Andrew Jackson as a public man Author:William Graham Sumner Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI. The uBelief" System Of Kestuckt. Before entering upon the history of Jackson's administration it is necessary to notice a piece of local histor... more »y, to which frequent subsequent reference must be made, on account of influences exerted on national politics. A great abuse of paper money and banking took place in the Mississippi Valley between 1818 and 1828. It was an outcome of the application of political forces to the relations of debtor and creditor. It necessarily followed that political measures were brought into collision with constitutional provisions, and with judicial institutions as the interpreters and administrators of the game, in such points as the public credit, the security of contracts, the sanctity of vested rights, the independence of the judiciary, and its power to pass on the constitutionality of laws. Kentucky was the scene of the strongest and longest conflict between the constitutional guarantees of vested rights and the legislative measures for relieving persons from contract obligations, when the hopea under which those obligations were undertaken had been disappointed by actual experience. It was from Kentucky, also, that the influeu"es arose which were brought to bear on national politics. Some very early incidents in the history of Kentucky mow the spirit which was at work in the later troubles. in insurance company was chartered in 1801, an obtcure clause in whose charter gave the power to issue currency. At that time the Jeffersonian party wai under its anti-bank impulse, and,'that party then being m control, the power to issue currency would not have been given intentionally.1 In 1803, Judge Muter, of the Court of Appeals, " being very poor and rather supes annuated," was induced to resign by a pension of $300 guaranteed by the Legis...« less