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Panic of 1819

The Panic of 1819 was the first widespread and durable financial crisis in the United States that slowed westward expansion in the Cotton Belt and was followed by a general collapse of the American economy that persisted through 1821. The Panic heralded the transition of the nation from its colonial commercial status with Europe toward an independent economy.

Though the downturn was driven by global market adjustments in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, its severity was compounded by excessive speculation in public lands, fueled by the unrestrained issue of paper money from banks and business concerns.

The Second Bank of the United States (SBUS), itself deeply enmeshed in these inflationary practices, sought to compensate for its laxness in regulating the state bank credit market by initiating a sharp curtailment in loans by its western branches, beginning in 1818. Failing to provide gold specie from their reserves when presented with their own banknotes for redemption by the SBUS, the state-chartered banks began foreclosing on the heavily mortgaged farms and business properties they had financed. The ensuing financial panic, in conjunction with a sudden recovery in European agricultural production in 1817, led to widespread bankruptcies and mass unemployment. The financial disaster and recession provoked popular resentment against banking and business enterprise, along with a general belief that federal government economic policy was fundamentally flawed. Americans, many for the first time, became politically engaged so as to defend their local economic interests.[1][2]

The New Republicans and their American System[3]—tariff protection, internal improvements, and the SBUS—were exposed to sharp criticism, eliciting a vigorous defense.

Post-war European readjustments and the American economy: 1815–1818 edit

The United States and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, ending the War of 1812.[4] The British government effectively relinquished its effort to impose mercantilist policies on the United States, preparing the way for the development of free trade and the opening of America's vast western frontier.[5]

Europe was undergoing a period of disorganization as it readjusted to peacetime production and commerce in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The general effect was a decline in prices throughout the Western world, due to a scarcity of gold and silver specie.[6] Britain had advanced its industrial capacity to fully meet its wartime demands, but post-war continental Europe was temporarily too devastated to absorb Britain's surplus manufactured goods. Moreover, European agriculture production, exhausted by years of warfare, was unable to feed its own population.[6] The economy of the United States was not immune to the chaos that afflicted Europe, which contributed to the Panic of 1819.[6][7]

American manufacturers faced U.S. markets swamped with British products, produced by low-paid workers and priced well below competitive rates and forcing many factories out of business.[8][9] Continental Europe, its agrarian output crippled by the recent war, offered new markets for American staple crops, particularly cotton, wheat, corn and tobacco.[10][11] As prices soared for agricultural goods, a speculative agrarian land boom ensued in the South and West United States,[12] encouraged by liberal terms for government public land sales.[13][14] "The entire postwar American economy", observed historian George Dangerfield, was "based on a land boom". The inflationary bubble grew from 1815 to 1818, obscuring the general deflationary trends in world prices.[15]

Unregulated banking and the imperatives of Republican enterprise edit

With the failure to recharter the First Bank of the United States in 1811,[16] regulatory influence over state banks ceased. Credit-friendly Republicans—entrepreneurs, bankers, farmers—adapted laissez-faire financial principles to the precepts of Jeffersonian political libertarianism[17]—equating land speculation with "rugged individualism"[18] and the frontier spirit.[19][20] Private banking interests and their allies sought to evade or resist any threat to the profitability of their local enterprises, including the regulatory influence of a government bank limiting easy credit.[21][22] There followed an enormous expansion in state-chartered banking,[9] with chartered institutions increasing from 88 in 1811 to 208 in 1815, mostly in the mid-Atlantic states.[23][24]

During the War of 1812 (1812–1815) with the United Kingdom, the American government turned to these new banks for loans, encouraging a proliferation of paper money.[25] This practice tended to shift specie into the more conservatively lending New England banking apparatus, depleting the newer banks of their hard money reserves.[26] In response, the U.S. government acquiesced in a suspension of specie payments from state banks in order to prolong the liberal wartime lending. The arrangement persisted in the war's aftermath, allowing old and new banks to profitably lend without regard to their hard money currency reserves.[23][27][28] A speculative bubble formed as a result of these inflationary practices, threatening the health of the economy.[25][27][29]

By 1814, calls for a new central bank and a resumption of regulatory controls were heard from powerful capitalists and economic nationalists in the Republican party leadership.[30]

Resurrection of the Bank of the United States edit

The "American System" edit

The Democratic-Republican party found itself in control of the national government with the collapse of the Federalist party at the end of the War of 1812.[31] Some of the traditional Jeffersonian agrarian precepts—especially strict construction of the Constitution—had softened due to difficulties during the war arising from a lack of infrastructure, unregulated banking and a shortage of manufactured material, as well as the prospect of developing the vast natural resources with westward expansion.[32] A mild nationalist outlook took hold among the "New Republicans",[33] neofederalists led by Speaker of the House Henry Clay and Congressman John C. Calhoun.[18][34] A three-part program dubbed the American System, incorporating some of the Hamiltonian projects championed by the Federalists, proposed "to create a stable economy through a centralized banking system, stimulated by an ever widening web of transportation and communication, through which domestic manufactures could eventually reach all parts of the Union".[8]

Advocates of the American System called for a protective tariff to encourage manufacturing, a federally funded program for internal improvements and a revival of the First Bank of the United States to regulate finance.[32]

Astor, Girard, Parish edit

In the crucible of the War of 1812, the Treasury of the United States had been compelled to offer $16 million in government war bonds in order to stave off bankruptcy due to military costs and wartime loss of revenue.[34] Financier Stephen Girard, business magnate John Jacob Astor and merchant David Parish bought up these government securities and rescued the nation's credit.[31] Through their influence, and in alliance with Republican Congressmen John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay,[35] they sought to augment their investment by proposing that the securities be exchangeable for stock in a new central bank, the Second Bank of the United States (SBUS).[34][36]

Secretary of State James Monroe supported the new bank initiative,[37][38] wishing to bind these highly regarded and pro-Republican business figures to government financial operations.[39][40] Republicans in the South and West joined with monied interests in the mid-Atlantic states. Pro-SBUS Congressman John C. Calhoun argued forcefully that the federal government had a constitutional obligation to regulate bank credit as part of the national money supply.[41] In January 1816, he introduced a bill of incorporation in the House of Representatives for a government bank (which would become the Second Bank of the United States).[42] The measure was passed by Congress and signed by President James Madison in April 1816.[43][44]

Opposition to the Bank came from two fronts: the orthodox Tertium quids (or "Old Republicans") who reflexively regarded an enlargement of the central government as an assault on personal liberty and a violation of Jeffersonian agrarianism,[45][46] and state-chartered private banking interests, who favored paper money but considered federal regulation of local banking operations to be anti-Republican. These ideologies and interests would be arrayed against the central bank during the Andrew Jackson administration (1829–1837), erupting in a Bank War that would destroy the institution by 1833.[47]

The Second Bank of the United States began operations in January 1817 under a twenty-year charter.[27][48]

Neofederalist expectations for the central bank edit

The revival of the Bank of the United States had two primary objectives: first, to reverse the post-war inflationary practices of state-chartered banks by inducing resumption of convertibility, and second, to expand the opportunities for the common man to acquire bank credit, promoting enterprise and an orderly and profitable westward expansion.[27][49][50]

The regulatory mechanism of the SBUS resided in its fiscal duties as depository for the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As such, the bank accepted circulating state bank paper money from individuals, businesses and importers when they paid taxes or custom duty fees.[50] The central bank immediately credited these payments to the U.S. Treasury with its own metallic reserves. The SBUS, in turn, anticipated that the state banks which had issued the paper money would, upon demand, redeem their currency with gold and silver—"convertibility"—reimbursing the government bank.[27][21]

In order to remain solvent, the state banks would, ideally, constrain their lending of paper money—however profitable—so as not to allow the SBUS to become a significant creditor and deplete their specie reserves. Failing this, the Second Bank of the United States would, in theory, cease to honor the banknotes of those financial institutions that refused to promptly settle their government accounts with hard money—a recipe for bankruptcy.[28]

The central bank's direct influence on inflationary lending was limited to those chartered banks whose paper currency was extensively used to remit funds to the government (i.e. tax and duty payments).[51] The SBUS and its branches had little or no direct control over commercial paper emitted by unchartered lending outfits: "All that was necessary to start a bank…was plates, presses and paper; 'a church, a tavern, a blacksmith shop' would be a suitable site."[52] These unregulated credit operations would "to some extent interpenetrate" the regulated banking system, especially in the regions of wildcat banking.[53]

Prelude to panic: 1816–1818 edit

President of the United States James Madison and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Dallas fully approved the elevation of William Jones—one of the federally appointed Bank directors—to SBUS President in October 1816.[27] Jones, formerly a member of Madison's cabinet, owed his promotion more to his political acumen than his skills as a banker.[54][12][55] Financier and co-director Stephen Girard was troubled at Jones' promotion, concerned that he could never provide disinterested leadership for the bank, and businessman John Jacob Astor doubted Jones' ability to wield the bank's regulatory powers effectively.[12][56]

Jones extended the institution's resources liberally in accordance with the post-war "national exuberance",[57] generating large dividends for its stockholders.[58] His administration of the bank resonated with Secretary Crawford's lenient policy with regard to public land receipts in the form of chartered-bank script when specie was scarce nationally.[59]

Setbacks and compromises for the Second Bank of the United States edit

The Second Bank of the United States began operations in January 1817[60] as fiscal agent of the United States Treasury. After February 20, 1817, the SBUS was scheduled to begin to receive all government revenue in legal tender as required by its charter.[7]

Hard money shortages prevailed because U.S. exports exceeded imports[61] and Peruvian and Mexican gold and silver sources failed to replenish specie reserves.[12] Due to this scarcity, the terms of the bank's incorporation provided for private subscribers to invest with a combination of metallic currency and government stock. Further, they were granted an indulgence by Bank directors that effectively waived the specie requirement: ultimately, investors were allowed to purchase Bank shares on the security of the stock itself.[62][63] Under its charter guidelines, the SBUS was expected to acquire specie totaling $28 million by the time it opened for business; but with only $2 million secured when it commenced operations, the bank was compelled to purchase specie at usurious rates from the London financial markets in 1817 and 1818, overburdening SBUS credit.[64]

As the February 20 deadline approached to resume convertibility, the private (i.e. state-chartered)[65] banks withheld cooperation from SBUS officials, loath to submit to the regulatory influence of the central bank—and diminish the large profits derived from the issue of unredeemable paper.[28][21] On February 1, 1817, an association of bankers from Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Virginia met with the new Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford and SBUS President William Jones, arranging a compromise which undermined the ability of the central bank to assert its role as creditor to the private banks.[28]

The directors of the SBUS, with Secretary Crawford's imprimatur, promised to refrain from collecting public deposits held in state banks until July 1, 1817. Moreover, they agreed to greatly expand the bank's credit—at a discount of $6 million—before proceeding to collect public debt from the state institutions. In effect, the central bank transformed the private banks into its creditors, inviting them to draw specie from SBUS reserves months before the Bank of the United States assumed its regulatory functions.[66][67] Under these "ominous terms" the bank was launched—its operational success already at risk.[56]

Second Bank of the United States branch office lending and the frontier land boom edit

The eighteen branch offices of the SBUS in 1817 operated with little oversight from the Philadelphia headquarters, nor from the U.S. Treasury.[68][69] This policy stemmed in part from a social philosophy that prevailed among Republicans during the Era of Good Feelings, which wished to Republicanize credit practices and encourage westward migration.[57][70]

The United States government encouraged settlement of these lands by offering public land at $2 per acre (160-acre minimum), though auctioneering tended to retard sales and raised prices slightly.[71] The terms required a down payment of one-fourth of the total cost and the balance in four annual payments. Failure to pay in full in five years meant forfeiture.[13][72][73] Public land debt ballooned from $3 million in 1815 to $17 million in 1818.[51]

The U.S. Treasury accepted land payments in the form of banknotes issued by western and southern state banks. These institutions often lacked sufficient specie reserves to back up their vastly over-extended credit.[13] As long as the land boom continued, the Treasury Department was compelled to accept depreciated banknotes for its public land sales, undermining government efforts to pay down the war debt, but serving to stave off private bank failures.[60][67]

As the branch offices in the West and Southwest over-issued their SBUS notes to land boom farmers and speculators, they sought to restock their specie reserves by redeeming their own notes for hard money at the SBUS branch offices in the North and East, to fuel another cycle of excessive lending.[61]

The SBUS branch banks, emulating their wildcat counterparts, injected so much of their own paper money into circulation that they negated their regulatory capacity: they could not with impunity demand specie payments from state banks that held public deposits without being presented with their own script for convertibility in return.[74] Prior to the Panic, these precarious economic conditions—a manifestation of "rapid expansion, speculation and wildcat banking"[75][76]—prevailed in the South and West, where the economic collapse would be most severe.[52][77]

By July 1818, the Second Bank of the United States had demand liabilities exceeding $22.4 million, whereas its specie fund stood at $2.4 million—a 10:1 ratio[48] and double the 5:1 ratio considered sustainable.[78][79]

Panic "precipitated"[73] edit

The onset of the financial panic has been variously described as "triggered", "pricked", or "precipitated"[80][76][81] by the Second Bank of the United States when it initiated a sharp credit contraction beginning in the summer of 1818.[74]

The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 had created the Year Without a Summer, causing European agriculture to fail that year. The link between the frontier land boom and overseas markets for staple goods was dramatically revealed in 1817, when Europe finally recovered from its post-war harvest shortages and began producing bumper crops.[9][82] American planters and farmers, who had expanded production to exploit the European demand, discovered agricultural prices declining by half, even as production increased.[83][12] Southwestern plantations were devastated when Britain began to increase its imports of East India cotton as a means to avoid purchasing the high-priced U.S. cotton.[84] India enjoyed not only a longer growing season and lower cost of freight to Britain, but also more cotton-devoted land than the entire Louisiana Purchase. Tench Coxe, a Pennsylvanian political economist and delegate to the Continental Congress, warned of the "substantial evil" exhibited in the rivalry created by foreign competition. Coxe has been dubbed by many as the "father of the American cotton industry".[85] Cotton value began to waver in 1818, threatening to burst the speculative bubble.[12] A general contraction in lending was indicated in response to these developments in Europe.[86][10][87]

In August 1818, with credit dangerously overextended, BUS branch offices began to reject all state-chartered banknotes under the direction of William Jones. Exceptions were made for notes used as revenue payments to the U.S. Treasury.[74][67][88] In October 1818, the U.S. Treasury demanded a transfer of $2 million in specie from the BUS to redeem bonds on the Louisiana Purchase.[89]

State banks in the West and South, unable to provide the required specie, began to call in their loans on the heavily mortgaged lands they had financed. Cash-poor farmers and speculators found their land values dropping 50% to 75%. Banks began foreclosing on the properties and transferring them to their creditor: the Second Bank of the United States.[10][90]

When news arrived in January 1819 that the value of cotton had broken—dropping 25% in a single day—the ensuing panic drove the country into recession.[91] Williams Jones resigned from his position as BUS president and was replaced by South Carolinian Langdon Cheves.[89]

BUS reaction to the Panic edit

The limited curtailment policy initiated by William Jones was rigorously applied by his successor, former Congressman from South Carolina, Langdon Cheves.[92] Among his promoters were U.S. President James Monroe,[93] BUS directors Stephen Girard and Nicholas Biddle and those stockholders who wanted Bank leadership that was fiscally conservative and immune to political influence.[94]

The tight money policy Cheves implemented—a principled effort to cope with the financial disaster—had the effect of deepening the depression, undermining the recovery that was already underway.[91][95][96] Through public land debt relief legislation, Cheves managed to reduce the bank's land debt by $6 million within a year of assuming his position as BUS President. Specie was also replenished to a great extent, increasing from $2.5 million in 1819 to $3.4 million by 1820 and further rising to $8 million by 1821.[97][98] As an added consequence, banknotes in circulation were reduced by about $23 million within a span of four years from 1816 to 1820.

Employing these "stern procedures",[99] Cheves placed the bank on sound footing in early 1819.[100][101] A leading critic of the Second Bank of the United States during the Bank War would observe: "The bank was saved, and the people were ruined."[76][100]

Culpability of the BUS in the Panic edit

Despite the Second Bank of the United States' inept management under the Jones-Cheves administrations, it was not the causative agent in the Panic of 1819 or its aftermath.[102] The historical processes contributing to the panic and depression, which were beyond the bank's control, included the European market fluctuations,[103] obstruction from the numerous private banks to federal regulations[52][104] and the widespread ignorance among lenders and borrowers as to the new financial mechanisms that made possible the credit expansion and land boom.[105]

The bank's role was properly one of restraint, so as to automatically suppress the volatility in financial markets—but not to prevent these boom-bust episodes.[99][106] "If the [Second Bank of the United States] had been wisely managed from the beginning" writes historian George Dangerfield, "it could not have prevented the panic; it could only have modified its effects."[14]

"The Panic of 1819 … was compounded by many factors—overexpansion of credit during the post-war years, the collapse of the export market after the bumper crop of 1817 in Europe, low prices of imports from Europe which forced American manufacturers to close, financial instability resulting from both the excessive expansion of state banking after 1811 and the unsound policies of the Second Bank of the United States, and widespread unemployment."

— Historian Harry Ammons, from James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (1971[9])

Responses to the crisis edit

President Monroe, interpreting the economic crisis in the narrow monetary terms then current, limited governmental action to economizing and ensuring fiscal stability. He acquiesced in suspending specie payments to bank depositors, setting a precedent for the Panics of 1837 and 1857.[107] Although Monroe agreed that improved transportation facilities were needed, he refused to approve appropriations for internal improvements without constitutional amendments.

In 1821, Congress passed the Relief for Public Land Debtors Act. The bill allowed debtors who owed money on land purchased from the government to keep the part of land they had already paid for and relinquish the remaining amount. It further extended the schedule of payments by several years, with a discount for quick payment. With the exception of New England states, most of the country strongly supported the measure. Many state legislatures, particularly in rural western states, passed extra relief measures for debtors.

Another response to the panic was monetary expansion, primarily at the state level. In Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois, state banks suspended specie payments and issued large amounts of inconvertible notes. However, most other states avoided inflationist policies and enforced the payment of specie. Every state witnessed vigorous debate on the merits of each policy.[108] Treasury Secretary Crawford advocated restricting bank credit as a measure to prevent a future crisis. Banking regulation was seen as primarily a state responsibility, and several states passed regulations in the years following the panic that required banks to maintain certain fixed ratios of capital to ensure their ability to convert to specie.[109]

A further effect of the Panic of 1819 was increased support for protective tariffs for American industry. Vocal protectionists, such as Philadelphia printer Mathew Carey, blamed free trade for the depression and argued that tariffs would protect American prosperity. In general, support for tariffs was strongest in the mid-Atlantic states and was opposed by export-heavy southern states.[109]

Long-term impacts edit

The Panic brought attention, for the first time, to issues regarding debt-relief policy, as well as poor relief.[110] City and state governments began to more effectively approach the public policy reform issues surrounding the poor; a classification system was also created (able-bodied vs. disabled, temporary vs. long-term, etc.). Public attention to solving poverty issues consequently led to public education systems.

Public support was great once again for protective tariffs. However, when the "Tariff of Abominations" was implemented in 1828, regional discontent led to the outbreak of the Nullification Crisis. The Crisis is seen as a "critical precedent for democratic action".

On a more contemporary note, many economic historians today agree that the Panic of 1819 marked the United States' entrance into the modern business cycle.[111]

The Panic of 1819 has also been credited with spurring American citizens to emigrate to the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas, which would later become the Republic of Texas, and later still the State of Texas within the United States.[112] By 1830, over twelve thousand Americans had emigrated to what is now the State of Texas.[112]

Economic interpretations edit

Different economic schools of thought have offered explanations for the Panic of 1819.

Austrian School economists view the nationwide recession resulting from the Panic of 1819 as the first failure of expansionary monetary policy. This theory was first expounded by Murray N. Rothbard, in his doctoral dissertation, The Panic of 1819, published in 1962. For many years, this was the only book on the subject. This explanation was based on the Austrian theory of the business cycle.[113] The U.S. Government borrowed heavily to finance the War of 1812, causing tremendous strain on the banks' reserves of specie, which led to a suspension of specie payments in 1814, and then again during the recession of 1819–1821, violating contractual rights of depositors.[107] The suspension of the obligation to redeem greatly spurred the establishment of new banks and the expansion of banknote issues, and this inflation of money encouraged unsustainable investments to take place. It soon became clear that the monetary situation was threatening, and the Second Bank of the United States was forced to call a halt to its expansion and launch a painful process of contraction. There was a wave of bankruptcies, bank failures, and bank runs; prices dropped and wide-scale urban unemployment began. By 1819, land measures in the U.S. had also reached 3,500,000 acres (14,000 km2) and many Americans did not have enough money to pay off their loans.[114]

Economists who adhere to Keynesian economic theory suggest that the Panic of 1819 was the early Republic's first experience with the boom-bust cycles common to all modern economies. Clyde Haulman, Professor of Economics at the College of William and Mary, argues that the Panic was partly caused by a decision to call in loans of the Second Bank of the US. Combined with the issue of the depression and overspeculation, the Panic marked the beginning of a new phase of American economic history, in which mature market institutions would continue to move cyclically from boom to bust.[115]

Notes edit

  1. ^ Hofstadter 1948, p. 51.
  2. ^ Malone & Rauch 1960, pp. 417–418.
  3. ^ Schlesinger 1945, p. 35.
  4. ^ Dangerfield 1952, p. 89.
  5. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 32–33, 88–89, 90–91.
  6. ^ a b c Dangerfield 1952, p. 176.
  7. ^ a b Dangerfield 1965, p. 12.
  8. ^ a b Parsons 2009, p. 58.
  9. ^ a b c d Ammon 1971, p. 462.
  10. ^ a b c Parsons 2009, p. 59.
  11. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 13, 73–74.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Wilentz 2008, p. 206.
  13. ^ a b c Malone & Rauch 1960, p. 416.
  14. ^ a b Dangerfield 1952, p. 179.
  15. ^ Dangerfield 1952, pp. 176, 179.
  16. ^ Wilentz 2008, pp. 203–204.
  17. ^ Hammond 1956, p. 10.
  18. ^ a b Parsons 2009, p. 61.
  19. ^ Hammond 1947, pp. 152–153.
  20. ^ Dangerfield 1952, p. 152.
  21. ^ a b c Hammond 1957, p. 272.
  22. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 76–77.
  23. ^ a b Rothbard 1962, p. 4.
  24. ^ Miller 1960, p. 62.
  25. ^ a b Schlesinger 1945, p. 9.
  26. ^ Rothbard 1962, p. 3.
  27. ^ a b c d e f Wilentz 2008, p. 205.
  28. ^ a b c d Dangerfield 1965, p. 76.
  29. ^ Rothbard 1962, pp. 7–8.
  30. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 10–11.
  31. ^ a b Dangerfield 1965, p. 10.
  32. ^ a b Dangerfield 1952, p. 119.
  33. ^ Parsons 2009, pp. 57–58.
  34. ^ a b c Wilentz 2008, p. 204.
  35. ^ Schlesinger 1945, pp. 11–12.
  36. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 9–10.
  37. ^ Schlesinger 1945, p. 18.
  38. ^ Wilentz 2008, p. 203.
  39. ^ Wilentz 2008, pp. 204–205.
  40. ^ Hammond 1957, p. 274.
  41. ^ Hammond 1957, p. 368.
  42. ^ Remini 1993, p. 39.
  43. ^ Dangerfield 1965, p. 11.
  44. ^ Remini 1993, pp. 142–143.
  45. ^ Ammon 1971, p. 463.
  46. ^ Parsons 2009, p. 57.
  47. ^ Hammond 1947, pp. 153–154, 274.
  48. ^ a b Rothbard 1962, p. 8.
  49. ^ Hammond 1957, pp. 274–276.
  50. ^ a b Dangerfield 1965, pp. 75–76.
  51. ^ a b Dangerfield 1965, p. 86.
  52. ^ a b c Dangerfield 1965, p. 87.
  53. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 86–87.
  54. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 77–78.
  55. ^ Dangerfield 1952, p. 180.
  56. ^ a b Dangerfield 1965, p. 78.
  57. ^ a b Dangerfield 1965, p. 81.
  58. ^ Dangerfield 1952, p. 181.
  59. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 81, 86.
  60. ^ a b Rothbard 1962, p. 7.
  61. ^ a b Dangerfield 1965, p. 80.
  62. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 78–79.
  63. ^ Rothbard 1962, p. 15.
  64. ^ Dangerfield 1965, p. 79.
  65. ^ Hammond 1947, p. 150.
  66. ^ Dangerfield 1965, p. 77.
  67. ^ a b c Ammon 1971, p. 466.
  68. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 80–81.
  69. ^ Ammon 1971, pp. 466, 467.
  70. ^ Wilentz 2008, pp. 203–207.
  71. ^ Salsbury 1931, pp. 332–333.
  72. ^ Dangerfield 1952, p. 117.
  73. ^ a b Ammon 1971, p. 465.
  74. ^ a b c Wilentz 2008, pp. 206–207.
  75. ^ Hofstadter 1948, p. 50.
  76. ^ a b c Malone & Rauch 1960, p. 417.
  77. ^ Wilentz 2008, p. 208.
  78. ^ Hammond 1957, p. 275.
  79. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 80, 82.
  80. ^ Rothbard 1962, p. 12.
  81. ^ Remini 1981, p. 172.
  82. ^ Rothbard 1962, p. 14.
  83. ^ Malone & Rauch 1960, pp. 416–417.
  84. ^ Wilentz 2008, pp. 207–208.
  85. ^ Stoll, Steven (2002). Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America (First Paperback ed.). New York: Hill and Wang. p. 43. ISBN 0-8090-6430-8.
  86. ^ Dangerfield 1952, pp. 178–179.
  87. ^ Ammon 1971, pp. 463–464.
  88. ^ Dangerfield 1952, p. 178.
  89. ^ a b Dangerfield 1965, p. 83.
  90. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 82–83.
  91. ^ a b Wilentz 2008, p. 207.
  92. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 83–86.
  93. ^ Ammon 2002.
  94. ^ Hammond 1957, pp. 266–267.
  95. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 84–86.
  96. ^ Dangerfield 1952, p. 187.
  97. ^ Catterall, Ralph C. H. The Second Bank of the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1960. Print.
  98. ^ Rothbard 1962, p. 13.
  99. ^ a b Hammond 1947, p. 151.
  100. ^ a b Parsons 2009, p. 60.
  101. ^ Dangerfield 1965, p. 84.
  102. ^ Dangerfield 1965, pp. 85–86.
  103. ^ Dangerfield 1965, p. 89.
  104. ^ Hammond 1947, p. 153.
  105. ^ Hammond 1957, pp. 275–276.
  106. ^ Hammond 1957, p. 276.
  107. ^ a b Murray N. Rothbard. A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II. ISBN 0-945466-33-1
  108. ^ Rothbard 1962, p. 113.
  109. ^ a b Rothbard 1962, p. 137.
  110. ^ Haulman, Clyde A. (Winter 2010). (PDF). Financial History. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 5, 2018. Retrieved July 5, 2019.
  111. ^ Rothbard 1962, pp. 13, 23.
  112. ^ a b Remini, Robert V. (February 1986). "Texas Must be Ours". American Heritage. 37 (2).
  113. ^ "Mises Institute" (PDF).
  114. ^ Panic of 1819 – Ohio History Central – A product of the Ohio Historical Society
  115. ^ Haulman, Clyde (2002). "Virginia Commodity Prices during the Panic of 1819". Journal of the Early Republic. 22 (4): 675–88. doi:10.2307/3124762. JSTOR 3124762.

See also edit

References edit

Cited in footnotes edit

Further reading edit

  • Browning, Andrew H. (2019). The Panic of 1819: The First Great Depression. University of Missouri. ISBN 978-0826221834. online review
  • Cayton, Andrew R. L. (1982). "The Fragmentation of 'A Great Family': The Panic of 1819 and the Rise of the Middling Interest in Boston, 1818-1822". Journal of the Early Republic. 2 (2): 143–167. doi:10.2307/3122690. JSTOR 3122690.
  • Blackson, Robert M. (1989). "Pennsylvania Banks and the Panic of 1819: A Reinterpretation". Journal of the Early Republic. 9 (3): 335–358. doi:10.2307/3123593. JSTOR 3123593.
  • Sobel, Robert (1988). Panic on Wall Street: A Classic History of America's Financial Disasters. New York: Dutton. ISBN 0-525-48404-3.

External links edit

  • Murray N. Rothbard. Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies

panic, 1819, redirects, here, 1962, book, murray, rothbard, book, first, widespread, durable, financial, crisis, united, states, that, slowed, westward, expansion, cotton, belt, followed, general, collapse, american, economy, that, persisted, through, 1821, pa. The Panic of 1819 redirects here For the 1962 book by Murray Rothbard see The Panic of 1819 book The Panic of 1819 was the first widespread and durable financial crisis in the United States that slowed westward expansion in the Cotton Belt and was followed by a general collapse of the American economy that persisted through 1821 The Panic heralded the transition of the nation from its colonial commercial status with Europe toward an independent economy Though the downturn was driven by global market adjustments in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars its severity was compounded by excessive speculation in public lands fueled by the unrestrained issue of paper money from banks and business concerns The Second Bank of the United States SBUS itself deeply enmeshed in these inflationary practices sought to compensate for its laxness in regulating the state bank credit market by initiating a sharp curtailment in loans by its western branches beginning in 1818 Failing to provide gold specie from their reserves when presented with their own banknotes for redemption by the SBUS the state chartered banks began foreclosing on the heavily mortgaged farms and business properties they had financed The ensuing financial panic in conjunction with a sudden recovery in European agricultural production in 1817 led to widespread bankruptcies and mass unemployment The financial disaster and recession provoked popular resentment against banking and business enterprise along with a general belief that federal government economic policy was fundamentally flawed Americans many for the first time became politically engaged so as to defend their local economic interests 1 2 The New Republicans and their American System 3 tariff protection internal improvements and the SBUS were exposed to sharp criticism eliciting a vigorous defense Contents 1 Post war European readjustments and the American economy 1815 1818 2 Unregulated banking and the imperatives of Republican enterprise 3 Resurrection of the Bank of the United States 3 1 The American System 3 2 Astor Girard Parish 3 3 Neofederalist expectations for the central bank 4 Prelude to panic 1816 1818 4 1 Setbacks and compromises for the Second Bank of the United States 4 2 Second Bank of the United States branch office lending and the frontier land boom 5 Panic precipitated 73 5 1 BUS reaction to the Panic 5 2 Culpability of the BUS in the Panic 6 Responses to the crisis 7 Long term impacts 8 Economic interpretations 9 Notes 10 See also 11 References 11 1 Cited in footnotes 12 Further reading 13 External linksPost war European readjustments and the American economy 1815 1818 editThe United States and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24 1814 ending the War of 1812 4 The British government effectively relinquished its effort to impose mercantilist policies on the United States preparing the way for the development of free trade and the opening of America s vast western frontier 5 Europe was undergoing a period of disorganization as it readjusted to peacetime production and commerce in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars The general effect was a decline in prices throughout the Western world due to a scarcity of gold and silver specie 6 Britain had advanced its industrial capacity to fully meet its wartime demands but post war continental Europe was temporarily too devastated to absorb Britain s surplus manufactured goods Moreover European agriculture production exhausted by years of warfare was unable to feed its own population 6 The economy of the United States was not immune to the chaos that afflicted Europe which contributed to the Panic of 1819 6 7 American manufacturers faced U S markets swamped with British products produced by low paid workers and priced well below competitive rates and forcing many factories out of business 8 9 Continental Europe its agrarian output crippled by the recent war offered new markets for American staple crops particularly cotton wheat corn and tobacco 10 11 As prices soared for agricultural goods a speculative agrarian land boom ensued in the South and West United States 12 encouraged by liberal terms for government public land sales 13 14 The entire postwar American economy observed historian George Dangerfield was based on a land boom The inflationary bubble grew from 1815 to 1818 obscuring the general deflationary trends in world prices 15 Unregulated banking and the imperatives of Republican enterprise editWith the failure to recharter the First Bank of the United States in 1811 16 regulatory influence over state banks ceased Credit friendly Republicans entrepreneurs bankers farmers adapted laissez faire financial principles to the precepts of Jeffersonian political libertarianism 17 equating land speculation with rugged individualism 18 and the frontier spirit 19 20 Private banking interests and their allies sought to evade or resist any threat to the profitability of their local enterprises including the regulatory influence of a government bank limiting easy credit 21 22 There followed an enormous expansion in state chartered banking 9 with chartered institutions increasing from 88 in 1811 to 208 in 1815 mostly in the mid Atlantic states 23 24 During the War of 1812 1812 1815 with the United Kingdom the American government turned to these new banks for loans encouraging a proliferation of paper money 25 This practice tended to shift specie into the more conservatively lending New England banking apparatus depleting the newer banks of their hard money reserves 26 In response the U S government acquiesced in a suspension of specie payments from state banks in order to prolong the liberal wartime lending The arrangement persisted in the war s aftermath allowing old and new banks to profitably lend without regard to their hard money currency reserves 23 27 28 A speculative bubble formed as a result of these inflationary practices threatening the health of the economy 25 27 29 By 1814 calls for a new central bank and a resumption of regulatory controls were heard from powerful capitalists and economic nationalists in the Republican party leadership 30 Resurrection of the Bank of the United States editThe American System edit The Democratic Republican party found itself in control of the national government with the collapse of the Federalist party at the end of the War of 1812 31 Some of the traditional Jeffersonian agrarian precepts especially strict construction of the Constitution had softened due to difficulties during the war arising from a lack of infrastructure unregulated banking and a shortage of manufactured material as well as the prospect of developing the vast natural resources with westward expansion 32 A mild nationalist outlook took hold among the New Republicans 33 neofederalists led by Speaker of the House Henry Clay and Congressman John C Calhoun 18 34 A three part program dubbed the American System incorporating some of the Hamiltonian projects championed by the Federalists proposed to create a stable economy through a centralized banking system stimulated by an ever widening web of transportation and communication through which domestic manufactures could eventually reach all parts of the Union 8 Advocates of the American System called for a protective tariff to encourage manufacturing a federally funded program for internal improvements and a revival of the First Bank of the United States to regulate finance 32 Astor Girard Parish edit In the crucible of the War of 1812 the Treasury of the United States had been compelled to offer 16 million in government war bonds in order to stave off bankruptcy due to military costs and wartime loss of revenue 34 Financier Stephen Girard business magnate John Jacob Astor and merchant David Parish bought up these government securities and rescued the nation s credit 31 Through their influence and in alliance with Republican Congressmen John C Calhoun and Henry Clay 35 they sought to augment their investment by proposing that the securities be exchangeable for stock in a new central bank the Second Bank of the United States SBUS 34 36 Secretary of State James Monroe supported the new bank initiative 37 38 wishing to bind these highly regarded and pro Republican business figures to government financial operations 39 40 Republicans in the South and West joined with monied interests in the mid Atlantic states Pro SBUS Congressman John C Calhoun argued forcefully that the federal government had a constitutional obligation to regulate bank credit as part of the national money supply 41 In January 1816 he introduced a bill of incorporation in the House of Representatives for a government bank which would become the Second Bank of the United States 42 The measure was passed by Congress and signed by President James Madison in April 1816 43 44 Opposition to the Bank came from two fronts the orthodox Tertium quids or Old Republicans who reflexively regarded an enlargement of the central government as an assault on personal liberty and a violation of Jeffersonian agrarianism 45 46 and state chartered private banking interests who favored paper money but considered federal regulation of local banking operations to be anti Republican These ideologies and interests would be arrayed against the central bank during the Andrew Jackson administration 1829 1837 erupting in a Bank War that would destroy the institution by 1833 47 The Second Bank of the United States began operations in January 1817 under a twenty year charter 27 48 Neofederalist expectations for the central bank edit The revival of the Bank of the United States had two primary objectives first to reverse the post war inflationary practices of state chartered banks by inducing resumption of convertibility and second to expand the opportunities for the common man to acquire bank credit promoting enterprise and an orderly and profitable westward expansion 27 49 50 The regulatory mechanism of the SBUS resided in its fiscal duties as depository for the U S Department of the Treasury As such the bank accepted circulating state bank paper money from individuals businesses and importers when they paid taxes or custom duty fees 50 The central bank immediately credited these payments to the U S Treasury with its own metallic reserves The SBUS in turn anticipated that the state banks which had issued the paper money would upon demand redeem their currency with gold and silver convertibility reimbursing the government bank 27 21 In order to remain solvent the state banks would ideally constrain their lending of paper money however profitable so as not to allow the SBUS to become a significant creditor and deplete their specie reserves Failing this the Second Bank of the United States would in theory cease to honor the banknotes of those financial institutions that refused to promptly settle their government accounts with hard money a recipe for bankruptcy 28 The central bank s direct influence on inflationary lending was limited to those chartered banks whose paper currency was extensively used to remit funds to the government i e tax and duty payments 51 The SBUS and its branches had little or no direct control over commercial paper emitted by unchartered lending outfits All that was necessary to start a bank was plates presses and paper a church a tavern a blacksmith shop would be a suitable site 52 These unregulated credit operations would to some extent interpenetrate the regulated banking system especially in the regions of wildcat banking 53 Prelude to panic 1816 1818 editPresident of the United States James Madison and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Dallas fully approved the elevation of William Jones one of the federally appointed Bank directors to SBUS President in October 1816 27 Jones formerly a member of Madison s cabinet owed his promotion more to his political acumen than his skills as a banker 54 12 55 Financier and co director Stephen Girard was troubled at Jones promotion concerned that he could never provide disinterested leadership for the bank and businessman John Jacob Astor doubted Jones ability to wield the bank s regulatory powers effectively 12 56 Jones extended the institution s resources liberally in accordance with the post war national exuberance 57 generating large dividends for its stockholders 58 His administration of the bank resonated with Secretary Crawford s lenient policy with regard to public land receipts in the form of chartered bank script when specie was scarce nationally 59 Setbacks and compromises for the Second Bank of the United States edit The Second Bank of the United States began operations in January 1817 60 as fiscal agent of the United States Treasury After February 20 1817 the SBUS was scheduled to begin to receive all government revenue in legal tender as required by its charter 7 Hard money shortages prevailed because U S exports exceeded imports 61 and Peruvian and Mexican gold and silver sources failed to replenish specie reserves 12 Due to this scarcity the terms of the bank s incorporation provided for private subscribers to invest with a combination of metallic currency and government stock Further they were granted an indulgence by Bank directors that effectively waived the specie requirement ultimately investors were allowed to purchase Bank shares on the security of the stock itself 62 63 Under its charter guidelines the SBUS was expected to acquire specie totaling 28 million by the time it opened for business but with only 2 million secured when it commenced operations the bank was compelled to purchase specie at usurious rates from the London financial markets in 1817 and 1818 overburdening SBUS credit 64 As the February 20 deadline approached to resume convertibility the private i e state chartered 65 banks withheld cooperation from SBUS officials loath to submit to the regulatory influence of the central bank and diminish the large profits derived from the issue of unredeemable paper 28 21 On February 1 1817 an association of bankers from Pennsylvania New York Maryland and Virginia met with the new Secretary of the Treasury William H Crawford and SBUS President William Jones arranging a compromise which undermined the ability of the central bank to assert its role as creditor to the private banks 28 The directors of the SBUS with Secretary Crawford s imprimatur promised to refrain from collecting public deposits held in state banks until July 1 1817 Moreover they agreed to greatly expand the bank s credit at a discount of 6 million before proceeding to collect public debt from the state institutions In effect the central bank transformed the private banks into its creditors inviting them to draw specie from SBUS reserves months before the Bank of the United States assumed its regulatory functions 66 67 Under these ominous terms the bank was launched its operational success already at risk 56 Second Bank of the United States branch office lending and the frontier land boom edit The eighteen branch offices of the SBUS in 1817 operated with little oversight from the Philadelphia headquarters nor from the U S Treasury 68 69 This policy stemmed in part from a social philosophy that prevailed among Republicans during the Era of Good Feelings which wished to Republicanize credit practices and encourage westward migration 57 70 The United States government encouraged settlement of these lands by offering public land at 2 per acre 160 acre minimum though auctioneering tended to retard sales and raised prices slightly 71 The terms required a down payment of one fourth of the total cost and the balance in four annual payments Failure to pay in full in five years meant forfeiture 13 72 73 Public land debt ballooned from 3 million in 1815 to 17 million in 1818 51 The U S Treasury accepted land payments in the form of banknotes issued by western and southern state banks These institutions often lacked sufficient specie reserves to back up their vastly over extended credit 13 As long as the land boom continued the Treasury Department was compelled to accept depreciated banknotes for its public land sales undermining government efforts to pay down the war debt but serving to stave off private bank failures 60 67 As the branch offices in the West and Southwest over issued their SBUS notes to land boom farmers and speculators they sought to restock their specie reserves by redeeming their own notes for hard money at the SBUS branch offices in the North and East to fuel another cycle of excessive lending 61 The SBUS branch banks emulating their wildcat counterparts injected so much of their own paper money into circulation that they negated their regulatory capacity they could not with impunity demand specie payments from state banks that held public deposits without being presented with their own script for convertibility in return 74 Prior to the Panic these precarious economic conditions a manifestation of rapid expansion speculation and wildcat banking 75 76 prevailed in the South and West where the economic collapse would be most severe 52 77 By July 1818 the Second Bank of the United States had demand liabilities exceeding 22 4 million whereas its specie fund stood at 2 4 million a 10 1 ratio 48 and double the 5 1 ratio considered sustainable 78 79 Panic precipitated 73 editThe onset of the financial panic has been variously described as triggered pricked or precipitated 80 76 81 by the Second Bank of the United States when it initiated a sharp credit contraction beginning in the summer of 1818 74 The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 had created the Year Without a Summer causing European agriculture to fail that year The link between the frontier land boom and overseas markets for staple goods was dramatically revealed in 1817 when Europe finally recovered from its post war harvest shortages and began producing bumper crops 9 82 American planters and farmers who had expanded production to exploit the European demand discovered agricultural prices declining by half even as production increased 83 12 Southwestern plantations were devastated when Britain began to increase its imports of East India cotton as a means to avoid purchasing the high priced U S cotton 84 India enjoyed not only a longer growing season and lower cost of freight to Britain but also more cotton devoted land than the entire Louisiana Purchase Tench Coxe a Pennsylvanian political economist and delegate to the Continental Congress warned of the substantial evil exhibited in the rivalry created by foreign competition Coxe has been dubbed by many as the father of the American cotton industry 85 Cotton value began to waver in 1818 threatening to burst the speculative bubble 12 A general contraction in lending was indicated in response to these developments in Europe 86 10 87 In August 1818 with credit dangerously overextended BUS branch offices began to reject all state chartered banknotes under the direction of William Jones Exceptions were made for notes used as revenue payments to the U S Treasury 74 67 88 In October 1818 the U S Treasury demanded a transfer of 2 million in specie from the BUS to redeem bonds on the Louisiana Purchase 89 State banks in the West and South unable to provide the required specie began to call in their loans on the heavily mortgaged lands they had financed Cash poor farmers and speculators found their land values dropping 50 to 75 Banks began foreclosing on the properties and transferring them to their creditor the Second Bank of the United States 10 90 When news arrived in January 1819 that the value of cotton had broken dropping 25 in a single day the ensuing panic drove the country into recession 91 Williams Jones resigned from his position as BUS president and was replaced by South Carolinian Langdon Cheves 89 BUS reaction to the Panic edit The limited curtailment policy initiated by William Jones was rigorously applied by his successor former Congressman from South Carolina Langdon Cheves 92 Among his promoters were U S President James Monroe 93 BUS directors Stephen Girard and Nicholas Biddle and those stockholders who wanted Bank leadership that was fiscally conservative and immune to political influence 94 The tight money policy Cheves implemented a principled effort to cope with the financial disaster had the effect of deepening the depression undermining the recovery that was already underway 91 95 96 Through public land debt relief legislation Cheves managed to reduce the bank s land debt by 6 million within a year of assuming his position as BUS President Specie was also replenished to a great extent increasing from 2 5 million in 1819 to 3 4 million by 1820 and further rising to 8 million by 1821 97 98 As an added consequence banknotes in circulation were reduced by about 23 million within a span of four years from 1816 to 1820 Employing these stern procedures 99 Cheves placed the bank on sound footing in early 1819 100 101 A leading critic of the Second Bank of the United States during the Bank War would observe The bank was saved and the people were ruined 76 100 Culpability of the BUS in the Panic edit Despite the Second Bank of the United States inept management under the Jones Cheves administrations it was not the causative agent in the Panic of 1819 or its aftermath 102 The historical processes contributing to the panic and depression which were beyond the bank s control included the European market fluctuations 103 obstruction from the numerous private banks to federal regulations 52 104 and the widespread ignorance among lenders and borrowers as to the new financial mechanisms that made possible the credit expansion and land boom 105 The bank s role was properly one of restraint so as to automatically suppress the volatility in financial markets but not to prevent these boom bust episodes 99 106 If the Second Bank of the United States had been wisely managed from the beginning writes historian George Dangerfield it could not have prevented the panic it could only have modified its effects 14 The Panic of 1819 was compounded by many factors overexpansion of credit during the post war years the collapse of the export market after the bumper crop of 1817 in Europe low prices of imports from Europe which forced American manufacturers to close financial instability resulting from both the excessive expansion of state banking after 1811 and the unsound policies of the Second Bank of the United States and widespread unemployment Historian Harry Ammons from James Monroe The Quest for National Identity 1971 9 Responses to the crisis editPresident Monroe interpreting the economic crisis in the narrow monetary terms then current limited governmental action to economizing and ensuring fiscal stability He acquiesced in suspending specie payments to bank depositors setting a precedent for the Panics of 1837 and 1857 107 Although Monroe agreed that improved transportation facilities were needed he refused to approve appropriations for internal improvements without constitutional amendments In 1821 Congress passed the Relief for Public Land Debtors Act The bill allowed debtors who owed money on land purchased from the government to keep the part of land they had already paid for and relinquish the remaining amount It further extended the schedule of payments by several years with a discount for quick payment With the exception of New England states most of the country strongly supported the measure Many state legislatures particularly in rural western states passed extra relief measures for debtors Another response to the panic was monetary expansion primarily at the state level In Tennessee Kentucky and Illinois state banks suspended specie payments and issued large amounts of inconvertible notes However most other states avoided inflationist policies and enforced the payment of specie Every state witnessed vigorous debate on the merits of each policy 108 Treasury Secretary Crawford advocated restricting bank credit as a measure to prevent a future crisis Banking regulation was seen as primarily a state responsibility and several states passed regulations in the years following the panic that required banks to maintain certain fixed ratios of capital to ensure their ability to convert to specie 109 A further effect of the Panic of 1819 was increased support for protective tariffs for American industry Vocal protectionists such as Philadelphia printer Mathew Carey blamed free trade for the depression and argued that tariffs would protect American prosperity In general support for tariffs was strongest in the mid Atlantic states and was opposed by export heavy southern states 109 Long term impacts editThe Panic brought attention for the first time to issues regarding debt relief policy as well as poor relief 110 City and state governments began to more effectively approach the public policy reform issues surrounding the poor a classification system was also created able bodied vs disabled temporary vs long term etc Public attention to solving poverty issues consequently led to public education systems Public support was great once again for protective tariffs However when the Tariff of Abominations was implemented in 1828 regional discontent led to the outbreak of the Nullification Crisis The Crisis is seen as a critical precedent for democratic action On a more contemporary note many economic historians today agree that the Panic of 1819 marked the United States entrance into the modern business cycle 111 The Panic of 1819 has also been credited with spurring American citizens to emigrate to the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas which would later become the Republic of Texas and later still the State of Texas within the United States 112 By 1830 over twelve thousand Americans had emigrated to what is now the State of Texas 112 Economic interpretations editDifferent economic schools of thought have offered explanations for the Panic of 1819 Austrian School economists view the nationwide recession resulting from the Panic of 1819 as the first failure of expansionary monetary policy This theory was first expounded by Murray N Rothbard in his doctoral dissertation The Panic of 1819 published in 1962 For many years this was the only book on the subject This explanation was based on the Austrian theory of the business cycle 113 The U S Government borrowed heavily to finance the War of 1812 causing tremendous strain on the banks reserves of specie which led to a suspension of specie payments in 1814 and then again during the recession of 1819 1821 violating contractual rights of depositors 107 The suspension of the obligation to redeem greatly spurred the establishment of new banks and the expansion of banknote issues and this inflation of money encouraged unsustainable investments to take place It soon became clear that the monetary situation was threatening and the Second Bank of the United States was forced to call a halt to its expansion and launch a painful process of contraction There was a wave of bankruptcies bank failures and bank runs prices dropped and wide scale urban unemployment began By 1819 land measures in the U S had also reached 3 500 000 acres 14 000 km2 and many Americans did not have enough money to pay off their loans 114 Economists who adhere to Keynesian economic theory suggest that the Panic of 1819 was the early Republic s first experience with the boom bust cycles common to all modern economies Clyde Haulman Professor of Economics at the College of William and Mary argues that the Panic was partly caused by a decision to call in loans of the Second Bank of the US Combined with the issue of the depression and overspeculation the Panic marked the beginning of a new phase of American economic history in which mature market institutions would continue to move cyclically from boom to bust 115 Notes edit Hofstadter 1948 p 51 Malone amp Rauch 1960 pp 417 418 Schlesinger 1945 p 35 Dangerfield 1952 p 89 Dangerfield 1965 pp 32 33 88 89 90 91 a b c Dangerfield 1952 p 176 a b Dangerfield 1965 p 12 a b Parsons 2009 p 58 a b c d Ammon 1971 p 462 a b c Parsons 2009 p 59 Dangerfield 1965 pp 13 73 74 a b c d e f Wilentz 2008 p 206 a b c Malone amp Rauch 1960 p 416 a b Dangerfield 1952 p 179 Dangerfield 1952 pp 176 179 Wilentz 2008 pp 203 204 Hammond 1956 p 10 a b Parsons 2009 p 61 Hammond 1947 pp 152 153 Dangerfield 1952 p 152 a b c Hammond 1957 p 272 Dangerfield 1965 pp 76 77 a b Rothbard 1962 p 4 Miller 1960 p 62 a b Schlesinger 1945 p 9 Rothbard 1962 p 3 a b c d e f Wilentz 2008 p 205 a b c d Dangerfield 1965 p 76 Rothbard 1962 pp 7 8 Dangerfield 1965 pp 10 11 a b Dangerfield 1965 p 10 a b Dangerfield 1952 p 119 Parsons 2009 pp 57 58 a b c Wilentz 2008 p 204 Schlesinger 1945 pp 11 12 Dangerfield 1965 pp 9 10 Schlesinger 1945 p 18 Wilentz 2008 p 203 Wilentz 2008 pp 204 205 Hammond 1957 p 274 Hammond 1957 p 368 Remini 1993 p 39 Dangerfield 1965 p 11 Remini 1993 pp 142 143 Ammon 1971 p 463 Parsons 2009 p 57 Hammond 1947 pp 153 154 274 a b Rothbard 1962 p 8 Hammond 1957 pp 274 276 a b Dangerfield 1965 pp 75 76 a b Dangerfield 1965 p 86 a b c Dangerfield 1965 p 87 Dangerfield 1965 pp 86 87 Dangerfield 1965 pp 77 78 Dangerfield 1952 p 180 a b Dangerfield 1965 p 78 a b Dangerfield 1965 p 81 Dangerfield 1952 p 181 Dangerfield 1965 pp 81 86 a b Rothbard 1962 p 7 a b Dangerfield 1965 p 80 Dangerfield 1965 pp 78 79 Rothbard 1962 p 15 Dangerfield 1965 p 79 Hammond 1947 p 150 Dangerfield 1965 p 77 a b c Ammon 1971 p 466 Dangerfield 1965 pp 80 81 Ammon 1971 pp 466 467 Wilentz 2008 pp 203 207 Salsbury 1931 pp 332 333 sfn error no target CITEREFSalsbury1931 help Dangerfield 1952 p 117 a b Ammon 1971 p 465 a b c Wilentz 2008 pp 206 207 Hofstadter 1948 p 50 a b c Malone amp Rauch 1960 p 417 Wilentz 2008 p 208 Hammond 1957 p 275 Dangerfield 1965 pp 80 82 Rothbard 1962 p 12 Remini 1981 p 172 Rothbard 1962 p 14 Malone amp Rauch 1960 pp 416 417 Wilentz 2008 pp 207 208 Stoll Steven 2002 Larding the Lean Earth Soil and Society in Nineteenth Century America First Paperback ed New York Hill and Wang p 43 ISBN 0 8090 6430 8 Dangerfield 1952 pp 178 179 Ammon 1971 pp 463 464 Dangerfield 1952 p 178 a b Dangerfield 1965 p 83 Dangerfield 1965 pp 82 83 a b Wilentz 2008 p 207 Dangerfield 1965 pp 83 86 Ammon 2002 Hammond 1957 pp 266 267 Dangerfield 1965 pp 84 86 Dangerfield 1952 p 187 Catterall Ralph C H The Second Bank of the United States Chicago University of Chicago 1960 Print Rothbard 1962 p 13 a b Hammond 1947 p 151 a b Parsons 2009 p 60 Dangerfield 1965 p 84 Dangerfield 1965 pp 85 86 Dangerfield 1965 p 89 Hammond 1947 p 153 Hammond 1957 pp 275 276 Hammond 1957 p 276 a b Murray N Rothbard A History of Money and Banking in the United States The Colonial Era to World War II ISBN 0 945466 33 1 Rothbard 1962 p 113 a b Rothbard 1962 p 137 Haulman Clyde A Winter 2010 The Panic of 1819 America s First Great Depression PDF Financial History Archived from the original PDF on July 5 2018 Retrieved July 5 2019 Rothbard 1962 pp 13 23 a b Remini Robert V February 1986 Texas Must be Ours American Heritage 37 2 Mises Institute PDF Panic of 1819 Ohio History Central A product of the Ohio Historical Society Haulman Clyde 2002 Virginia Commodity Prices during the Panic of 1819 Journal of the Early Republic 22 4 675 88 doi 10 2307 3124762 JSTOR 3124762 See also editList of recessions in the United States Panic of 1857 Business cycle Keynesian economics Monetary policy Austrian business cycle theory Post Napoleonic depressionReferences editCited in footnotes edit Ammon Harry 1971 James Monroe The Quest for National Identity New York McGraw Hill New York ISBN 9780813912660 Ammon Harry 2002 Presidents A Reference History The Gale Group Inc Farmington Hills Michigan Dangerfield George 1952 The Era of Good Feelings New York Harcourt Brace amp Co ISBN 978 0 929587 14 1 Dangerfield George 1965 The Awakening of American Nationalism 1815 1828 Harper amp Row New York ISBN 978 0 88133 823 2 Hammond Bray 1947 Jackson Biddle and the Bank of the United States Journal of Economic History VIII May 1947 I 23 Hammond Bray June 1956 Jackson s Fight with the Money Power American Heritage American Heritage Publishing Company 7 4 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint date and year link Hammond Bray 1957 Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War Princeton Princeton University Press ISBN 9780691005539 Hofstadter Richard 1948 The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It New York A A Knopf ISBN 9780679723158 Malone Dumas Rauch Basil 1960 Empire for Liberty The Genesis and Growth of the United States of America Appleton Century Crofts Inc New York Meyers Marvin 1953 The Jacksonian Persuasion Rinehart and Winston Inc New York ISBN 9780804705066 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a journal ignored help Miller John C 1960 The Federalists 1789 1801 Harper amp Row New York ISBN 9781577660316 Parsons Lynn Hudson 2009 The Birth of Modern Politics Andrew Jackson John Quincy Adams and the Election of 1828 Oxford University Press New York ISBN 9780199754243 Remini Robert V 1981 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom 1822 1832 Harper amp Row New York ISBN 9780060148447 Remini Robert V 1984 Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom 1833 1845 Harper amp Row New York Remini Robert V 1993 Henry Clay Statesman for the Union W W Norton amp Company New York ISBN 9780393030044 Rothbard Murray 1962 The Panic of 1819 Reactions and Policies PDF Columbia University Press New York ISBN 0 404 51605 X Archived from the original on March 20 2009 Schlesinger Arthur M 1945 The Age of Jackson PDF Little Brown and Company 1953 Boston Massachusetts Wilentz Sean 2008 The Rise of American Democracy Jefferson to Lincoln W W Norton amp Company New York ISBN 9780393329216 Further reading editBrowning Andrew H 2019 The Panic of 1819 The First Great Depression University of Missouri ISBN 978 0826221834 online review Cayton Andrew R L 1982 The Fragmentation of A Great Family The Panic of 1819 and the Rise of the Middling Interest in Boston 1818 1822 Journal of the Early Republic 2 2 143 167 doi 10 2307 3122690 JSTOR 3122690 Blackson Robert M 1989 Pennsylvania Banks and the Panic of 1819 A Reinterpretation Journal of the Early Republic 9 3 335 358 doi 10 2307 3123593 JSTOR 3123593 Sobel Robert 1988 Panic on Wall Street A Classic History of America s Financial Disasters New York Dutton ISBN 0 525 48404 3 External links editMurray N Rothbard Panic of 1819 Reactions and Policies Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Panic of 1819 amp oldid 1207770054, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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