Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856.

528 ABRIDGMENT OF THE SENATE.] The President's Message. [DECEMBER, 1834. ing writers, and procuring the execution of printing, It is a constitutional provision, that " no money and the use made of that authority-the retention of shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence the pension money and books after the selection of of appropriations made by law." The palpable object new agents-the groundless claim to heavy damages, of this provision is to prevent the expenditure of the in consequence of the protest of the bill drawn on the public money, for any purpose whatsoever, which French Government, have, through various channels, shall not have been first approved by the representabeen laid before Congress. Immediately after the tives of the people and the States, in Congress close of the last session, the bank, through its presi- assembled. It vests the power of declaring for dent, announced its ability and readiness to abandon what purposes the public money shall be expended the system of unparalleled curtailment, and the inter- in the Legislative Department of the Government, to ruption of domestic exchanges, which it had practised the exclusion of the Executive and Judicial; and it upon from the 1st of August, 1833, to the 30th June, is not within the constitutional authority of either of 1834, and to extend its accommodations to the com- those departments to pay it away without law, or to munity. The grounds assumed in this annunciation sanction its payment. According to this plain conamounted to an acknowledgment that the curtailment, stitutional provision, the claim of the bank can never in the extent to which it had been carried, was not be paid without an appropriation by act of Congress. necessary to the safety of the bank, and had been But the bank has never asked for an appropriation. persisted in merely to induce Congress to grant the It attempts to defeat the provision of the constituprayer of the bank in its memorial relative to the re- tion, and obtain payment without an act of Congress. moval of the deposits, and to give it a new charter. Instead of awaiting an appropriation passed by both They were substantially a confession that all the real Houses, and approved by the President, it makes an distresses which individuals and the country had en- appropriation for itself, and invites an appeal to the dured for the preceding six or eight months, had Judiciary to sanction it. That the money had not been needlessly produced by it, with the view of af- technically been paid into the Treasury, does not affecting, through the sufferings of the people, the leg- feet the principle intended to be established by the islative action of Congress. It is a subject of con- constitution. The Executive and Judiciary have as gratulation that Congress and the country had the little right to appropriate and expend the public virtue and firmness to bear the infliction; that the money without authority of law, before it is placed energies of our people soon found relief from this to the credit of the Treasurer, as to take it from the wanton tyranny, in vast importations of the precious Treasury. In the annual report of the Secretary of metals from almost every part of the world; and the Treasury, and in his correspondence with the that, at the close of this tremendous effort to control president of the bank, and the opinions of the Attorour Government, the bank found itself powerless, and ney-General accompanying it, you will find a further no longer able to loan out its surplus means. The examination of the claims of the bank, and the course community had learned to manage its affairs without it has pursued. its assistance, and trade had already found new auxil- It seems due to the safety of the public funds reiaries; so that, on the 1st of October last, the extra- maining in that bank, and to the honor of the Amerordinary spectacle was presented of a National Bank, ican people, that measures be taken to separate the more than one-half of whose capital was either lying Government entirely from an institution so mischievunproductive in its vaults, or in the hands of foreign ous to the public prosperity, and so regardless of the bankers. constitution and laws. By transferring the public To the needless distresses brought on the country deposits; by appointing other pension agents, as far during the last session of Congress, has since been as it had the power; by ordering the discontinuance added the open seizure of the dividends on the public of the receipt of bank checks in payment of the pubstock, to the amount of one hundred and seventy lie dues after the first day of January next, the Execthousand and forty-one dollars, under pretence of utive has exerted all its lawful authority to sever the paying damages, cost, and interest, upon the protest- connection between the Government and this faithless ed French bill. This sum constituted a portion of corporation. the estimated revenues for the year 1834, upon which The high-handed career of this institution imposes the appropriations made by Congress were based. It upon the constitutional functionaries of this Governwould as soon have been expected that our collectors ment, duties of the gravest and most imperative charwould seize on the customs, or the receivers of our acter-duties which they cannot avoid, and from which, land offices on the moneys arising from the sale of I trust, there will be no inclination on the part of any public lands, under pretences of claims against the of them to shrink. My own sense of them is most United States, as that the bank would have retained clear, as is also my readiness to discharge those the dividends. Indeed, if the principle be establish- which may rightfully fall on me. To continue any ed that any one who chooses to set up a claim business relations with the Bank of the United States, against the United States may, without authority of that may be avoided without a violation of the nalaw, seize on the public property or money, wherever tional faith, after that institution has set at open dehe can find it, to pay such claim, there will remain fiance the conceded right of the Government to exno assurance that our revenue will reach the Treas- amine its affairs; after it has done all in its power to ury, or that it will be applied, after the appropria- deride the public authority in other respects, and to tion, to the purposes designated in the law. The bring it into disrepute at home and abroad; after it paymasters of our army, and the pursers of our navy, has attempted to defeat the clearly expressed will of may, under like pretences, apply to their own use the people, by turning against them the immense moneys appropriated to set in motion the public force, power entrusted to its hands, and, by involving a and in time of war leave the country without defence. country, otherwise peaceful, flourishing, and happy, This measure, resorted to by the bank, is disorganiz- in dissension, embarrassment, and distress, would incg and revolutionary, and, if generally resorted to make the nation itself a party to the degradation so by private citizens in like cases, would fill the land sedulously prepared for its public agents, and do much with anarchy and violence. to destroy the confidence of mankind in popular Gov