on the Secretary, it is reasonable to believe that he would have been vested with powers more suitable to such a high trust. If he had been made, or intended to be made, general inspector or superintendent, other authority than merely that of removing the deposits would have been given him, for this plain reason-that the Government and the country have interests of much magnitude connected with the Bank, besides the deposits of the public moneys in its vaults; and to which interests, if endangered, the removal of the deposits would bring no security.

The Government is proprietor of seven millions of the stock of the Bank; and yet no authority is given to the Secretary to sell this stock under any circumstances whatever, or in any other way to interfere with it.

The bills and notes of the Bank, too, are made receivable in all payments to the United States, until Congress shall otherwise order; and no power is given to the Secretary to prevent their being so received, either during the session of Congress or in its recess, however the credit of these bills and notes might become depreciated.

How is it possible to conceive that, if Congress intended to give to the Secretary a general right to judge of the operations and proceedings of the Bank, and a power, of course, to declare when it had violated its duty, and was no longer trustworthy,-it should yet leave him under an absolute obligation to receive its bills and notes in all payments to the Treasury, though they might have lost all credit, and place no means in his hands to execute his high authority of superintendent, except the mere power of removal?

Wherever it is clear that Congress has given the Secretary a power, it has given him the means of informing his judgment as to the propriety of exercising that power. He has power to remove the deposits; and ample means are afforded him by which he may learn, from time to time, whether those deposits are safe. For this purpose, it is expressly made the duty of the Bank to furnish him, so often as he shall require, if not oftener than once a week, with statements of the amount of the capital stock of the corporation, of the debts due to it, of the moneys deposited in it, of its notes in circulation, and specie on hand; and he has a right to inspect the general accounts in the books of the Bank relating to this statement. This statement enables him to judge of the solvency and stability of the Bank, and of the safety of the public money deposited in it. Here, then, is a power, and all appropriate means given for the just and enlightened exercise of that power. Confined to the deposits, the power is accompanied with all rational auxiliaries and attendants.

But for the depreciation of the bills of the Bank, should that happen, and for other cases of maladministration, Congress has

provided just and appropriate remedies, to be applied by itself or others, in exclusion of the Secretary. For redress of these evils no power is given to him.

For the security of the public interest, the law reserves a right to either House of Congress to inquire, at all times, into the proceedings of the Bank; and if, on such inquiry, it appears in any respect to have violated its charter, Congress may bring it to trial and judgment. Power is given to the President, also, to institute judicial proceedings, if he shall have reason to believe that any such violation has taken place. But no such power is given to the Secretary.

The proposition, then, cannot be maintained, that Congress has relied, for the security of the public interests, and the preservation of the general welfare, so far as it is connected with the Bank, on a general discretion reposed in the Secretary, for two reasonsfirst, because it has not given him the appropriate powers of remedy in the most important instances; and, secondly, because it has, in those instances, either expressly reserved those powers to itself, or expressly conferred them on the President.

If the Secretary cannot prevent the notes of the Bank from being received at the custom-houses and the land-offices, even after they should be discredited; if he have no power to touch, in any way, the seven millions of stock belonging to the Government; if the power of examination into the proceedings of the Bank be given, not to him, but to either House of Congress; if he have no power, but Congress and the President each has power, to direct a legal investigation into the conduct of the Bank, -how can it possibly be maintained that a general inspection and guardianship over the public welfare, so far as it is connected with the Bank, is confided to him; and that his authority to remove the deposits was given, not to protect the deposits themselves, and secure their proper use, but to enable him to enforce upon the Bank, under penalty of their removal, such a course of management as his sense of the public interest and of the convenience of the people may require? Such a construction would give the law a strange and an undeserved character. It would convert the power of removal, intended for remedy and redress, into a mere instrument of punishment; and it would authorize the infliction. of that punishment, without hearing or trial, in the very cases in which the law yet says that, if violation of duty be charged, the charge shall be heard and tried before judgment is pronounced; and the duty of preferring this charge, and of prosecuting it to judgment, is given, not to the Secretary, but to Congress and to the President.

The contingent power given to the Secretary to remove the deposits, evidently shows that Congress contemplated the possibility

of the happening of some sudden evil, for which either no other remedy was provided, or none which could be applied with sufficient promptitude; and for which evil, removal would be a just and appropriate remedy. The remedy prescribed, then, teaches us the nature of the evils which were apprehended. We can readily understand that threatened danger to the funds was one, and probably the chief of those evils; because change into other hands is the ready and appropriate measure which would rationally suggest itself to all minds as the proper security against such danger; and change is the remedy actually prescribed. Neglect to transfer the deposits from one place to another, as the exigencies of Government might require, and thereby to furnish those facilities of exchange which the charter demands of the Bank without commission and without charge, is another evil, for which, should it happen, the remedy would naturally be the withdrawing of the funds, and the placing of them in their former custody, so that they could be transferred or exchanged by the Treasury itself.

But who can see any connection or relation, such as ordinarily exists between an evil apprehended and a remedy proposed-between such an evil as a supposed over-discount, for instance, by the Bank at one time, or an under-discount at another, and the abrupt removal of all the public deposits? And if no one can see the connection, how can it be supposed that, in giving the power of removal as a remedy, Congress had in view any such evil?

A question may arise between the Government and the Bank respecting the right of the parties to the sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, as in the case of the French bill.

It is a question on which different opinions may be entertained, and which is, in its nature, fit for judicial decision. Does any man imagine that such a case as this was in the eye of Congress when they granted the power of withdrawing the whole public treasure from the Bank? Can it be for one moment maintained, that Congress intended that, in such a case, the Secretary should compel the Bank to adopt his own opinion, by the exercise of a power, the very exertion of which deranges the currency, interferes with the industry of the people, and, under some circumstances, would hazard the safety of the whole revenue?

The committee think it cannot admit of rational doubt that, if Congress had intended to give to the Secretary any power whatever, not directly touching the deposits themselves, not only would it have specially pointed out the cases, but it would also, most assuredly, have provided a remedy more suitable for each case. The nature of the remedy, therefore, which is prescribed, clearly shows the evils intended to be provided against.

To admit that the Secretary's conduct is subject to no control

but his own sense of the general interest and convenience of the people, is to acknowledge the existence, in his hands, of a discretion so broad and unlimited, that its consequences can be no less than to subject, not only all the operations of the Bank and its offices, but its powers and capacities, perhaps its very existence, to his individual will. He is of opinion that the law creating it is, in many of its provisions, unconstitutional: he may not unnaturally, therefore, esteem it to be his duty to restrain and obstruct, to the utmost of his power, the operation of those provisions thus deemed by him to be unconstitutional. He is of opinion that the existence of such a powerful moneyed monopoly is dangerous to the liberties of the people. It would result from this, that, if, in the discharge of his official duty, he is to follow no guide but his own sense of the interest of the people, he might feel bound to counteract the operations of this dangerous monopoly, diminish its circulation, curtail its means, and prejudice its credit. To accomplish these very purposes, and these alone, he might withdraw the deposits. The power given him by Congress would thus be used to defeat the will of Congress in one of its most important acts, by discrediting, and otherwise injuriously affecting, an institution which Congress has seen fit to establish, and which it has declared shall continue, with all its powers, to the expiration of its charter.

The power conferred on the Secretary is a trust power, and, like other trust powers, in the absence of express terms setting forth the occasions for its exercise, it is to be construed according to the subject and object of the trust. As in other cases of the deposit of moneys in banks, the primary object sought to be accomplished by Congress, by that provision of the charter now under consideration, is the safe keeping of the money. The Secretary's trust, therefore, primarily and principally respects this safe keeping. But another object is distinctly disclosed in the charter, which object is intimately connected with the fund; and that is its transfer and exchange from place to place, as the convenience of Government might require. The Secretary's trust, therefore, respects also this other object, thus connected with the fund; and when either of these objects requires a removal, a removal becomes a just exercise of his authority. To this extent none can doubt the existence of his power. If, in truth, the money is believed to be unsafe-if, in truth, the Bank will not grant the facilities which it has promised, in consideration of receiving and holding the fund -then, certainly, it ought to be removed. But here the power must stop, or else it is altogether unbounded. Here is a just and reasonable limit, consistent with the character of the power, consistent with the general duties of the Secretary, and consistent with the nature of the remedy provided.

The charter of the Bank is the law-it is the expressed will of the Legislature. That will is that the Bank shall exist, with all its powers, to the end of its term. That will, too, as the committee think, is that the public deposits shall continue in the Bank so long as they are safe, and so long as the Bank fulfils all its duty in regard to them. The Secretary assumes a broader ground. He claims a right to judge of the proceedings of the Bank on all subjects. Admitting the fund to be safe, and admitting that the Bank has performed all its duties in regard to it, he claims an authority, nevertheless, to remove the deposits whenever he shall form an opinion, founded on the conduct of the Bank in any particular whatever, and however unconnected with the public moneys, that the general interest of the people requires such removal If, in his opinion, it discounts too little, or discounts too much-if it expands or contracts its circulation too fast or too slow-if its committees are not properly organized-if it claims damages on protested bills, which it ought not to claim-if, in his opinion still, it is guilty of a wrongful meddling in politics, or if it do any thing else not consistent with his sense of the public interest-he has a right to visit it with a withdrawal of the public money from its custody.

If this claim of power be admitted, it would seem to the committee to be a fair result, that the Secretary has power to withdraw the deposits for no other reason than that he differs with Congress upon its Constitutional authority to create any bank, or upon the Constitutionality of this particular Bank, or upon the utility of continuing it in the exercise of its chartered powers and privileges till its term shall expire.

The committee, therefore, are of opinion that it was not the intention of the Legislature to give to the Secretary of the Treasury a general guardianship over the public interests in all matters connected with the Bank; but that his power is a limited one, and is confined to the safety and the proper management of that portion of the public interest to which it expressly relates; that is to say, to the public moneys in deposit in the Bank.

But the extent of the Secretary's discretion, as asserted by himself, reaches even farther than the wide range which the committee have here described. It is not confined to the protection of all the various interests which the Government and the country have in the Bank, or to a supervision and control over all the conduct of the Bank; but it embraces all branches of the public interest, and touches every thing which in any way respects the good of the people. He supposes himself rightfully to possess the power of removing the deposits, whenever any causes, springing up in any part of the whole wide field of the general interest, may appear to him to call for such removal. Notwithstanding he may suppose