Jackson. But I think the larger message of presidential power in interpreting the Constitution, that’s a timeless conversation. That’s an ongoing dialogue in US. History. So while it is us History in that it’s Andrew Jackson from the early 19th century, it’s not history either.

15:18 It’s still very much with us today. So we’ll leave you with that idea to dwell on. I hope you enjoyed our video. I hope you learned something. Be sure to like the video and subscribe to our series. We put these out every two weeks to help you look at important images in US history. We’ve got homework help videos. We have talks with scholars on important events in US

15:39 history. We’ve got you covered if you need help with your US history class. Kirk, thanks so much for chatting with me today. Thank you, Mary. And everybody out there, stay curious. Curious. Take care.