Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

It is unnecessary to dispute the position that the power in the 16th section is the old power in this sense, for the power in the 16th section is not only admitted, but asserted to go to the very extent which the Secretary claims for the old power, and no further, namely, to the extent that the safety of the deposites, and their distribution in convenient places, require. Such a power is obviously neither absolute nor uncond tional. But independent of this defi. nition of his own power by the Secretary, it seems to have been overlooked by the committee that the present power is to be applied to divest a right, whereas the former power was exercised over the possession of depositories who had no right whatever. The control of the Treasury Department over the public moneys, until the charter of the present bank, was universally a question between the Treasury and Congress; it is now a question between the bank and Congress.

It is finally said that the power of the Secretary is absolute and unconditional, because Congress have given to him their whole power, reserving none whatever to themselves to touch the deposites until he shall have restored their power to them. This argument begs the question in dispute. The Secretary supposes himself to be an independent judge in this matter, whereas the minority suppose that he is merely the agent of Congress. His power in the premises is a part of their power intrusted to him as their representative. Though he may use it for sufficient reasons, Congress may use it also for the same reasons. The restraint upon the exercise of his power is imposed by the right of the bank, and this is all the restraint that is imposed upon the right of Congress. If the bank has no right, as the committee appear to assert, upon what ground can the right of Congress be denied? If the power reserved to the Secretary, by the 16th section, is neither more nor less than the old power, how is it possible to deny the right of Congress to control the deposites, under the charter, if Congress had any right to control them before the charter? It is worthy of deep reflection, that the argument put forward by the committee, to sustain the Secretary's reasoning, has carried them to the extent of asserting that Congress abandoned the public treasure to the Secretary and the bank beyond the possibility of recall.

Upon this head the minority s'ate their opinion to the House, that the power of the Scretary over the deposites in the bank depends for its just exercise upon the existence of adequate causes; that the bank had a direc and immediate interest in them, and is entitled to an impartial decision upon them; that an unjust decision upon them will be a violation of the charter, and a stain upon the public faith; and that the Secretary's position, that his power is absolute and unconditional in regard to the bank, is an unwarrantable assumption of power, instead of a just interpretation of that which has been given.

II. In the execution of this power, the Secretary was the agent of Congress, and not of the President. He derived the power from Congress; he is to report his reasons for using it to Congress. The act of the Secretary in removing the deposites is neither actually, nor by construction, the act of the President, nor are the reasons of the President a satisfaction, either in effect or form, of the requisition on the Secretary to report his reasons. The exercise of this power affects the public treasure, which Congress directed to be placed in the Bank of the United States. That treasure is the treasure of the people, the custody and control of which belongs to the Legislature and to the agents of the Legislature. The custody of the Legislature is exclusive of the Ex ecutive department. The custody of the bank, as the agent of the Legislature, is equally exclusive. The power of the Secretary is, in like manner, exclusive. The Chief Executive Magistrate has no constitutional

authority to raise revenue, or to take it into his official possession when raised, or to direct who shall possess it, or to interfere with a direction or authority in this behalf, proceeding from Congress, any more than he possesses authority to direct by whom the public money shall be used and consumed. The Secretary cannot be relieved from the duty of accounting to Congress by any order of the President; nor can the reasons of the President be imposed upon him as a guide, nor be offered to Congress as an excuse. The discretion which is given by the charter, is given to the Secretary alone. The order of removal must come directly from the Secretary; and if it came from the President alone, it would be null and void. The power of the President to remove the Secretary of the Treasury is no reason for holding that the Secretary is under the direction of the President in the exer. cise of the discretion conferred by the charter The President may remove the Secretary whether he performs or does not perform his duty. The legal power to do it is as perfect in the one case as the other. The mere existence of the power does not consequently imply the right of direction or control. The constitutional duty of the President to see that the laws are faithfully executed, requires him to see that an officer to whom the law confides a discretion is permitted fairly to exer cise it. A law which confers a discretion upon one officer, is violated, instead of being faithfully executed, by compelling him to submit to the discretion of another officer. If the Pr sident has in this matter, directly or indirectly, controlled the discretion of the Secretary, the law has not been faithfully executed, and his act has been a violation both of the law and of the constitution. III. The only adequate cause for removing the public deposites, must be a cause affecting the safety of the public moneys in the Bank, or their distribution for the public service. Such a cause alone directly concerns the subject upon which the power is to be exercised. It is the only cause of which the functions of his office and his relations to the bank authorize and enable the Secretary to judge, and which is of such a nature as to require immediate action without a previous reference to Congress. It is the only cause which would justly deprive the bark of the use of the public moneys after having paid for it. It is the only cause which Congress could safely submit to the discretion of the Treasury, without abandoning to that officer the whole scheme of public policy in regard tɔ a national bank.

1. A cause that does not directly concern the subject upon which the power is to be exercised, must regard the public moneys as an instrument, and not as an object of the power. To comprehend such a cause, the charter must be construed to give the Secretary an unlimited choice of the objects to be attained by the custody of the public moneys; for as none are pointed out by the char ter but those of mere custody and transfer, the instant that these cease to be the only objects of the power, we are without any I mitation. Whether the purpose of the Secretary be local or general, whether it be to make money dear or cheap, to regulate or to disturb exchan ges, to promote or retard public works, to increase or diminish the amount of bank discounts, to excite or counteract political movements, each and all of these objec's must be within the discretion of the Secretary, if any of them are.

2. That the Secretary should be intrusted with a power necessary to pr. tect the Treasury itself, or to meet the demands upon it, is reasonable. If the public moneys are exposed to danger, he must first perceive its ap proach, and would be best able to measure its extent. He also, from his official position, must know the direc tion which public engagements require to be given to the means of satisfying them. The power, which either danger or the public credit makes necessary, is one that

Removal of the Deposites.

does not admit of delay, whether Congress be in session or not. The action required, to be effectual, must be in some cases instantaneous. The grant or reservation of such a power to the Secretary of the Treasury was necessary and proper. But if the public moneys were to be made an instrument for effecting an ulterior object, no reason can be imagined why the power of using them should be given to the Secretary rather than to the President, or why it should be given to either instead of being left to the action of Congress. That nothing but the safety and distribution of the national treasure were the lawful objects of the Secretary's power, is conclusively shown by the circumstance that the "Act to establish the Treasury Department," the very moment that the Secretary gave the order,not to make the deposites in the Bank of the United States, placed them in the hands of the Treasurer, who could lawfully make no disposition of them, but to keep them securely, to be disbursed accord ing to law. A removal of the deposites for any purpose, except to place them in this custody, would be not only a violation of the rights of the bank, but of the functions of the Treasurer as created by law.

The minority are aware that an elaborate inquiry into the history and practice of the Treasury Department has been made by the committee, for the purpose of sustain ing the position that the Secretary of the Treasury has the right, not only to superintend the collection of the revenue, but to direct in whose hands it shall be placed after it has been collected, and for what purposes it shall be placed there. The minority do not entertain the opinion that the inquiry has sustained the position of the committee. It ought to be a sufficient object on to it, that it gives to the Secretary a power which the law does not give him. The Secretary's asserted power is both without law and against law. It is a further objection to it, that most of the precedents of Treasury practice referred to, are directions affecting the collection of the revenue, which, by law, is under the superintendence of the Secretary. The acts of General Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, are all of this description; they prove nothing to the purpose. Orders to collectors to place the duty bonds in particular banks for collection, are strictly within the legal authority of the Secretary. More must be shown, to make any of the precedents conclusive on the point for which they are cited, namely, the existence of a Treasury practice. But if the practice were, in point of fact, established, no instance has been produced, in which the law has sanctioned it.

The language of the 16th section of the present charter expressly confines the power of the Secretary to the making of an order, or direction, that the deposites of the public moneys shall not be made in that bank; and does not give him authority to direct where they shall be made, or recognise such an authority as existing in him. It does not authorize him to remove the deposites already made there, or to select another place of deposite. He is to order or direct that they shall not be made there, and this order is not to be executed by himself, but by those to whom the general law gives the custody of the treasure, when the place selected by Congress is repudiated by the Secretary. Nothing can afford a stronger argument against the asserted authority of the Secretary to direct in what place the public deposites shall be made, than the omission to describe his power as that of order. ing or directing them to be made in some other place or places. Until the law shall give the power to the Secretary, which it probably never will do, without regulating its exercise so as to make it consistent with the public safety, the minority must be understood as wholly denying the efficacy of any practice whatever to give it, in violation of the plain provisions of the act of 1789.

But if the Treasury practice was known to Congress, what follows? What is the import of the provision in

[23d CONG. 1st SESS.

the charter, that the public moneys shall be deposited in the bank, except that the practice was thought dangerous to the safety of the public moneys, and therefore was to be abolished, unless where that safety itself required a change of the place of deposite? The question under consideration is, whether any thing but the safety of those moneys, and their due distribution, authorized the order: and it is an extraordinary mode of proving the Secreta. ry's power, to show a former practice to that effect, be. fore the charter was granted, and which the charter provision effectually opposed.

3. The removal of the deposites must have been regarded by the Congress which gave the charter as a certain loss to the bank. The bank was to pay for them, and to be at liberty to employ them according to the usage and practice of banks; holding itself ready to pay, on demand, whatever should be required, in pursuance of appropriations by law. The advantage of possessing them was great, and the disadvantage of losing them, after paying for the possession, was greater. If they were to be removed on account of their insecurity, or for any breach of contract by the bank, or to place them where the bank could not herself distribute th m, it is easy to perceive why no provision is made for an indemnity to the bank; but if they might be removed for other causes, particularly if removed to promote other interests, at the expense of the bank, indemnity would have been provi. ded, because it would incontestably be due.

4. The decisive reason, however, against allowing the Secretary to order the removal for any other cause, is that the grant of such a discretion abandons the bank, as well as the country, to the Secretary of the Treasury, and gives him a sway over the nation, which belongs to no other than the Legislative department.

It is not to be doubted that the entire removal of the deposites is fatal to the bank as a national bank. Instead of being the bank of the nation, the nation, by depositing its treasure elsewhere, adopts other banks, and sets them up in opposition. This is the certain and undeniable effect of the Secretary's act; and if he had power to do this, he had power to repeal the bank charter. I, indeed, the bank had disqualified herself for her duties, by insolvency or infidelity, the removal of the deposites, to secure their safety, could only be considered as a renunciation of the bank, after the bank had renounced the nation; but a removal for other causes, however honest or god they may be, can only be regarded as a removal to destroy the bank.

As to the suggestion, upon which the committee appear to place some reliance, that safety cannot be the only reason, because, in case of danger, the removal could not be effected, if it proves any thing, it proves that safety cannot have been even one of the objects of the power, because it was an unattainable object; and then it proves too much.

A cause, then, which neither concerns the safety and due transfer of the public moneys; nor is within the cog. nizance of the Secretary's office; nor furnishes a moral justification for depriving the bank of a benefit which it has purchased and paid for; nor can be confided to the judgment and discretion of an individual, without surrendering to him the established policy of the nation, cannot be such a cause as justifies the Secretary in ordering the removal of the removal of the public deposites, because it cannot be maintained that Congress meant to give him a discretion to such an extent.

IV. The Secretary's communication admits that the public moneys were safe in the bank, and that in the transfer of them from place to place, and in the performance of every duty to the Treasury which the law requires, there was no ground of complaint whatever against the bank. These facts are admitted, because, in a communication which accumulates all the reasons which have

23d CONG. 1st SESS.]

Removal of the Deposites.

governed the Secretary, there is no suggestion of danger to the public moneys, or of infidelity in the transfer of them.

V. The causes which the Secretary has assigned for the removal of the deposites might, therefore, if the preceding propositions are true, be generally rejected as insufficient and illegal, since they do not come within the only description of causes which the minority hold to be adequate. They are, however, deemed to be particularly and specially inadequate, and most of them for reasons which are independent of any of the preceding propositions. Such of them as do not involve any disputed facts, are inadequate in law. Those which depend upon such matters of fact, are inadequate in law, and also in point of proof. All of them which accuse the bank of viola. tion of charter, and claim to proceed upon that ground, are themselves in flagrant violation of the charter, and of the constitution of the Union, which entitle the bank, before the infliction of any penalty whatever, to an impartial sentence of the Judicial department. Upon these reasons, the undersigned proceed to submit the following remarks:

At the head of the Secretary's reasons, is placed the expiration of the charter and corporate powers of the bank, on the 3d of March, 1836. This is a re son which Congress, by the clearest implication in the charter, have declared to be insufficient.

1. By the 15th section, Congress have exacted of the bank, whenever required by the Secretary of the Treas ury, to give the necessary facilities for transferring the public funds from place to place within the United States or the Territories thereof, and for distributing the same in payment of the public creditors, during the continuance of the act; and also to do and perform the several and respective duties of commissioners of loans, whenever required by law, which requisition was made in terms of unlimited continuance, that is to say, for the whole period of the charter, by the act of 3d March, 1817. These provisions of law are in irreconcilable hostility with the notion that, for the mere lapse of time, Congress authorized the Secretary to remove the public moneys from the bank two years and more before the charter would expire. The bank cannot give facilities for transferring and distributing the public funds throughout the United States, in payment of the public creditors, without having the funds in her possession to transfer and distribute. The duty is for the whole period of the charter. The possession is implied for the same period. Whatever may be the discretion of the Secretary as to other causes, he has no discretion to remove the deposites for the mere lapse of time, since the 15th section secured to the public, for the whole time of the charter, the performance of the duty by the bank.

paying deposites, and of owing and paying her bank notes in circulation; and what other corporate faculties concern the security of the public treasure?

4. This cause is founded, morever, upon an assumption that it would be the height of extravagance to suppose it was contemplated by the Congress which incorporated the bank. The Secretary supposes that the charter, "in many of its provisions, is not warranted by the constitution, and that such a powerful moneyed monopoly is dangerous to the liberties of the people, and to the purity of our political institutions;" and that he is requir ed to act upon the mere lapse of time, because he has no right to assume that an unconstitutional law, and a law dangerous to the liberties of the people, will be renewed. But it seems to have been forgot'en that the question of removal is not the question of renewal, but a question of the interpretation of the charter; and, if this is the true question, can it be seriously alleged that the Congress which passed this law meant to include among the sufficient causes of removal, one that depended on the assumption that the charter was against the constitu tion? Had the charter contained an express stipulation that it never should be renewed, instead of its following as a consequence that the bank ought not to enjoy the privileges and benefits promised her up to the last moment of her existence, the contrary would have followed, because the bank could not have an indemnity for the wrong in the terms of a subsequent charter.

5. It is attempted to sustain the propriety of the removal for this cause, upon the further ground that the question of renewal has been decided adversely to the bank by the last election of President. But what part of the charter, or of any law of Congress, authorizes the Secretary to communicate such a reason to the House? Where is the warrant for the Secretary's instructing Congress as to the decision of the people upon a matter of future legislation? By what channel does the Secretary maintain an intercourse with the people that is not open to their representatives? How does the Secretary know any thing as to the wishes of the people, which the representatives of the people do not better know themselves? The communication of such a reason to the representatives of freemen, who are themselves freemen, is without a precedent in the history of this or any other representative Government. The alleged fact is, moreover, an assump. tion, and a mere assumption, without proof and without the means of proof. It is a political inference which the people of this country will never sustain, until they are prepared to say that the election of a President is not the result of a preference founded upon his general qualifi cations, opinions, and actions, but is an adoption and rali. fication of his single will to any extent that he has at any time declared it, and even when he may have declared it in contrary directions at different times.

2. This cause has not, and never had any contingency about it, nor is the removal on account of it, a remedy for 6. Another suggestion by the Secretary, in connexion an unexpected evil. If there is any evil in permitting with the question of time, is the apprehension of danger the deposites to remain in the bank until the expiration to the deposites, by permitting them to remain in the of the charter, Congress knew that the evil would occur, bank until the expiration of the charter. The Congress unless they should guard against it; and yet they did not of 1816 were but a very few years removed from a paral guard against it, but gave the bank a right to the depose case in the histo y of our Government, calculated to ites for the whole time, and received from the bank a compensation proportioned to that time.

put to flight every such apprehension. They bad at that time before them the closing transactions of the first Bank of the United States. They had seen that the first adCer-ministration of Mr. Madison (and it was in his second term of office that the present bank was chartered) wit nessed the continuance of the public deposites in that bank to the last moment of its existence. They had seen that the then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Gallatin, who had been in office for ten years, and who had for twice ten years given the strength of his powerful mind to the investigations of finance, and of practical banking, had not directed a removal of the deposites from any apprehension of a final default in the bank. They had

3. The cause is not well founded in point of fact. The charter does not expire on the 3d of March, 1836. tain of the faculties of the corporation will expire at that time, and certain of them will not; and the very faculties which will not expire are those whose cessation would alone give color to the removal, upon the ground of time. The faculty of retaining the public and private deposites, and paying them in such portions as may be required, will continue after the 3d of March, 1836, in as much rigor as before. The bank will continue for two years after that time to be a corporation for the purpose of holding and

Removal of the Deposites.

seen this, moreover, in the case of a bank whose corporate powers expired totally and absolutely on the 3d of March, 1811, so that all subsequent operations were to be conducted by the machinery of a trust, and by no other means. They had seen this bank expire with a circulation then flowing through the country greater than the maximum of its amount at any previous time, with the usual extent of deposites, public and private, in its vaults; with nearly all its canvass of every kind spread to the last hour of its voyage, and which the just and amicable relations subsisting between the administration and the bank made it safe to spread for the good of the country. They had seen the trustees of that bank pay every dollar of its debts instantly upon demand; and finally, they had seen that demand so much behind the ability of the trustees to meet it, that its tardy approaches were quickened by repeated public notices to come in and relieve the trust, by presenting the notes for payment. And what did the Congress of 1816 provide, or mean to provide, for the occurrence of the same day in the career of the present bank? Did they mean to provide for an apprehension which they knew to be chimerical? Did they mean to give occasion for actual apprehension and dismay, by authorizing the officer at the head of the Treasury to declare that there was cause for them, and by his very declaration to create them? On the contrary, they negative all such fears and suppositions, by adding two years more to the corporate existence of the bank, for the very purpose of enabling it to liquidate its affairs after its banking powers were at an end.

The minority deem it expedient to add a summary statement of the condition of the first Bank of the United States on the 1st March, 1811; two days before the expiration of its charter, and at two semi-annual periods after the expiration, and to name the tables from which they are derived, that the benefit of the facts may avail hereafter, if unfortunately they are to be lost to the coun try for all purposes of present good.

On the 1st of January, 1811, the situation of the bank was as follows:

Notes discounted and loans

Specie

Public deposites

Private deposites

Notes in circulation

[23d CoNG. 1st Sess.

7. The remaining suggestion of the Secretary, under the head of time, is the necessity or expediency of providing the country with a paper currency from the local banks, as a substitute for that of the Bank of the United States. The minority have understood the committee to say that they do not claim for the Secretary a power to remove the deposites for the purpose of regulating the currency. The question is what the Secretary has claimed for himself; and that there may be no misunderstanding about it, extracts from his letter are given, that it may be seen not only that the Secretary has claimed this power, but that the effect upon the currency was the great public and political purpose of the whole operation. Nothing can be more distinctly and literally avowed. "It is obvious," the Secretary says, "that the interests of the country would not be promoted by permitting the deposites of the public money to continue in the bank until its charter expired. Judging from the past, it is highly probable that they will always amount to several millions of dollars. It would evidently produce serious inconvenience, if such a large sum were left in possession of the bank until the last moment of its existence, and then be suddenly withdrawn, when its immense circulation is returning upon it to be redeemed, and its private depositors removing their funds into other institutions. The ability of the bank, under such circumstances, to be prompt in its payments to the Government, may be well doubted, even if the ultimate safety of the deposites could be relied upon. Besides, the principal circulating med um now in the hands of the people, and the one most commonly used in the exchanges between dis'ant places, consists of the notes of the Bank of the United States and its numerous branches. The sudden withdrawal of its present amount of circulation, or its sudden depreciation before any other sound and convenient currency was substituted for it, would certainly produce extensive evils, and be sensibly felt among all classes of society."

The Secretary then advers to the public agreement to receive the notes of the bank in payment of its dues, and proceds as follows: "But this obligation on the part of $17,759,001 the United States will cease on the third of March, 1836, 5 317,885 when the charter expires; and so soon as this happens, 6,474,402 all the ou'starding notes of the bank will lose the pecu3,855,402 liar value thy now possess, and the notes payable at dis6,070,158 tant places become as much depreciated as the notes of 14,587,134 is substituted in its place by common consent, it is easy to 4,835,702 foresee the extent of the embarrassment which would be 2,874,833 caused by the sudden derangement of the circulating med um. 3,583,596 I would be too late, at that time, to provide a substitute 6,552,875 which would ward off the evil. The notes of the Bank

On the 1st of March, 1811, the same item stood thus: cal banks. And if, in the mean time, no other currency

Notes discounted and loans

Specie

Public deposites

Private deposites

Notes in circulation

On the 1st of September, 1811, the same items stood of the United States in cuculation on the 2d of Septer

thus:

Amount of discounts and loans

Specie

Public deposites

Private deposites

Notes in circulation

ber last, which was the date of the latest return before 7,152,786 me when the order for removal was given, amounted to 4,500,527 $18,413,287 07, scattered in every part of the United 322,349 States: and if a safe and sound currency were immediately 448,112 provided, on the termination of the charter, to toke the place 2,963,209 of these notes, it woud still require time to bring it in o

On the 1st of March, 1812, twelve months after the general use, and in the interim the people would be subjected expiration of the charter:

Amount of discounts and loans

Specie

Public deposites

Private deposites
Notes in circulation

to all the inconveniences and losses which necessarily arise 3,792,975 from an unsound state of the currency. The evil would 6,116,776 be so great, and the distress so general, that it might even 81,517 compel Congress, against us wishes, to recharter the 223,442 bank; and perhaps more effectual means could hardly be 1,070,459 devised for ensuring the renewal of the charter.

It is

It is unnecessary to suggest the inferences to which evident that a state of things so much to be deprecated these statements give rise. By adverting to the ratio can only be aro ded by timely preparation; and the contin which the capital of the first bank, ten millions of dol uance of the deposites can only be justified by the deterlars, bears to thirty-five millions, the capital of the pres. mination to renew the charter. The State banks can, I ent bank, and by applying the same ratio to the liabili bave no doubt, furnish a general circulating medium, ties and resources of the two banks, it will be easy to quite as uniform in value as that which has been afforded perceive whether the case of the first bank was, or was by the Bank of the United States-probably more so. not, of a character to allay the all ged apprehensions of it is well known that, in some of the cities, the branches the Secretary.

For

[blocks in formation]

of the bank have been in the habit, whenever they thought proper, of refusing to honor the notes of their own bank, payable at other branches, when they were not offered in discharge of a debt due to the United States. But a currency founded on the notes of State banks could not be suddenly substituted for that heretofore furnished by the Banking in a wave of destruction over the whole country. The of the United States, and take the place of it, at the same moment, in every part of the Union. It is essential that the change should be gradual, and sufficient time should be allowed to suffer it to make its way by the ordinary operations of commerce, without requiring a hasty and violent effort. "In this view of the subject, it would be highly injudicious to suffer the deposites to remain in the Bank of the United States until the close of its corp rate existence. And as they cannot be withdrawn without the action of the Secretary of the Treasury, it must unavoidably be. come his duty, at some period of time, to exercise the power of removal."

These are literal extracts from the Secretary's letter, and no one who reads them can doubt that the Secretary claims the right to regulate the currency, and that he nicant to force one kind of currency out, and, by means of the State banks, to force another kind of currency into use. Can any one who has read his letter, doubt that, if this power is denied by the committee, they deny the whole case of the Secretary? The lever he has undertaken to use, is one which not only cannot be used without changing the currency, but the Secretary has used it for the express determinate purpose of producing the change. But to proceed with the reason itself:

The value of the measure, as an operation of finance, to expel one currency, and to introduce a better, has been already tested, in the short time which has elapsed since the order of removal. The discounts of the bank have been partially reduced, yet the circulation of the bank, instead of being diminished, has increased. The local bank piper, except for local purposes, has generally depreciated, and the paper of the Bank of the United States is a' par in all places except where it is above par. But without adverting further to the incompetency of the means proposed to attain the end, it is an imputation upon the Congress of 1816 to say they intended to authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to use any means whatever for the attainment of such an end. The avowed purpose of the Secretary is to change the currency of the country, and to change it during the very time in which Congress have made a diffrent provision in regard to it. The pur. pose is to be effected by compelling the Bank of the United States to cease lending, and by enabling the deposite banks to lend; by compelling the one to cease circulating bank notes, and enabling the others to circulate them more extensi.ely. In fine, by compelling them all to give him indirectly the management of banks, without any law to warrant it, and to surrender it themselves, contrary to the laws by which they are exclusively entitled A power to do this no Cogress could lawfully give to a Secretary of the Treasury, and no Congress therefore should be presumed to have given it. It is a delegat on of the highest powers of legislation, under the form of ministerial agency. If there is any legislative power which demands more circumspection in its use than any other, it is that of regulating the currency. The currency is the measure of value of every man's property, of his contracts, of indemnity for the breach of them, and of the revenue of the country; and without a due adjustment of it, it is a hopeless effort to distribute in equal propor. tion among the citizens either the burdens or advantages of civil society. A deranged currency deranges every institu ion of the country that has any relation to property. It makes laws, promises, the verdicts of juries, and the judgments of courts, speak unintentionally the language of falsehood or deceit. It gives a premium to fraud, and strips honest labor of its scanty carnings, by paying to it

to it.

half of its just recompense in the false and counterfeit name of the whole. Yet this power the Secretary of the Treasury claims to exercise, by delegation from the representatives of the people, and he has proceeded to the exercise of it, with consequences which are now spreadSecret ry claims the power to remove the public depos ites from the bank, if in any degree it tends to promote the convenience of the people, that is to say, if it so tends in his opinion; and his opinion, with this mighty lever of the public revenue, is, consequently, to sway the univer sal interests of this immense people. And what are the direct evidences that Congress meant to give the Secre. tary of the Treasury any such power? He is not by law intrusted with the custody of a single dollar of the public treasure. His hands do not legally receive it, and cannot legally hold it. His duty is to prepare plans for the management and improvement of the revenue, to prepare estimates of the revenue and expenditures, to superintend the collection of the revenue, to decide on the forms of keeping and stating accounts, and to grant warrants in pursuance of appropriations by law. The notes of the Bank of the United States, against which this battery is directed, he is bound by law to protect, by requiring all public collectors to receive them in all payments to the United States. The stock of the nation in the Bank of the United States he cannot sell, nor separate their interest, to the extent of seven millions, from that of the other stockholders of the bank. The payment of the interest and principal of the public debt must be made by and through the bank, as commissioners of loans. The military pensions must be paid through the same channel. And thus, while several permanent laws of Congress, without any limitation in point of time, sustain the circu lation of the bank, the relations between the bank and the Treasury, and the control thus obtained over the currency of the country, the Secretary of the Treasury, under a provisional clause in the bank charter, to order that the deposites of the public moneys shall not be made thêre, claims the authority to break up the present system, and to substitute another, for regulating the currency and property of twenty four States, and thirteen millions of people. The minority do not believe that a like attempt has ever before been made, with or without authority, and all present indications are inconceivably deceptive, if the result shall not afford a memorable warning against the like attempt again.

The Secretary's plan is now called an experiment. The name is adopted, because it would seem only to defer, and not absolutely to destroy, the hope of ultimate safety. It is adopted, because it would seem to make those who prosecute it responsible for less, because they promise less. Bit the change of name changes neither the thing nor the responsibility for it. If it be an experiment, what law, what principle of our civil associations, authorizes the Treasury Department to try such an experiment? What security does Government afford to the property of the citizens, if the Treasury may try experiments with it? If it be an experiment, what authorized its ir al in a day of unusual prosperity, and when the only rational prayer to the civil ruler was, "Let us alone?" What justifies its continuance, when the first test that has been cast into the crucible with the precious materials of human happiness, has nearly decomposed them all, and threatens to convert them into poisons that will corrode and canker the country to its very heart? It is no longer an experi ment. It has been tried, exposed, and ought to be reject ed. It is no longer an experiment, unless it would deserve the name of an experiment to try whether life can be sup. ported without vital air, or the laborer and his children without daily bread.

If it should finally happen, in the progress of the experiment, that a currency is created such as the Secretary

« AnteriorContinuar »