Gentlemen, let us see what the events were which had intervened. General Jackson was elected in December, 1828. His term was to begin in March, 1829. A session of Congress took place, therefore, between his election and the commencement of his administration.
Now, Gentlemen, the truth is, that during this session, and a little before the commencement of the new administration, a disposition was manifested by political men to interfere with the management of the bank. Members of Congress undertook to nominate or recommend individuals as directors in the branches, or offices, of the bank. They were kind enough, sometimes, to make out whole lists, or tickets, and to send them to Philadelphia, containing the names of those whose appointments would be satisfactory to General Jackson’s friends. Portions of the correspondence on these subjects have been published in some of the voluminous reports and other documents connected with the bank, but perhaps have not been generally heeded or noticed. At first, the bank merely declined, as gently as possible, complying with these and similar requests. But like applications began to show themselves from many quarters, and a very marked case arose as early as June, 1829. Certain members of the Legislature of New Hampshire applied for a change in the presidency of the branch which was established in that State. A member of the Senate of the United States wrote both to the president of the bank and to the Secretary of the Treasury, strongly recommending a change, and in his letter to the Secretary hinting very distinctly at political considerations 366 as the ground of the movement. Other officers in the service of the government took an interest in the matter, and urged a change; and the Secretary himself wrote to the bank, suggesting and recommending it. The time had come, then, for the bank to take its position. It did take it; and, in my judgment, if it had not acted as it did act, not only would those who had the care of it have been most highly censurable, but a claim would have been yielded to, entirely inconsistent with a government of laws, and subversive of the very foundations of republicanism.
A long correspondence between the Secretary of the Treasury and the president of the bank ensued. The directors determined that they would not surrender either their rights or their duties to the control or supervision of the executive government. They said they had never appointed directors of their branches on political grounds, and they would not remove them on such grounds. They had avoided politics. They had sought for men of business, capacity, fidelity, and experience in the management of pecuniary concerns. They owed duties, they said, to the government, which they meant to perform, faithfully and impartially, under all administrations; and they owed duties to the stockholders of the bank, which required them to disregard political considerations in their appointments. This correspondence ran along into the fall of the year, and finally terminated in a stern and unanimous declaration, made by the directors, and transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, that the bank would continue to be independently administered, and that the directors once for all refused to submit to the supervision of the executive authority, in any of its branches, in the appointment of local directors and agents. This resolution decided the character of the future. Hostility towards the bank, thenceforward, became the settled policy of the government; and the message of December, 1829, was the clear announcement of that policy. If the bank had appointed those directors, thus recommended by members of Congress; if it had submitted all its appointments to the supervision of the treasury; if it had removed the president of the New Hampshire branch; if it had, in all things, showed itself a complying, political, party machine, instead of an independent institution;—if it had done this, I leave all men to judge whether such an entire change of opinion, as to its 367 constitutionality, its utility, and its good effects on the currency, would have happened between March and December.
From the moment in which the bank asserted its independence of treasury control, and its elevation above mere party purposes, down to the end of its charter, and down even to the present day, it has been the subject to which the selectest phrases of party denunciation have been plentifully applied.
But Congress manifested no disposition to establish a treasury bank. On the contrary, it was satisfied, and so was the country, most unquestionably, with the bank then existing. In the summer of 1832, Congress passed an act for continuing the charter of the bank, by strong majorities in both houses. In the House of Representatives, I think, two thirds of the members voted for the bill. The President gave it his negative; and as there were not two thirds of the Senate, though a large majority were for it, the bill failed to become a law.
But it was not enough that a continuance of the charter of the bank was thus refused. It had the deposit of the public money, and this it was entitled to by law, for the few years which yet remained of its chartered term. But this it was determined it should not continue to enjoy. At the commencement of the session of 1832-33, a grave and sober doubt was expressed by the Secretary of the Treasury, in his official communication, whether the public moneys were safe in the custody of the bank! I confess, Gentlemen, when I look back to this suggestion, thus officially made, so serious in its import, so unjust, if not well founded, and so greatly injurious to the credit of the bank, and injurious, indeed, to the credit of the whole country, I cannot but wonder that any man of intelligence and character should have been willing to make it. I read in it, however, the first lines of another chapter. I saw an attempt was now to be made to remove the deposits of the public money from the bank, and such an attempt was made that very session. But Congress was not to be prevailed upon to accomplish the end by its own authority. It was well ascertained that neither house would consent to it. The House of Representatives, indeed, at the heel of the session, decided against the proposition by a very large majority.
The legislative authority having been thus invoked, and invoked in vain, it was resolved to stretch farther the long arm of 368 executive power, and by that arm to reach and strike the victim. It so happened that I was in this city in May, 1833, and here learned, from a very authentic source, that the deposits would be removed by the President’s order; and in June, as afterwards appeared, that order was given.
Now it is obvious, Gentlemen, that thus far the changes in our financial and fiscal system were effected, not by Congress, but by the executive; not by law, but by the will and the power of the President. Congress would have continued the charter of the bank; but the President negatived the bill. Congress was of opinion that the deposits ought not to be removed; but the President removed them. Nor was this all. The public moneys being withdrawn from the custody which the law had provided, by executive power alone, that same power selected the places for their future keeping. Particular banks, existing under State charters, were chosen. With these especial and particular arrangements were made, and the public moneys were deposited in their vaults. Henceforward these selected banks were to operate on the revenue and credit of the government; and thus the original scheme, promulgated in the annual message of December, 1829, was substantially carried into effect. Here were banks chosen by the treasury; all the arrangements with them made by the treasury; a set of duties to be performed by them to the treasury prescribed; and these banks were to hold the whole proceeds of the public revenue. In all this, Congress had neither part nor lot. No law had caused the removal of the deposits; no law had authorized the selection of deposit State banks; no law had prescribed the terms on which the revenues should be placed in such banks. From the beginning of the chapter to the end, it was all executive edict. And now, Gentlemen, I ask if it be not most remarkable, that, in a country professing to be under a government of laws, such great and important changes in one of its most essential and vital interests should be brought about without any change of law, without any enactment of the legislature whatever? Is such a power trusted to the executive of any government in which the executive is separated, by clear and well-defined lines, from the legislative department? The currency of the country stands on the same general ground as the commerce of the country. Both are intimately connected, and both are subjects of legal, not of executive, regulation.
It is worthy of notice, that the writers of the Federalist, in discussing the powers which the Constitution conferred on the President, made it matter of commendation, that it withdraws this subject altogether from his grasp. “He can prescribe no rules,” say they, “concerning the commerce or currency of the country.” And so we have been all taught to think, under all former administrations. But we have now seen that the President, and the President alone, does prescribe the rule concerning the currency. He makes it, and he alters it. He makes one rule for one branch of the revenue, and another rule for another. He makes one rule for the citizen of one State, and another for the citizen of another State. This, it is certain, is one part of the treasury order of July last.