"Immediately after the close of the last session, the bank, through its president, announced its ability and readiness to abandon the system of unparalleled curtailment, and the interruption of domestic exchanges, which it had practised upon from the 1st of August, 1833, to the 30th of June, 1834, and to extend its accommodations to the community. The grounds assumed in this annunciation amounted to an acknowledgment that the curtailment, in the extent to which it had been carried, was not necessary to the safety of the bank, and had been persisted in merely to induce Congress to grant the prayer of the bank in its memorial relative to the removal of the deposits, and to give it a new charter. They were substantially a confession that all the real distresses which individuals and the country had endured for the preceding six or eight months, had been needlessly produced by it, with the view of effecting, through the sufferings of the people, the legislative action of Congress. It is a subject of congratulation that Congress and the country had the virtue and firmness to bear the infliction; that the energies of our people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny, in vast importations of the precious metals from almost every part of the world; and that, at the close of this tremendous effort to control our government, the bank found itself powerless, and no longer able to loan out its surplus means. The community had learned to manage its affairs without its assistance, and trade had already found new auxiliaries; so that, on the 1st of October last, the extraordinary spectacle was presented of a national bank, more than one half of whose capital was either lying unproductive in its vaults, or in the hands of foreign bankers."
Certainly this was a confession of the whole criminality of the bank in making the distress; but even this confession did not prevent the Senate's Finance Committee from making an honorable report in its favor. But there is something in the laws of moral right above the powers of man, or the designs and plans of banks and politicians. The greatest calamity of the bank—the loss of thirty-five millions of stock to its subscribers—chiefly dates from this period and this conduct. Up to this time its waste and losses, though great, might still have been remediable; but now the incurable course was taken. Half its capital lying idle! Good borrowers were scarce; good indorsers still more so; and a general acceptance of stocks in lieu of the usual security was the fatal resort. First, its own stock, then a great variety of stocks were taken; and when the bank went into liquidation, its own stock was gone! and the others in every imaginable degree of depreciation, from under par to nothing. The government had directors in the bank at that time, Messrs. Charles McAllister, Edward D. Ingraham, and —— Ellmaker; and the President was under no mistake in any thing he said. The message recurs to the fixed policy of the President in selling the public stock in the bank, and says:
"I feel it my duty to recommend to you that a law be passed authorizing the sale of the public stock; that the provision of the charter requiring the receipt of notes of the bank in payment of public dues, shall, in accordance with the power reserved to Congress in the 14th section of the charter, be suspended until the bank pays to the treasury the dividends withheld; and that all laws connecting the government or its officers with the bank, directly or indirectly, be repealed; and that the institution be left hereafter to its own resources and means."
The wisdom of this persevering recommendation was, fortunately, appreciated in time to save the United States from the fate of other stockholders. The attention of Congress was again called to the regulation of the deposits in State banks. As yet there was no law upon the subject. The bill for that purpose passed in the House of Representatives at the previous session, had been laid upon the table in the Senate; and thus was kept open a head of complaint against the President for the illegal custody of the public moneys. It was not illegal. It was the custody, more or less resorted to, under every administration of the federal government, and never called illegal except under President Jackson; but it was a trust of a kind to require regulation by law; and he, therefore, earnestly recommended it. The message said:
"The attention of Congress is earnestly invited to the regulation of the deposits in the State banks, by law. Although the power now exercised by the Executive department in this behalf is only such as was uniformly exerted through every administration from the origin of the government up to the establishment of the present bank, yet it is one which is susceptible of regulation by law, and, therefore, ought so to be regulated. The power of Congress to direct in what places the Treasurer shall keep the moneys in the Treasury, and to impose restrictions upon the Executive authority, in relation to their custody and removal, is unlimited, and its exercise will rather be courted than discouraged by those public officers and agents on whom rests the responsibility for their safety. It is desirable that as little power as possible should be left to the President or Secretary of the Treasury over those institutions, which, being thus freed from Executive influence, and without a common head to direct their operations, would have neither the temptation nor the ability to interfere in the political conflicts of the country. Not deriving their charters from the national authorities, they would never have those inducements to meddle in general elections, which have led the Bank of the United States to agitate and convulse the country for upwards of two years."
The increase of the gold currency was a subject of congratulation, and the purification of paper by the suppression of small notes a matter of earnest recommendation with the President—the latter addressed to the people of the States, and every way worthy of their adoption. He said:
"The progress of our gold coinage is creditable to the officers of the mint, and promises in a short period to furnish the country with a sound and portable currency, which will much diminish the inconvenience to travellers of the want of a general paper currency, should the State banks be incapable of furnishing it. Those institutions have already shown themselves competent to purchase and furnish domestic exchange for the convenience of trade, at reasonable rates; and not a doubt is entertained that, in a short period, all the wants of the country, in bank accommodations and exchange, will be supplied as promptly and as cheaply as they have heretofore been by the Bank of the United States. If the several States shall be induced gradually to reform their banking systems, and prohibit the issue of all small notes, we shall, in a few years, have a currency as sound, and as little liable to fluctuations, as any other commercial country."
The message contained the standing recommendation for reform in the presidential election. The direct vote of the people, the President considered the only safeguard for the purity of that election, on which depended so much of the safe working of the government. The message said:
"I trust that I may be also pardoned for renewing the recommendation I have so often submitted to your attention in regard to the mode of electing the President and Vice-President of the United States. All the reflection I have been able to bestow upon the subject, increases my conviction that the best interests of the country will be promoted by the adoption of some plan which will secure, in all contingencies, that important right of sovereignty to the direct control of the people. Could this be attained, and the terms of those officers be limited to a single period of either four or six years, I think our liberties would possess an additional safeguard."