A PROPOSAL TO FUND NAVY PENSIONS
Autograph Letter, Signed (“Secy. Mahlon Dickerson”), to Nicholas Biddle, President of the Bank of the United States, responding to Biddle’s proposal to make funds available for Navy Pensions.
Washington, D.C: 24th May 1837.
Price: $750.00
About the item
1-1/2 pages, pen and ink on paper. Folio. A PROPOSAL TO FUND NAVY PENSIONS. Old folds, else fine.
Item #256446
A chronicle of the short-lived Bank of the United States and its continued involvement in US Navy pensions.
After the demise of the Second Bank of the United States in 1836, a result of the historical “Bank War” between US President Andrew Jackson and Bank President Nicholas Biddle, Biddle attempted to resuscitate the institution as a commercial bank chartered by the State of Pennsylvania. The former bank's stock holders (except the US government) voted to transfer the old bank's assets and liabilities to the new bank, which made it difficult to disentangle the dealings of the defunct bank with the newly state-chartered bank. This letter, from Secretary of the Navy, Mahlon Dickerson, discusses arrangements for The Bank of the United States to fund Navy Pensions and is an example of it’s continued involvement with the US Government after the Second Bank of the United States charter had expired. Reading in part:
“I have received your letter of the 19th inst. and agree to the arrangement you propose, that for the funds you may place at the disposal of this department for the payment of Navy Pensions, credit shall be given on the Bond from the Bank of the United States chartered by the Legislature of Pennsylvania to the United States…”
Written at the onset of the Panic of 1837, Biddle would fail to replicate the success he experienced as President of the Second Bank of the United States, and resigned as President in 1839. The Bank of the Unites States failed in 1841. Biddle faced financial ruin and was arrested for fraud but was acquitted before his death in 1844.
Born in Hanover Township, New Jersey, Mahlon Dickerson (1770-1853) was a cavalry veteran of the Whiskey Rebellion, who would go on to be elected Governor of New Jersey, serve as US Senator, receive two appointments as Secretary of the Navy, and be confirmed as a judge for the United States District Court of New Jersey.
