Steviebill83
Welcome!
Hello, Steviebill83, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
- Introduction
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- How to edit a page
- Help pages
- How to write a great article
- Manual of Style
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ~~~~, which will automatically produce your name and the date.
If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}}
on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!
Bank War
editHello Stephen. I received a query from an editor regarding the part of the Bank War article asking how the clause in the recharter bill sent to Jackson in 1832 not allowing the Bank to print notes of less than $20 constituted reform. The sentence is cited to your book, which I do not have access to. I think that you would be the best person to address this question, so I was wondering whether you would add something to the article explaining how this was calculated to please Jackson. I see you're not on Wikipedia too often, which is fine, but whenever you get around to this would be great. Thanks. Display name 99 (talk) 02:15, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
Hello William, Thanks for your question. The new semester is about to start so things are a bit crazy, so I'll have to do this off the top of my head. So the question is, how does prohibiting the Second Bank from issuing notes of denominations less than $20 constitute reform for the Jacksonians? The Jacksonians argued that notes of small denominations invariably injured farmers and artisans, who were key Jacksonian constituents. To understand why, you'll have to think of the discount (lending) process. The appendix of my book provides an explanation of how loans worked. Essentially, a farmer could go to a merchant or BUS branch office and try to exchange (or redeem) a $5 bank note for specie. In many cases the farmer would not get a full $5 in specie. The bank note would be discounted, which is to say that the merchant or the bank would deduct a percentage for the risk of conducting this transaction. In the view of a lot of Jacksonians, the farmer was essentially being screwed over because the merchant or creditor was profiting off of this transaction presumably without creating any tangible product or wealth. So if the BUS did not issue the notes of small denominations (less than $20) most commonly used by farmers, then presumably the BUS would not have as much of an opportunity to screw over the farmer. The merchant or creditor, on the other hand, would argue that he was providing a service that entailed risk so the interest rate he charged for discounting the bill was supposed to correlate with the amount of risk involved. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, who adopted a hard-money position, talked about this process in the primary source known as Thirty Years' View. I hope that helped and let me know if you have any other questions. Display name 99 (talk) 02:15, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
- Thank you very much. I own a copy of Thirty Years View but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. Maybe in a few months. This definitely helps. Display name 99 (talk) 12:56, 21 August 2019 (UTC)