Trump v. Cook · ¶16

It would take almost 80 years before Congress would try again, and only after an era of ruinous financial panics— the ones of 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, and 1907. These crises were in no small part attributable to Jackson’s crusade. See R. Lowenstein, America’s Bank 11–28, 59–76 (2015). Without an independent central bank, there was no way to contain the damage whenever a major institution fell—no lender of last resort that could allow sound banks with good but temporarily illiquid assets to access cash, no elastic currency that could expand to meet demand, and no mechanism to ensure that small banks issued loans only within their means in the first place. See 1 Markham 168–180, 330–333, 380. It was a system “devised for fair weather, not for storms,” said President McKinley’s Secretary of the Treasury. Dept. of Treasury, L. Gage, Ann. Rep. of the Secretary of the Treasury 73 (Doc. No.…

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