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One of the few Democratic chairmen in the House during the 26th Congress, John Winston Jones of Virginia lost the election for Speaker to a Whig despite a strong endorsement from President Van Buren in 1839. Later that year, Jones gained leadership of Ways and Means. On May 20, 1840, he reported Van Buren's Independent Treasury plan, renamed the Subtreasury bill. Congress passed the controversial measure, which divorced the federal government's finances from the banking system, and the President ceremoniously signed the bill into law on July 4, 1840. |
