opinions, promised, that when the moment for decision, after inquiry and discussion, should arrive, he would concur with the President or retire."

This promise was considered by the President as removing every obstacle from his course. The instructions as furnished by the Secretary were unhesitatingly altered in many essential particulars; the direction to collect information was stricken out, and the agent empowered to propose or accept new plans. Still, they were signed by the Secretary in the belief that the President would be undeceived; and that the time of the meeting of Congress would be so closely approximated, ere a suitable inquiry could be made, as to render any action by the President altogether indelicate and improper." He signed the instructions though he had attained a clear conception of the true nature of the service required of him, which he assures us, "was not to substitute one fiscal agent for another, but to pervert a power reserved by law for the public protection, into a weapon to punish the legitimate fiscal agent, at such time, and in such manner, as to evade legislative and fiscal action." But he signed them, he says, to prevent the execution of a scheme, which he believed would be detrimental to the country, and to the President himself.

409. The result of this farcical inquiry is thus stated by the Secretary: "The plan of Bank agency, deemed by the President the only safe one, had been almost, unanimously, rejected by the State Banks. The materials from which the condition of the State Banks, was to be ascertained, were very imperfectly furnished. No inquiry beyond that, which resulted in the agent's report and correspondence, was, to my knowledge made. Nor was there any discussion, in my presence, or otherwise, to my knowledge, as to the agent's report, and correspondence, or any plan of State Bank agency. If any member of the administration understood what was to be the system of future fiscal operations, I was not that person, although, I attentively, read all that was submitted. Yet it was into this chaos, I was require precipitately, to plunge the fiscal operations of the country at a moment when they were conducted by the legitimate agent, with the utmost simplicity, safety and despatch."

When it was known, early in September, that the Secretary persisted in his refusal to remove the deposits, some members of the Cabinet sought a middle course; asking him to say, whether he would fix a day on which to remove them,

after the meeting of Congress, should that body not act upon the subject? This query supposed, the resolution of the Executive to control the public funds, not only, without the authority of Congress, but, even against the repeated expression of its will; and supposes, too, a claim to power, quite as broad as the President afterwards set up in his protest to the Senate. The Secretary refused to fix a day; but consented to remove the deposits, in case Congress desired it; and again stated his readiness to retire, as soon, as the President expressed his preference for that course.

410. The famous Cabinet Council of the 18th Sept., 1833, was convoked, before which the President laid an exposition of his views, as submitted for the consideration of the Secre tary. From these views, four members dissented. Of the doctrines of this document, we shall not now speak, at large, since they were prepared and adopted by the successor of Mr. Duane, and reported to Congress as his reasons for removing the deposits. This memorable paper closes with the following paragraph.

"The President again repeats, that he begs his Cabinet to consider the proposed measure as his own, in the support of which he shall require no one of them to make a sacrifice of opinion or principle. Its responsibility has been assumed, after the most mature deliberation and reflection, as neces sary to preserve the morals of the people, the freedom of the press, and the purity of the elective franchise, without which, all will unite in saying, that the blood and treasure expended by our forefathers, in the establishment of our happy system of Government, will have been vain and fruitless. Under these convictions, he feels, that, a measure so important to the American people, cannot be commenced too soon; and he therefore names the first day of October next, as a period proper for the change of the deposits, or sooner, provided the necessary arrangements with the State Banks can be made."

We have seen that the President admitted that an independent discretion over the subject was committed to the Secretary by the law. But we now behold him assuming the responsibility and controlling that discretion by the pain of dismissal from office; and asserting, on principles which we shall consider hereafter, a right to direct every officer in the Government, in the performance of his duties, by which all become his creatures and tools, and are rendered responsible to him, and not to the law.

411. The decision of the Secretary was hastily and indeco

rously pressed; the time required for the preparation of a defensive paper was refused him, and the determination to remove the deposits was authoritatively published on the 20th September; thus offering to him a gross indignity, as an officer and a man. On the 21st, he announced to the President his resolution not to carry his directions into effect, nor, voluntarily, to withdraw from the post, which the law had placed in his charge; conceiving that the latter was warranted by the affront he had received, and his duty to the public, which required him, until expelled, to place himself between the .President and his, purpose. On the 23d, he was formally and rudely dismissed. Mr. Taney, who had sustained the views of the President, was named his successor.

Thus was perpetrated, in the most vindictive spirit, the most naked and reckless act of power which our annals have recorded. The sense of Congress scorned-its members defamed-the solemn contract with the Bank annulled the public treasure torn from the legal depositary-the national currency unsettled-and bankruptcy and ruin widely spread over the land.

412. The effects of this measure upon the public prosperity,.. which had been predicted by all who thought regardfully upon the subject, were soon apparent. The shock upon public credit, like the earthquake, was wide and instantaneous. At the moment it was given, the general business of the country was in a state of high tension. The capitalist and the operator had boundless confidence in each other; the Banks had extended their loans to the utmost bounds of safety; the merchant and the manufacturer were employing their proper and their borrowed funds in enterprizes commensurate in extent with their pecuniary facilities and requiring the continued and uninterrupted use of the capital invested.. In this condition any cause producing the sudden withdrawal of the accustomed accommodation, necessarily produced great embarrassment and distress.

The removal of the deposits created apprehensions of danger, immediately, to the Bank of the United States itself, and, remotely, to all the monied institutions and concerns of the country. Retrenchment at all, and rigorous enforcement of its claims at some, points, were presumed indispensable to the safety of the Bank. The extent, being conjectural, was exaggerated. There was communicated every where that uncertainty of the future, which impels every man to seek provision for the coming month, as well as for the passing

day. The capitalists, more fearful, perhaps, than men of less wealth, withdrew their funds from circulation. Men saw that the relations between the Government and the Bank were, thenceforth, to continue hostile; that, between it and the substituted Banks, they were to be those of mistrust; and that, without a National Bank, the stability and safety of the whole monetary system of the country would be endangered.

As a political measure, the attack was alarming, being made in defiance of a solemn vote of the late Congress, at their last session; and, as if with the intention to forestall the opinion of that which must meet within sixty days after the interference was made; and as if to encroach upon its legitimate rights. It was appalling to men of business, who rely for the success of their operations on that stability of those of the Government, which can only be guaranteed by law, unexpectedly to discover, that the commerce, the currency, and the monied institutions of the country, its credit, and their own credit and fortunes, were, thenceforth, to depend on the private opinions, the presumed wisdom, and the arbitrary will of one man. Minor causes increased the apprehensions, and restricted more and more the use of private capital and private credit; and the alarm became a panic, not dependent upon, or to be explained as a matter of ordinary reason. The Banks, indeed, (with soms few exceptions) protected by the impossibility of exporting specie without loss, preserved their credit, and were enabled, generally, to continue, in some measure, their usual accommodations. Private credit was most deeply affected; and the leading feature of the distress was the consequent interruption, and, in many cases, cessation, of business.

The importers diminished, greatly, their orders and their purchases of foreign exchange, which, for the first time, for many years, was at a discount. The intermediate wholesale merchants, fearful to contract new engagements, were anxious, only, about the remittances necessary to discharge those already contracted. Those engaged in the exportation of the produce of the country, doubtful whether they could sell foreign bills, on which that exportation depends, gave but limited orders. The country merchants and the manufacturers were no longer permitted to draw, in advance, on the cities, for the products of the soil or of their industry. New enterprizes and engagements of every description were avoided; and in many instances, workmen were discharged, or a reduction of wages required. The actual evils were aggravated by general ap

prehension; but the alarm could scarce be greater than the true state of things justified..

413. In his message to Congress, December, 1833, the President, thus communicated his proceedings in relation to the Bank. "Since the last adjournment of Congress, the Secretary of the Treasury has directed the money of the United States to be deposited in certain State Banks, designated by him, and he will immediately lay before you his reasons for this direction. I concur with him, entirely, in the view he has taken of the subject, and some months before the removal I urged upon the department the propriety of taking this step." Professing great respect for the other branches of the Government and more particularly the House of Representatives, he apologizes for this measure so directly against the sense of the last House, by saying, "the change in the deposits which has been ordered, has been deemed to be called for by considerations which are not affected by the proceedings referred to, and which if correctly viewed by that Department (the Treasury) rendered its act a matter of imperious duty." This is bitter mockery. The whole subject was before Congress, when by an overwhelming majority, it expressed its confidence in the Bank; and no new circumstance is pretended to have arisen when "some months before the removal he urged upon the department the propriety of taking that step." But it is in his irresponsible construction of the popular will, to which we have often alluded, that he found countenance for this audacity. "Coming as you do," he says to the Congress, "for the most part, immediately from the people and the States, by election, and possessing the fullest opportunity to know their sentiments, the present Congress will be sincerely solicitous to carry into full and fair effect, the will of their constituents, in regard to this institution. It will be for those, in whose behalf we all act, to decide whether the Executive of the Government, in the steps which it has taken on this subject, has been found in the line of its duty."

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And whence came the last Congress, but from the people and the States by election? And how should the present be more imbued with the sense of its constituents than the past? But the President hoped, nor hoped, in vain, that the present had been more certainly produced by executive patronage, and would be more subservient to his behests. Already he takes care to protest against the jurisdiction, even, of the present Congress over the subject, and instead of justify