Tom DiLorenzo on Henry Clay's time as general counsel of the Bank of the United States

Having incurred $40,000 in personal debt, [Henry] Clay left Congress for two years in 1822 to serve as general counsel of the Bank of the United States.  As Clay biographer Maurice Baxter explains,

His income from this business apparently amounted to what he needed [to pay off his personal debt]: three thousand dollars a year from the bank as chief counsel, more for appearing in specific cases; and a sizable amount of real estate in Ohio and Kentucky in addition to the cash... When he resigned to become Secretary of State in 1825, he was pleased with his compensation.

Who wouldn't be pleased?  In current dollars the amount of money Clay earned in just two years would be nearly a million dollars.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln, p. 65

Henry Clay
1894

Tom DiLorenzo; "Clay was a powerful proponent of a nationalized banking system"

[Henry] Clay was also a powerful proponent of a nationalized banking system.  He fought a pitched political battle with Andrew Jackson (which Jackson eventually won) over the rechartering of the Bank of the United States.

As speaker of the House of Representatives, Clay personally demonstrated the usefulness of the Bank of the United States to politicians as ambitious as he was.  He used his position to place his cronies from Kentucky on the bank's board of directors, enabling them to reward their political supporters with cheap credit.  This was precisely the kind of political corruption that opponents of nationalized banking, such as Andrew Jackson, feared.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln, p. 64

First Bank of the United States

Andrew Jackson on equality under the law and his veto of the recharter of the Bank of the United States

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions [but]... every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society... who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, confine itself to equal protection... it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me [to recharter the Bank of the United States] there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles.

~ Andrew Jackson, statement on his veto of the Bank of the United States

(Quoted by Robert Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Bank War, p. 83.)

Andrew Jackson on central banking

[The Bank of the United States (precursor to the Fed)] is a monster, a hydra-headed monster... equipped with horns, hoofs, and a tail so dangerous that it impaired the morals of our people, corrupted our statesmen, and threatened our liberty. It bought up members of Congress by the Dozen... subverted the electoral process, and sought to destroy our republican institutions.

~ Andrew Jackson, March 1829

Andrew Jackson
1902-1903