The sixteenth section of the Bank Act provided that the funds of the United States should be deposited in the Bank or its branches, unless the Secretary of the Treasury should at any time otherwise order and direct. The Secretary of the Treasury was thus impliedly authorized by Congress to cease depositing these funds in the Bank or its branches at his own discretion, and was made directly responsible to Congress in the exercise of this authority, by the provision that he must report, so soon as possible, to Congress his reasons for making use of the power. The President thus had no direct authority in the matter. He could exercise only an indirect control through his power over the tenure of the Secretary. At this period in the history of the tenure of office in the United States, the power of removal was regarded as a prerogative of the President alone. {280} [Sidenote: Removal of McLane and Duane.] President Jackson was within the letter of his prerogative when, in the spring of 1833, he removed Mr. McLane, and later, Mr. Duane, from the secretaryship of the Treasury. That he did this because of their refusal to be controlled by him in regard to the deposit of the funds of the United States in the Bank and its branches was, legally, no concern of anybody else. [Sidenote: Taney's report to Congress of December 3rd, 1835.] The new Secretary, Mr. Taney, appointed to succeed Mr. Duane, was also acting within the letter of his authority when he ceased to make deposit of the Government funds in the Bank and its branches, and reported his action to Congress at the commencement of the session following the recess of Congress during which he made this change. [Sidenote: Abuses of power by Jackson and Taney.] On the other hand, it was very questionable whether the President was not abusing his power of dismissal from office, in spirit, by requiring the obedience of the Secretary of the Treasury to himself in regard to a subject concerning which Congress had vested discretionary power in the Secretary, and in the use of which power Congress had made the Secretary directly and exclusively responsible to itself. And it was likewise very questionable whether the Secretary was not abusing his authority, in spirit, in ceasing, during a recess of Congress, to deposit the funds of the United States in the Bank and its branches, when, less than a year before this, Congress had made a full investigation of the condition of the Bank and had disapproved, by large majorities in both Houses, of the President's recommendation that the deposits be made elsewhere than in the Bank and its branches.