Samuel D. Ingham (1779-1869), a manufacturer and a long time member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania (1812-1818, 1822-1829), was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Andrew Jackson in 1829. The inauguration of Jackson coincided with the opening of an industrial expansion in the United States and was a symbol of a new government dedicated to the common man.
The Second Bank of the United States, viewed by Jackson and much of the nation as an unconstitutional and dangerous monopoly, was Ingham's primary concern as Secretary. Jackson not only mistrusted the Second Bank of the United States, but all banks. He thought that there should be no currency but coin, that the Constitution was designed to expel paper currency as part of the monetary system. Ingham believed in the Bank and labored to resolve conflicts between Jackson, who wanted it destroyed, and the Bank's president, Nicholas Biddle. Ingham was unable to reach any resolution between Jackson and Biddle but he left office over an incident unrelated to the Bank. Unwilling to comply with Jackson's demand that Mrs. Eaton, the socially unacceptable wife of the Secretary of War, be invited to Washington social functions, Ingham and several other members of Jackson's cabinet resigned.
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