Reply To: Jackson's bank war and the panic of 1837

#15537
gutzmank
Participant

That isn’t all Jackson did. He also put the money in various “pet” banks around the country, and then issued the Specie Circular requiring that payments for federal lands be made in specie. In general, the Bank War had featured intentional, abrupt constriction of the money supply by the Second B.U.S., the pet banks had inconsistent policies from state to state, and the Specie Circular led to failure to pay on the parts of many people who had entered into the contracts when it was assumed they could pay with bank paper.

Unmentioned in all of this was a factor Temin highlighted: a change in British monetary policy, which also had a significant effect on the American economy.

Taken together, these factors all had significant effects on the US economy.