This message brought up the question, virtually, Which was the nominating power, in the case of the government directors of the bank? was it the President and Senate? or the bank and the Senate? for it was evident that the four now nominated were rejected to gratify the bank, and for reasons that would apply to every director that would discharge his duties in the way these four had done—namely, as government directors, representing its stock, guarding its interest, and acting for the government in all cases which concerned the welfare of an institution whose notes were a national currency, whose coffers were the depository of the public moneys, and in which it had a direct interest of seven millions of dollars in its stock. It brought up this question: and if negatived, virtually decided that the nominating power should be in the bank; and that the government directors should no more give such information to the President as these four had given. And this question it was determined to try, and that definitively, in the persons of these four nominated directors, with the declared determination to nominate no others if they were rejected; and so leave the government without representation in the bank. This message of re-nomination was referred to the Senate's Committee of Finance, of which Mr. Tyler was chairman, and who made a report adverse to the re-nominations, and in favor of again rejecting the nominees. The points made in the report were, first, the absolute right of the Senate to reject nominations; secondly, their privilege to give no reasons for their rejections (which the President had not asked); and, thirdly, against the general impolicy of making re-nominations, while admitting both the right and the practice in extraordinary occasions. Some extracts will show its character: thus:
"The President disclaims, indeed, in terms, all right to inquire into the reasons of the Senate for rejecting any nomination; and yet the message immediately undertakes to infer, from facts and circumstances, what those reasons, which influenced the Senate in this case, must have been; and goes on to argue, much at large, against the validity of such supposed reasons. The committee are of opinion that, if, as the President admits, he cannot inquire into the reasons of the Senate for refusing its assent to nominations, it is still more clear that these reasons cannot, with propriety, be assumed, and made subjects of comment.
"In cases in which nominations are rejected for reasons affecting the character of the persons nominated, the committee think that no inference is to be drawn except what the vote shows; that is to say, that the Senate withholds its advice and consent from the nominations. And the Senate, not being bound to give reasons for its votes in these cases, it is not bound, nor would it be proper for it, as the committee think, to give any answer to remarks founded on the presumption of what such reasons must have been in the present case. They feel themselves, therefore, compelled to forego any response whatever to the message of the President, in this particular, as well by the reasons before assigned, as out of respect to that high officer.
"The President acts upon his own views of public policy, in making nominations to the Senate; and the Senate does no more, when it confirms or rejects such nominations.
"For either of these co-ordinate departments to enter into the consideration of the motives of the other, would not, and could not, fail, in the end, to break up all harmonious intercourse between them. This your committee would deplore as highly injurious to the best interests of the country. The President, doubtless, asks himself, in the case of every nomination for office, whether the person be fit for the office; whether he be actuated by correct views and motives; and whether he be likely to be influenced by those considerations which should alone govern him in the discharge of his duties—is he honest, capable, and faithful? Being satisfied in these particulars, the President submits his name to the Senate, where the same inquiries arise, and its decision should be presumed to be dictated by the same high considerations as those which govern the President in originating the nomination.
"For these reasons, the committee have altogether refrained from entering into any discussion of the legal duties and obligations of directors of the bank, appointed by the President and Senate, which forms the main topic of the message.
"The committee would not feel that it had fully acquitted itself of its obligations, if it did not avail itself of this occasion to call the attention of the Senate to the general subject of renomination.
"The committee do not deny that a right of renomination exists; but they are of opinion that, in very clear and strong cases only should the Senate reverse decisions which it has deliberately formed, and officially communicated to the President.
"The committee perceive, with regret, an intimation in the message that the President may not see fit to send to the Senate the names of any other persons to be directors of the bank, except those whose nominations have been already rejected. While the Senate will exercise its own rights according to its own views of its duty, it will leave to other officers of the government to decide for themselves on the manner they will perform their duties. The committee know no reasons why these offices should not be filled; or why, in this case, no further nomination should be made, after the Senate has exercised its unquestionable right of rejecting particular persons who have been nominated, any more than in other cases. The Senate will be ready at all times to receive and consider any such nominations as the President may present to it.
"The committee recommend that the Senate do not advise and consent to the appointment of the persons thus renominated."
While these proceedings were going on in the Senate, the four rejected gentlemen were paying some attention to their own case; and, in a "memorial" addressed to the Senate and to the House of Representatives, answered the charges against them in the Directors' Report, and vindicated their own conduct in giving the information which the President requested—reasserted the truth of that information; and gave further details upon the manner in which they had been systematically excluded from a participation in conducting the main business of the bank, and even from a knowledge of what was done. They said:
"Selected by the President and Senate as government directors of the Bank of the United States, we have endeavored, during the present year, faithfully to discharge the duties of that responsible trust. Appointed without solicitation, deriving from the office no emolument, we have been guided in our conduct by no views but a determination to uphold, so far as was in our power, those principles which we believe actuated the people of the United States in establishing a national bank, and in providing by its charter that they should be represented at the board of directors. We have regarded that institution, not merely as a source of profit to individuals, but as an organ of the government, established by the nation for its own benefit. We have regarded ourselves, not as mere agents of those whose funds have been subscribed towards the capital of the bank, but as officers appointed on behalf of the American people. We have endeavored to govern all our conduct as faithful representatives of them. We have been deterred from this by no preconcerted system to deprive us of our rights, by no impeachment of our motives, by no false views of policy, by no course of management which might be supposed to promote the interests of those concerned in the institution, at the danger or sacrifice of the general good. We have left the other directors to govern themselves as they may think best for the interests of those by whom they were chosen. For ourselves, we have been determined, that where any differences have arisen, involving on the one hand that open and correct course which is beneficial to the whole community, and, on the other, what are supposed to be the interests of the bank, our efforts should be steadily directed to uphold the former, our remonstrances against the latter should be resolute and constant; and, when they proved unavailing, our appeal should be made to those who were more immediately intrusted with the protection of the public welfare.
"In pursuing this course we have been met by an organized system of opposition, on the part of the majority. Our efforts have been thwarted, our motives and actions have been misrepresented, our rights have been denied, and the limits of our duties have been gratuitously pointed out to us, by those who have sought to curtail them to meet their own policy, not that which we believe led to the creation of the offices we hold. Asserting that injury has been done to them by the late measure of the Secretary of the Treasury, in removing the public deposits, an elaborate statement has been prepared and widely circulated; and taking that as their basis, it has been resolved by the majority to present a memorial to the Senate and House of Representatives. We have not, and do not interfere in the controversy which exists between the majority of the board and the executive department of the government; but unjustly assailed as we have been in the statement to which we have referred, we respectfully claim the same right of submitting our conduct to the same tribunal, and asking of the assembled representatives of the American people that impartial hearing, and that fair protection, which all their officers and all citizens have a right to demand. We shall endeavor to present the view we have taken of the relation in which we are placed, as well towards the institution in question as towards the government and people of the United States, to prove that from the moment we took our seats among the directors of the bank, we have been the objects of a systematic opposition; our rights trampled upon, our just interference prevented, and our offices rendered utterly useless, for all the purposes required by the charter; and to show that the statements by the majority of the board, in the document to which we refer, convey an account of their proceedings and conduct altogether illusory and incorrect."
The four gentlemen then state their opinions of their rights, and their duties, as government directors—that they were devised as instruments for the attainment of public objects—that they were public directors, not elected by stockholders, but appointed by the President and Senate—that their duties were not merely to represent a moneyed interest and promote the largest dividend for stockholders, but also to guard all the public and political interest of the government in an institution so largely sharing its support and so deeply interested in its safe and honorable management. And in support of this opinion of their duties they quoted the authority of Gen. Hamilton, founder of the first bank of the United States; and that of Mr. Alexander Dallas, founder of the second and present bank; showing that each of them, and at the time of establishing the two banks respectively, considered the government directors as public officers, bound to watch over the operations of the bank, to oppose all malpractices, and to report them to the government whenever they occurred. And they thus quoted the opinions of those two gentlemen:
"In the celebrated report of Alexander Hamilton, in 1790, that eminent statesman and financier, although then impressed with a persuasion that the government of the country might well leave the management of a national bank to 'the keen, steady, and, as it were, magnetic sense of their own interest,' existing among the private stockholders, yet holds the following remarkable and pregnant language: 'If the paper of a bank is permitted to insinuate itself into all the revenues and receipts of a country; if it is even to be tolerated as the substitute for gold and silver, in all the transactions of business; it becomes, in either view, a national concern of the first magnitude. As such, the ordinary rules of prudence require that the government should possess the means of ascertaining, whenever it thinks fit, that so delicate a trust is executed with fidelity and care. A right of this nature is not only desirable, as it respects the government, but it ought to be equally so to all those concerned in the institution, as an additional title to public and private confidence, and as a thing which can only be formidable to practices that imply mismanagement.'
"In the letter addressed by Alexander James Dallas, the author of the existing bank, to the chairman of the committee on a national currency, in 1815, the sentiments of that truly distinguished and patriotic statesman are explicitly conveyed upon this very point. 'Nor can it be doubted,' he remarks, 'that the department of the government which is invested with the power of appointment to all the important offices of the State, is a proper department to exercise the power of appointment in relation to a national trust of incalculable magnitude. The national bank ought not to be regarded simply as a commercial bank. It will not operate on the funds of the stockholders alone, but much more on the funds of the nation. Its conduct, good or bad, will not affect the corporate credit and resources alone, but much more the credit and resources of the government. In fine, it is not an institution created for the purposes of commerce and profit alone, but much more for the purposes of national policy, as an auxiliary in the exercise of some of the highest powers of the government. Under such circumstances, the public interests cannot be too cautiously guarded, and the guards proposed can never be injurious to the commercial interests of the institution. The right to inspect the general accounts of the bank, may be employed to detect the evils of a mal-administration, but an interior agency in the direction of its affairs will best serve to prevent them.' This last sentence, extracted from the able document of Secretary Dallas, developes at a glance what had been the experience of the American government and people, in the period which elapsed between the time of Alexander Hamilton and that immediately preceding the formation of the present bank. Hamilton conceived that 'a right to inspect the general accounts of the bank,' would enable government 'to detect the evils of a mal-administration,' and their detection he thought sufficient. He was mistaken: at least so thought Congress and their constituents, in 1815. Hence the inflexible spirit which prevailed at the organization of a new bank, in establishing 'an interior agency in the direction of its affairs,' by the appointment of public officers, through whom the evils of a mal-administration might be carefully watched and prevented."
The four gentlemen also showed, in their memorial, that when the bill for the charter of the present bank was under consideration in the Senate, a motion was made to strike out the clause authorizing the appointment of the government directors; and that that motion was resisted, and successfully, upon the ground that they were to be the guardians of the public interests, and to secure a just and honorable administration of the affairs of the bank; that they were not mere bank directors, but government officers, bound to watch over the rights and interests of the government, and to secure a safe and honest management of an institution which bore the name of the United States—was created by it—and in which the United States had so much at stake in its stock, in its deposits, in its circulation, and in the safety of the community which put their faith in it. Having vindicated the official quality of their characters, and shown their duty as well as their right to inform the government of all mal-practices, they entered upon an examination of the information actually given, showing the truth of all that was communicated, and declaring it to be susceptible of proof, by the inspection of the books of the institution, and by an examination of its directors and clerks.
"We confidently assert that there is in it no statement or charge that can be invalidated; that every one is substantiated by the books and records of the bank; that no real error has been pointed out in this elaborate attack upon us by the majority. It is by suppressing facts well known to them, by misrepresenting what we say, by drawing unjust and unfair inferences from particular sentences, by selecting insulated phrases, and by exhibiting partial statements; by making unfounded insinuations, and by unworthily impeaching our motives, that they endeavor to controvert that which they are unable to refute. When the expense account shall be truly and fully exhibited to any tribunal, if it shall be found that the charges we have stated do not exist; when the minutes of the board shall be laid open, if it shall be found the resolutions we have quoted are not recorded; we shall acknowledge that we have been guilty of injustice and of error, but not till then.
"We have thus endeavored to present to the assembled representatives of the American people, a view of the course which, for nearly a year, the majority in a large moneyed institution, established by them for their benefit, have thought proper to pursue towards those who have been placed there, to guard their interests and to watch and control their conduct. We have briefly stated the systematic series of actions by which they have endeavored to deprive them of every right that was conferred on them by the charter, and to assume to themselves a secret, irresponsible, and unlimited power. We have shown that, in endeavoring to vindicate or to save themselves, they have resorted to accusations against us, which they are unable to sustain, and left unanswered charges which, were they not true, it would be easy to repel. We have been urged to this from no desire to enter into the lists with an adversary sustained by all the resources which boundless wealth affords. We have been driven to it by the nature and manner of the attack made upon us, in the document on which the intended memorial to Congress is founded."
But all their representations were in vain. Their nominations were immediately rejected, a second time, and the seal of secrecy preserved inviolate upon the reasons of the rejection. The "proceedings" of the Senate were allowed to be published; that is to say, the acts of the Senate, as a body, such as its motions, votes, reports, &c., but nothing of what was said pending the nominations. A motion was made by Mr. Wright to authorize the publication of the debates, which was voted down; and so differently from what was done in the case of Mr. Van Buren. In that case, the debates on the nomination were published; the reasons for the rejection were shown; and the public were enabled to judge of their validity. In this case no publication of debates was allowed; the report presented by Mr. Tyler gave no hint of the reasons for the rejection; and the act remained where that report put it—on the absolute right to reject, without the exhibition of any reason.