It is tempting to conclude that the insider lending practiced by so many of the early banks explains the Jacksonians' well-known hostility toward those institutions. And to some extent such an inference would be valid. Critics of the banking system repeatedly charged that banks were “the partial instruments of the favored few,” got up “for the advancement of their private interests, rather than great public blessings, of universal participation.” Democratic newspapers in particular were filled with this sort of commentary, as, for instance, “the franchises of Banks are valuable to their stockholders much more than to the public. – They have, in fact, the fabled power of Midas” or “Banks are always got up by great speculators, who want to use all the money they can get.”

But these complaints about insider lending were only one aspect of a complex set of attitudes that might also manifest itself as indifference to, or even outright acceptance of, the practice. Take, for example, Rhode Island's response to the failure of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank in Pawtucket in 1829. The collapse was triggered by the financial embarrassment of the Wilkinson family, whose members dominated the bank's board of directors and who at the same time were deeply indebted to the bank.