A cartoon depicts the intense animosity between Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and President Andrew Jackson. Clay, a proponent of the second Bank of the United States, was outraged when Jackson vetoed its charter renewal. After introducing a motion to censure Jackson for his actions. Clay pointedly refused to include the president’s protest of the censure in the Senate Journal.
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
Symptoms of a Locked Jaw. Plain Sewing Done Here, lithograph by David Claypoole Johnston, 1834
Congress Defies President Andrew Jackson
Conflict between Congress and the White House marked the administrations of President Andrew Jackson, particularly concerning the second Bank of the United States, which Jackson opposed. During a congressional recess in 1833, he appointed Attorney General Roger B. Taney as secretary of the Treasury. As a recess appointee, Taney could act without Senate confirmation to remove the bank’s federal deposits. When the Senate reconvened, it refused to confirm Taney’s appointment––for the first time formally rejecting a cabinet secretary.
To the Senate: Commissions having been granted during the recess of the Senate to Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, as Secretary of the Treasury… I now nominate them to those offices respectively.
Andrew Jackson, Message to the Senate, June 23, 1834
A cartoon depicts the intense animosity between Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and President Andrew Jackson. Clay, a proponent of the second Bank of the United States, was outraged when Jackson vetoed its charter renewal. After introducing a motion to censure Jackson for his actions. Clay pointedly refused to include the president’s protest of the censure in the Senate Journal.
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
