The Origins and Establishment of the First Bank of the United States

In the early days of the Republic, opposition to a national bank derived from fear, ignorance, and a basic cleavage of prophecy. To many persons banks were synonymous with speculation; others viewed them as “aristocratic engines†designed to advance the interests of the few over those of the many. Most important, however, was the discrepancy of viewpoints between those who envisaged an agricultural nation and those who already sensed the embryonic stirrings of a vast industrial economy. To the htter, a strong central bank seemed indispensable. The struggle to establish the First Bank of the United States emphasized the rural-urban cleavage that was to influence much nineteenth-century history. It was also a conspicuous early recourse to implied Constitutional powers, anathema to States' Rights defenders and a great hope of businessmen in a still feeble nation.