Biography:

Nicholas Biddle was born in 1786 to a prominent Philadelphia. A child prodigy, Nicholas enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania at age 10 and completed his studies there by age 13—he was ineligible to receive a degree, however, due to his young age. He subsequently enrolled at Princeton, graduating as valedictorian at age 15, and began a law career.  In 1804, Biddle traveled to Europe as the secretary to US Minister to France John Armstrong and later served as secretary to James Monroe in England. In 1807 he returned to the United States, where he edited Port-Folio magazine, prepared the notes of the Lewis and Clark expedition for publication, opened his own law practice, and was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1810 and the Pennsylvania State Senate in 1814. As a state representative, Biddle helped to establish a Pennsylvania public school system and to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States, which expired in 1811. He married Jane M. Craig in 1811, which whom he had six children.
President James Monroe appointed Biddle the federal government director of the re-chartered Second Bank of the United States, and in 1822, Biddle became its president. In 1832, however, President Andrew Jackson, who had been a longtime opponent of the bank, vetoed renewal of its charter. He followed up by withdrawing the federal government's funds from the bank in 1833, in a highly controversial move with widespread repercussions for the US economy. The bank's charter expired in 1836, but it continued as a state-chartered bank of Pennsylvania. Biddle resigned as president of the bank in 1839; it finally failed in 1841. Biddle died in 1844 at age 58