Both became entangled in politics, and both failed to gain the public’s confidence and establish the independence necessary to serve our vast and diverse country of bakers and bankers, farmers and financiers, and manufacturers and merchants. It took Congress nearly 80 years to try again to establish a central bank.
This time Congress and President Wilson agreed upon a uniquely American governance structure – a decentralized, central bank. To balance political, economic, and geographic interests, Congress created the Federal Reserve System made up of regional Reserve Banks with oversight provided by a Board of Governors in Washington, D.C.