tion of the deposits. The petitions against these measures were seven times more numerous than those in support of them; every where the people convened, to condemn them, in masses which had never been collected, save in seasons of great excitement and imminent danger; the opinions of large districts which had been remarkable for unanimity in favour of the Executive, were changed; and the constituents of some of the most efficient tools of the President deserted them. Of the sense of the people, on this subject, there could be no doubt; seven-tenths of them disapproved of the removal of the deposits; yet, such was the influence acquired by the Executive over the legislative department, that their complaints were mocked, the representation of their sufferings declared untrue, and the source to which they ascribed them, denied by their representatives.

440. Committees from the people, instructed in their grievances, came personally, to the seat of Government, to present their views to Congress and the President. By the latter, they were, for a short season, received with courtesy: but, his undisciplined, arrogant, and irrepressible temper, could not long brook the complaints and remonstrances of those who were suffering beneath his policy. His impatience and anger were displayed in rude manners and captious questions; in violent and abusive denunciations of the Bank, and reiterated assertions of its insolvency. Commanding the petitioners to seek relief at the hands of the President of the institution, he mocked their distresses, declaring, that the failures which afflicted the country, were only amongst the stock-jobbers, brokers and gamblers, whom he wished to God were all swept from the land-that, he had never doubted that brokers, stock-speculators, and all who were doing business on a borrowed capital, would suffer severely, under the effects of his measures, and that, all such people ought to break;-concluding with vociferations "that he would never restore the deposits, would never recharter the United States Bank, or sign a charter for any other Bank, as long as his name was Andrew Jackson."

These undignified scenes could not but offend and disgust the nation. To avoid their consequences, the friends of the President, rather than expose him longer to occasions to which he was unequal, chose to shut the doors of the First Magistrate against the delegates of the people, charged to communicate their griefs, to remonstrate against their causes, and to enlighten and reclaim their author. For the first time,

in a free country, a Chief Magistrate refused to listen, in per son, to the voice of his constituents.

441. After a debate, as ardent and as able as was ever had between patriotism and illegal power, the reasons of the Secretary were sent to the Committee of Ways and Means. The reports of the majority and minority of that committee stand side by side, presenting the strong contrast of subservience to executive will and patriotic devotion. Avoiding to put before the House the only proper question arising upon those reasons, the propriety of past executive action in relation to the public treasure, the majority of the committee introduced new subjects for legislation: 1. That the Bank of the United States ought not to be rechartered; 2. That the public deposits ought not to be restored to it; 3. That such deposits ought to be continued in the State Banks; and 4. That a committee should be raised to inquire into the management, corruptions, and political conduct of the Bank of the United States.

The House approved the first proposition by a vote of one hundred and thirty-five to eighty-two; sixteen members, though opposed to executive encroachments, having constitutional or other scruples against continuing the Bank. The second proposition on which the strength of the administration was displayed, was carried by a vote of one hundred and nineteen to one hundred and four: exhibiting the appalling fact that the Executive controlled one hundred and nineteen of the representatives of the people, not one of whom, so far as the evidence goes, conscientiously approved of the removal of the deposits; for every effort to procure a vote affirming the sufficiency of the Secretary's reasons, was impracticable. → 442. Under the 4th resolution, a committee of investigation, of seven members, was raised, by a vote of 174 to 41. Five of the committee were notorious executive partisans, bent upon the destruction of the Bank, and therefore disposed to view with prejudiced eyes, and to misrepresent all its actions. The Directors of the Bank, fully instructed in the character and objects of the committee, resolved to place themselves upon the rights guaranteed by their charter, to aid freely in every inquisition Congress might legally demand, but to resist, firmly, every effect of illegal search, originating in a design to criminate the Directors. A committee of seven was appointed by the Board, of which Mr. John Sergeant was chairman, to receive the committee of the House of Representatives, and to offer for their inspection, such

books of the Bank as might be necessary to exhibit the proceedings of the corporation according to the requirements of the charter.

7

The committee of inquiry sought to obtain absolute and exclusive possession of the books of the Bank-to abstract them from the banking house-to examine them, in secret, and without the presence of the agents of the Bank—to make them subsidiary to an inquest into matters not alleged to be violations of the charter, but which supposed bribery and corruption, in which members of Congress and directors of the Bank were parties. Other requisitions were made, covering a wide range of inquiry of the most miscellaneous character, including documents which had been already communicated to Congress; others which could not be prepared without great labour, and which were not necessarily, nor officially, in the possession of the Bank-matters on which no desire of concealment could possibly be imposed-and others involving the highest confidence of individuals, not to be divulged, except under legal compulsion, without the grossest breach of faith. These reasons, in connection with the objects for which the requisitions were made, constrained the Board to refuse compliance with most of them.

In two investigations, previously made into the affairs of the Bank, it had submitted, without reserve, to every possible mode of inquiry, for every possible purpose. Congress had not assumed a hostile position against it, and the Directors felt full confidence in the disposition of the national Legisla ture to do them justice, against any efforts, illegally, to impeach their characters, or arraign their conduct. At the last investigation, they were applicants for a re-charter, and they could not object to any latitude of inquiry demanded by a House of Congress favourably disposed to their wishes, provided the result of the examination should be satisfactory. Instead, therefore, of placing themselves upon their rights, they opened all their books and papers to unconditional inspection and unreserved examination. The inquiry was pushed into every matter of alleged abuse, and wherever it was supposed the Bank was vulnerable. Nothing was spared; nothing held back. Books and papers were submitted, and personal examinations on oath were endured, although, avowedly for the purpose of discovering matters of inculpation against the Directors. The materials thus collected, were spread before Congress, and the people, even by the exertions and the expense of the Bank.

But, a very different state of things had succeeded this triumphant vindication of the integrity of the Bank. The hostility of the administration against it had become desperate and reckless, its insolvency was falsely proclaimed-the most beneficial condition of its contract with the nation was violated, by withholding the deposits a majority of the House. of Representatives, elected before the passage of the late Bank bill, were pledged to the enmity of the administration, and had declared their opinion, that the Bank ought not to be rechartered, nor the deposits restored. To sanction this opinion, known, unquestionably, to be opposed to that of the nation, charges of the most unwarrantable designs, and the most corrupt practices, were alleged against the Directors; to sustain which, per fas aut nefas, there was but too much reason to believe this committee of investigation had been raised.

Whilst the Bank was, in every object of legal inquiry, bound by its charter, and willing, to co-operate, it was its right and its duty to resist every mode of inquisition for the crimination of the Directors; more especially, as every essential matter of inculpation, now brought forward, had already been examined into, and passed upon, by Congress. From the measures of the administration and the majority of the House of Representatives, the objects of the committee of investigation could not easily be mistaken. But those objects are exhibited, in letters of light, by the minority of that committee, men distinguished alike for sound morals and cultivated minds. "They think, that no candid person, contemplating all the circumstances of the case, from the first demonstration of a policy on the part of the Executive, hostile to the Bank, down to the recent measures, in support of that policy in the House of Representatives, will deny, that its object was the overthrow of the institution, and the impeachment of its Directors, before the bar of public opinion, if not before that of the judicial tribunals of the land, of gross malpractices, corrup tions and frauds; and that the inquiry, to be conducted by the committee, was proposed to be one of the measures to promote that end. So far from this being denied, they understand it to be, not only admitted, but claimed as a merit, on the part of the friends of the present administration of the National Government."

In what spirit could such a design be met by honest and honourable men, conscious of their probity and of their ability to protect this valuable possession against invasion? For, it

is against such, this disreputable inquisition was directed. The Bank is a mere legal abstraction, incapable of virtue or crime. Its Directors are the responsible agents-charged with a most cruel and perfidious design to bring universal distress upon the country, for paltry and selfish ends-and for promoting these, with corrupting the conductors of the press, corrupting the people in the exercise of the elective franchise, and corrupting the members of Congress. Were they to submit to the charge without a murmur-to admit the existence of a prima facie case against them? Did the strong and indignant feeling, that their characters were outraged, while their rights were invaded, call upon them; voluntarily, to take the culprit's place, and endure the ignominy of an unwarranted and vexatious inquisition? Or was it not rather the natural dictate of proud and conscious innocence to place themselves upon their rights, beneath the aegis of the law?

443. That the Bank had no wish to conceal any of its proceedings, is still further demonstrated by the readiness and freedom with which it opened all its transactions to a Committee of the Senate, soon after appointed; which, sitting during the recess of Congress, had ample time and means for investigation, and which has most fully exculpated the institution. On this subject, that committee thus testifies, in their unanimous report: "They deem it proper to say, that, in the examination they have made, every facility was afforded by the officers of the institution, which the committee could have desired. No hesitation or reluctance was manifested in furnishing any book or paper which was required; and every avenue to a full and free investigation, not only at the Bank, but at the several branches visited by the committee, or any member of it, was promptly laid open."

444. The committee of investigation from the House, baffled in an iniquitous purpose, reported their proceedings with resolutions affirmatory of the rights which they had claimed, and recommending that the Speaker issue his warrant for the President and Directors of the Bank, and bring them to the bar of the House, to answer for contempt of its lawful authority. The minority of the committee, Messrs. E. Everett and Ellsworth, who had throughout the whole inquiry dissented from their colleagues, also made report, ably sustaining the Directors, and declaring that, "firmly believing, that, they (the Directors) are innocent of the crimes and corruptions with which they have been charged; and that, if guilty, they