First Bank of the United States

AP US History midterm is coming up, and it's scaring the crap out of me, so I'm going to summarize as many US economic events and machines up to the 20th century as I can before said midterms, posted here for your enjoyment :)  First up, the Bank of the United States!

The First Bank of the United States began operations in 1791 as part of debates forming the American constitution (and no, it has nothing to do with "Bank of America (NYSE: BAC)", which is a completely private bank).  The intention was to centralize banking operations under a main bank, which would then help smaller existing banks when decided by the government.

Operations included:
-Issuing a standard currency
-Guarding government surplus money
-Facilitating public financial transactions (such as taxes)

Currency
The currency situation was a rather hilarious ordeal which is almost another issue in itself, but ultimately the problem was that the disorganized developing nation of the US didn't have anyone in particular to assign a monetary standard.  But because people needed a place to stash their loot, private existing banks had to make their own standards just to organize their assets.

But since there were several of these private banks, each had a different currency, and financial transactions as seemingly simple as buying tea became virtually impossible.   Imagine that I paid you in euros for a product, which you would convert to yen (as per your bank) and then turn around and use yen to pay for Bob's donuts, who uses canadian dollars.  Then multiply that by several hundred thousand.  Yeah.

Thus standardizing currency under a unified government would speed up finance considerably.  Today, however, this task is performed by the Federal Reserve (aka "the Fed")

Money Storage
Since government funds would be stored in the bank, along with all private cash of the citizens, the bank could more effectively give out loans using stored capital.  This would give a far more reliable backing for that risk-filled business.  However, this would also mean that if the central bank failed, the country would fail.  It's doubtful if it would have made it through the sub-prime mortgage recession we're still feeling the effects of today.

Cons
Obviously there's a problem with the bank, otherwise it would still be around today.  The chief complaint lies in that it completely eliminates any competition in the financial sector, and we all know how much Americans hate not being able to personally control markets.  The government would be entirely responsible for corrections in the face of recessions, contrasting with republican support of state banks.

The fall
No big recession stopped the bank, its charter just expired in 1811 by one vote, only to be chartered and rechartered again later.  As I mentioned before, its remains today are the federal reserve, which just gives out loans to large businesses and prints currency.  Its supporters were chiefly northern merchants who relied heavily on frequent and simple transactions, but eyed with suspicion by southern farmers who had little need for such centralization, and only saw it as constricting their freedoms.

Phew!