Bank Chartering and Political Corruption in Antebellum New York: Free Banking as Reform / Howard Bodenhorn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bodenhorn, Howard.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w10479.

NBER working paper series no. w10479

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Bank Chartering and Political Corruption in Antebellum New York

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2004.

Summary:

One traditional and oft-repeated explanation of the political impetus behind free banking connects the rise of Jacksonian populism and a rejection of the privileges associated with corporate chartering. A second views free banking as an ill-informed inflationist, pro business response to the financial panic of 1837. This chapter argues that both explanations are lacking. Free banking was the progeny of the corruption associated with bank chartering and reflected social, political and economic backlashes against corruption dating to the late-1810s. Three strands of political thought -- Antimasonic egalitarianism, Jacksonian pragmatism, and pro-business American Whiggism -- converged in the 1830s and led to economic reform. Equality of treatment was the political watchword of the 1830s and free banking was but one manifestation of this broader impulse.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2004.