|
United States of America. Hard Times Token
Andrew Jackson Jackass with LL.D.
1833 Copper Token 29mm (10.61 grams)
Reference: HT 70; W-10-320a
I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, Andrew Jackson holding sword in one hand and purse in other seated within a trunk.
THE CONSTITUTION AS I UNDERSTAND IT around Jackass standing left with letters LL.D. on his chest, VETO below it and ROMAN FIRMNESS above.
The LL.D. satirizes Andrew Jackson because of the honorary degree awarded to him by Harvard. It is believed he interpreted the constitution and being stubborn and obstiane, he used his veto power and was talked of by an admirer as having “Roman Firmness”. This token is from an important period in American history where Andrew Jackson ended the privately-controlled bank which caused a period of ‘Hard Times’ as this token is known by.
This token is described in A guide Book of Hard Times Tokens by Bowers on pages 101-102.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down while unemployment went up. Pessimism abounded during the time. The panic had both domestic and foreign origins. Speculative lending practices in western states, a sharp decline in cotton prices, a collapsing land bubble, international specie flows, and restrictive lending policies in Great Britain were all to blame. On May 10, 1837, banks in New York City suspended specie payments, meaning that they would no longer redeem commercial paper in specie at full face value. Despite a brief recovery in 1838, the recession persisted for approximately seven years. Banks collapsed, businesses failed, prices declined, and thousands of workers lost their jobs. Unemployment may have been as high as 25% in some locales. The years 1837 to 1844 were, generally speaking, years of deflation in wages and prices.
Hard-times tokens are American large or half cent-sized copper tokens, struck from about 1833 through 1843, serving as unofficial currency. These privately made pieces, comprising merchant, political and satirical pieces, were used during a time of political and financial crisis in the United States.
Today, hard-times tokens are collectible and usually very affordable as coins or as political history.
In 1832, President Andrew Jackson ran for re-election and called for the abolition of the Second Bank of the United States. While he won the election, he worked to weaken the bank before the charter expired in 1836. Without the Bank of the United States, state banks attempted to fill the paper money gap and issued a large number of bank notes, which fueled inflation. Hoping to halt the inflation and speculation in public lands, Jackson and his Treasury secretary, Levi Woodbury, issued the Specie Circular on July 11, 1836. The circular simply stated that as of August 15 1836, banks and others who received public money were required to accept only gold and silver coins in payment for public lands.
Instead of the intended results, the circular spelled the end of a time of economic prosperity. The circular set into motion a panic, and the public began hoarding specie. Without specie to pay out, banks and merchants began having financial troubles. It wasn’t too long before the effects of Jackson’s decision were felt across the nation as banks and businesses failed, and a depression ensued.
By this time, Jackson’s vice president, Martin Van Buren, was the elected president in office. The period of economic hardship, the Panic of 1837, during Van Buren’s presidency came to be known as the “Hard Times”.
 The Second Bank of the United States, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the second federally authorized Hamiltonian national bank in the United States during its 20-year charter from February 1816 to January 1836. The bank’s formal name, according to section 9 of its charter as passed by Congress, was “The President, Directors, and Company, of the Bank of the United States.”
A private corporation with public duties, the bank handled all fiscal transactions for the U.S. Government, and was accountable to Congress and the U.S. Treasury. Twenty percent of its capital was owned by the federal government, the bank’s single largest stockholder. Four thousand private investors held 80% of the bank’s capital, including one thousand Europeans. The bulk of the stocks were held by a few hundred wealthy Americans. In its time, the institution was the largest monied corporation in the world.
The essential function of the bank was to regulate the public credit issued by private banking institutions through the fiscal duties it performed for the U.S. Treasury, and to establish a sound and stable national currency. The federal deposits endowed the BUS with its regulatory capacity.
Modeled on Alexander Hamilton’s First Bank of the United States,[14] the Second Bank was chartered by President James Madison in 1816 and began operations at its main branch in Philadelphia on January 7, 1817, managing twenty-five branch offices nationwide by 1832.
The efforts to renew the bank’s charter put the institution at the center of the general election of 1832, in which the bank’s president Nicholas Biddle and pro-bank National Republicans led by Henry Clay clashed with the “hard-money” Andrew Jackson administration and eastern banking interests in the Bank War. Failing to secure recharter, the Second Bank of the United States became a private corporation in 1836, and underwent liquidation in 1841.
|
