Deposit Act of 1836
DEPOSIT ACT OF 1836
DEPOSIT ACT OF 1836 provided for the distribution of approximately $30 million of the $35 million U.S. Treasury surplus (from tariff proceeds and public land sales), to state banks on the basis of each state's representation in Congress. The act ended congressional fights over the surplus, thwarted Western hopes for reduced prices for government land, benefited old states more than the new, and diverted attention from Henry Clay's distribution bill that proposed distributing proceeds of federal land sales to the states (which President Andrew Jackson pledged to veto). Deposits were halted when the surplus became a deficit during the panic of 1837.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Feller, Daniel. The Public Lands in Jacksonian Politics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
Gatell, Frank Otto. "Spoils of the Bank War: Political Bias in the Selection of Pet Banks," The American Historical Review 70 (October 1964).
McFaul, John M. The Politics of Jacksonian Finance. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972. Originally published as a thesis by the University of California, Berkeley, in 1963.
Paul W.Gates/t. m.
See alsoAmerican System ; Bank of the United States ; Financial Panics ; Pet Banks ; Surplus, Federal .