Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
Events have satisfied my mind, and I think the minds of the American
people, that the mischiefs and dangers which flow from a national bank
far over-balance all its advantages. The bold effort the present bank
has made to control the Government, the distresses it has wantonly
produced, the violence of which it has been the occasion in one of our
cities famed for its observance of law and order, are but premonitions
of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded
into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another
like it. It is fervently hoped that thus admonished those who have
heretofore favored the establishment of a substitute for the present
bank will be induced to abandon it, as it is evidently better to incur
any inconvenience that may be reasonably expected than to concentrate
the whole moneyed power of the Republic in any form what so ever or
under any restrictions.
Happily it is already illustrated that the agency of such an
institution is not necessary to the fiscal operations of the
Government. The State banks are found fully adequate to the performance
of all services which were required of the Bank of the United States,
quite as promptly and with the same cheapness. They have maintained
themselves and discharged all these duties while the Bank of the United
States was still powerful and in the field as an open enemy, and it is
not possible to conceive that they will find greater difficulties in
their operations when that enemy shall cease to exist.
The attention of Congress is earnestly invited to the regulation of the
deposits in the State banks by law. Although the power now exercised by
the executive department in this behalf is only such as was uniformly
exerted through every Administration from the origin of the Government
up to the establishment of the present bank, yet it is one which is
susceptible of regulation by law, and therefore ought so to be
regulated. The power of Congress to direct in what places the Treasurer
shall keep the moneys in the Treasury and to impose restrictions upon
the Executive authority in relation to their custody and removal is
unlimited, and its exercise will rather be courted than discouraged by
those public officers and agents on whom rests the responsibility for
their safety. It is desirable that as little power as possible should
be left to the President or the Secretary of the Treasury over those
institutions, which, being thus freed from Executive influence, and
without a common head to direct their operations, would have neither
the temptation nor the ability to interfere in the political conflicts
of the country. Not deriving their charters from the national
authorities, they would never have those inducements to meddle in
general elections which have led the Bank of the United States to
agitate and convulse the country for upward of two years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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