Nicholas Biddle

After Congress failed to recharter the Bank of the United States (1811) and soaring inflation followed the War of 1812 (1812–15), merchants and government figures called for a new national bank; the Second National Bank was chartered in 1816. When Nicholas Biddle was selected as its president in 1822, he became one of the most powerful men in the United States. Although Biddle guided the economy through a period of spectacular growth, President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bank’s charter in 1832 because he thought it favored “the rich and the powerful.”