Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
The pay masters of our Army and the pursers of our Navy may under like
pretenses apply to their own use moneys appropriated to set in motion
the public force, and in time of war leave the country without defense.
This measure resorted to by the bank is disorganizing and
revolutionary, and if generally resorted to by private citizens in like
cases would fill the land with anarchy and violence.
It is a constitutional provision "that no money shall be drawn from the
Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law". The
palpable object of this provision is to prevent the expenditure of the
public money for any purpose what so ever which shall not have been 1st
approved by the representatives of the people and the States in
Congress assembled. It vests the power of declaring for what purposes
the public money shall be expended in the legislative department of the
Government, to the exclusion of the executive and judicial, and it is
not within the constitutional authority of either of those departments
to pay it away without law or to sanction its payment.
According to this plain constitutional provision, the claim of the bank
can never be paid without an appropriation by act of Congress. But the
bank has never asked for an appropriation. It attempts to defeat the
provision of the Constitution and obtain payment without an act of
Congress. Instead of awaiting an appropriation passed by both Houses
and approved by the President, it makes an appropriation for itself and
invites an appeal to the judiciary to sanction it. That the money had
not technically been paid into the Treasury does not affect the
principle intended to be established by the Constitution.
The Executive and the judiciary have as little right to appropriate and
expend the public money without authority of law before it is placed to
the credit of the Treasury as to take it from the Treasury. In the
annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury, and in his
correspondence with the president of the bank, and the opinions of the
Attorney General accompanying it, you will find a further examination
of the claims of the bank and the course it has pursued.
It seems due to the safety of the people funds remaining in that bank
and to the honor of the American people that measures be taken to
separate the Government entirely from an institution so mischievous to
the public prosperity and so regardless of the Constitution and laws.
By transferring the public deposits, by appointing other pension agents
as far as it had the power, by ordering the discontinuance of the
receipt of bank checks in the payment of the public dues after January
1st, 1834, the Executive has exerted all its lawful authority to sever
the connection between the Government and this faithless corporation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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