Nicholas Biddle (8 January 1786 – 27 February 1844) was President of the Second Bank of the United States from 6 January 1823 to 3 March 1836, succeeding Langdon Cheves. He was a Whig.
Biography[]
Nicholas Biddle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1786, and he belonged to a prominent family. He worked for prominent officials such as John Armstrong Jr. and James Monroe during his youth, and he went on to serve in the state legislature before lobbying for the creation of a national bank. In 1822, President Monroe appointed Biddle the head of the Second Bank of the United States, and he exercised power over the nation's money supply and interest rates. In 1832, Biddle asked President Andrew Jackson to renew the National Bank's charter, but Jackson refused to do so, leading to the "Bank War"; Biddle raised interest rates after Jackson transferred the federal government's deposits to state banks, causing a mild economic recession. The charter expired in 1836, and Biddle served as the president of the re-chartered Pennsylvania branch of the bank until 1839. He died in 1844.