The Republicans had protested against it in the beginning, but they had
later come to believe in its necessity; and at the time Benton and
Jackson declared war upon it, the Bank was, on the whole, and in spite
of certain minor and local grievances, a popular institution. If the
question of the re-charter of the National Bank had been submitted to
popular vote in 1832, a popular majority would probably have declared in
its favor. Jackson's victory was due partly to his personal popularity,
partly to the unwise manner in which the Bank was defended, but chiefly
to his success in convincing public opinion that the Bank was an
institution whose legal privileges were used to the detriment of the
American people. As a matter of fact, such was not the case. The Bank
was a semi-public corporation, upon which certain exceptional privileges
had been conferred, because the enjoyment of such privileges was
inseparable from the services it performed and the responsibilities it
assumed. When we consider how important those services were, and how
difficult it has since been to substitute any arrangement, which
provides as well both a flexible and a stable currency and for the
articulation of the financial operations of the Federal Treasury with
those of the business of the country, it does not look as if the
emoluments and privileges of the Bank were disproportionate to its
services.
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