The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.
President Andrew Jackson, to Vice President Martin Van Buren, July 8, 1832
This conversation was a key moment in the “Bank War” over re-chartering the Second Bank of the United States.
Eighteen-thirty-two was an election year, and Jackson, having vetoed the renewal of the bank’s charter in his first administration, was set on destroying it in his second. His unilateral removal of federal government funds from the bank and placing them into separate state banks precipitated the formation of the opposition Whig Party.
He won a second term, and Van Buren followed him with a single term.