The effects of the destruction of the bank were widespread.  When its charter expired in 1836, banking was once more committed to the control of the states.  The state legislatures, under a decision rendered by the Supreme Court after the death of Marshall, began to charter banks under state ownership and control, with full power to issue paper money—­this in spite of the provision in the Constitution that states shall not issue bills of credit or make anything but gold and silver coin legal tender in the payment of debts.  Once more the country was flooded by paper currency of uncertain value.  To make matters worse, Jackson adopted the practice of depositing huge amounts of government funds in these banks, not forgetting to render favors to those institutions which supported him in politics—­“pet banks,” as they were styled at the time.  In 1837, partially, though by no means entirely, as a result of the abolition of the bank, the country was plunged into one of the most disastrous panics which it ever experienced.

=Internal Improvements Checked.=—­The bank had presented to Jackson a very clear problem—­one of destruction.  Other questions were not so simple, particularly the subject of federal appropriations in aid of roads and other internal improvements.  Jefferson had strongly favored government assistance in such matters, but his administration was followed by a reaction.  Both Madison and Monroe vetoed acts of Congress appropriating public funds for public roads, advancing as their reason the argument that the Constitution authorized no such laws.  Jackson, puzzled by the clamor on both sides, followed their example without making the constitutional bar absolute.  Congress, he thought, might lawfully build highways of a national and military value, but he strongly deprecated attacks by local interests on the federal treasury.

=The Triumph of the Executive Branch.=—­Jackson’s reelection in 1832 served to confirm his opinion that he was the chosen leader of the people, freed and instructed to ride rough shod over Congress and even the courts.  No President before or since ever entertained in times of peace such lofty notions of executive prerogative.  The entire body of federal employees he transformed into obedient servants of his wishes, a sign or a nod from him making and undoing the fortunes of the humble and the mighty.  His lawful cabinet of advisers, filling all of the high posts in the government, he treated with scant courtesy, preferring rather to secure his counsel and advice from an unofficial body of friends and dependents who, owing to their secret methods and back stairs arrangements, became known as “the kitchen cabinet.”  Under the leadership of a silent, astute, and resourceful politician, Amos Kendall, this informal gathering of the faithful both gave and carried out decrees and orders, communicating the President’s lightest wish or strictest command to the uttermost part of the country.  Resolutely and in the face of bitter