Stephen Girard, Promoter of the Second Bank of the United States

Although historians have described the role of Stephen Girard in the founding of the second Bank of the United States simply as that of a heavy investor in its stock, careful examination of the Girard papers and other recently discovered documents shows the usual account to be entirely inadequate. Actually Girard was one of the moving spirits of the Bank from the time of its inception in the minds of a small group of American financiers until the period of its mismanagement in 1818. Then, as chairman of the stockholders, he was largely influential in effecting the replacement of the reckless and incompetent Jones leadership with the sounder administrations of Langdon Cheves and Nicholas Biddle. Girard was a most important influence in the Bank's early history. He purchased a large amount of stock, contributed to the working out of the mechanics of operation, aided in obtaining specie from Baring Brothers & Company, London, helped determine the form and content of the charter, did yeoman service in the political battle preceding its founding, and struggled mightily, although in vain, to prevent the Bank's becoming a political football in an orgy of speculation.