A family story tells that some of the boys living in the old Abel Gabbard House in Sand Gap came back in from George Felty’s movie theatre on a Saturday night and explained to an elderly Jim Willie Marcum that they had a sheet strung up at the picture show, and for a quarter you could peer behind the curtain at an old man sitting in a chair who was claimed to be “Jesse Jeemes” (as the boys exaggeratingly pronounced Jesse James’ last name). “What do you think about that, Jim Willie?” After studying about it for a moment or two, Jim Willie replied: “I’d soon believe it as not.” This week marks the first time we’ll delve into a subject in American History that (given the last ten years) I now lean towards Jim Willie’s opinion.
Straight to the chase. The European banking family Rothschilds (which to this day dominates English banking interests) were furious when the charter of the first American National Bank expired. Legends of the Rothschilds pushing for war to drive the United States into debt may indeed have been apocryphal; but it sure was convenient that the War of 1812 began fifteen months after the charter for the First National Bank expired. Sort of like elections that flip overnight due to lopsided mail-in vote drops or lone gunmen being knocked off by…lone gunmen. Some things just don’t pass the smell test.
The Second National Bank raised suspicions in its own time. In an example as to how what we “know” about American History is subject to change over time as new evidence or later events occur; I have become increasingly intrigued by just what Andrew Jackson knew about foreign banking interests and the decisions they’d influenced within the halls of Washington, D.C.? I’m certainly no Marxist but, as they say, turtles don’t get up on fence posts by themselves.
Next Week: James Monroe’s Foreign Policy Big Idea
Shane Morris is a retired soldier and teacher. Contact at sigm11@yahoo.com (Subject: NtC)
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