<P> The essential function of the bank was to regulate the public credit issued by private banking institutions through the fiscal duties it performed for the U.S. Treasury, and to establish a sound and stable national currency . The federal deposits endowed the BUS with its regulatory capacity . </P> <P> Modeled on Alexander Hamilton's First Bank of the United States, the Second Bank was chartered by President James Madison in 1816 and began operations at its main branch in Philadelphia on January 7, 1817, managing twenty - five branch offices nationwide by 1832 . </P> <P> The efforts to renew the bank's charter put the institution at the center of the general election of 1832, in which the bank's president Nicholas Biddle and pro-bank National Republicans led by Henry Clay clashed with the "hard - money" Andrew Jackson administration and eastern banking interests in the Bank War . Failing to secure recharter, the Second Bank of the United States became a private corporation in 1836, and underwent liquidation in 1841 . </P> <P> The political support for the revival of a national banking system was rooted in the early 19th century transformation of the country from simple Jeffersonian agrarianism towards one interdependent with industrialization and finance . In the aftermath of the War of 1812 the federal government suffered from the disarray of an unregulated currency and a lack of fiscal order; business interests sought security for their government bonds . A national alliance arose to legislate a central bank to address these needs . </P>

Who supported the second bank of the united states