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@DavidHeadPhd @hemmist @Historian_Steve Your discussion on William Crawford the other day inspired me to share a quick story about him. Although best known for his failed presidential run in 1824, Crawford also played a somewhat significant role in the Bank War.
In his report to Congress defending his decision to remove govt deposits from the Second BUS in 1833, Sec. of Treasury Roger Taney cited a letter written by then Treasury Sec. Crawford in 1817 to the president of the Mechanics Bank of NY to establish precedent for his own actions
In the letter, Crawford stated, “the Secretary of the Treasury will always be disposed to support the credit of the State banks, and will invariably direct transfers from the deposits of the public money in aid of their exertions to maintain credit.”
Taney argued this established that the Treasury secretary was granted the authority to remove or transfer govt funds as he saw fit and that the BUS charter granted him that authority.
In the debate that followed, Jacksonian senators cited the same letter in their defense of the administration’s actions. Whig senators though skillfully refuted the argument. They claimed that the cited section of Crawford’s letter had been taken out of context.
Many state banks resisted the resumption of specie payments which prompted Congress to pass another resolution, this one giving the sec of Treasury authority to take necessary steps to compel state banks into compliance, such as removing govt funds deposited in their vaults.
It was in this context that Crawford wrote his letter. Whigs argued that Crawford’s remarks were pursuant to the long defunct resolution passed by Congress and removal of the deposits for arbitrary reasons was not a right granted to the secretary by the charter.
Whigs argued instead that the sec could only remove the deposits if their safety was in doubt, something even Taney admitted was not the case. Whigs also argued that Crawford only threatened to remove deposits from state banks and only funds deposited before the BUS was chartered
Taney, by contrast, removed govt deposits from BUS branches and these funds were deposited well after the BUS was established. The end result was a senate vote condemning Taney’s reasons for removing the deposits - the Crawford tidbit above being among the reasons condemned.
