The mode of their appointment and their tenure of office confirm this position.  They are appointed like other officers of the Government and by the same authority.  They do not hold their offices irrevocably a year after their appointment; on the contrary, by the express terms of the law, they are liable to be removed from office at any time by the President when in his judgment the public interest shall require it.  In every aspect, therefore, in which the subject can be considered it is evident that the five directors appointed by the United States are to be regarded as public officers who are placed there in order to observe the conduct of the corporation and to prevent abuses which might otherwise be committed.

Such being the character of the directors appointed on behalf of the United States, it is obviously their duty to resist, and in case of failure to report to the President or to the Secretary of the Treasury, any proceedings of the board by which the public interests may be injuriously affected.  The President may order a scire facias against the bank for a violation of its charter, and the Secretary of the Treasury is empowered to direct the money of the United States to be deposited elsewhere when in his judgment the public interest requires it to be done.  The directors of this bank, like all others, are accustomed to sit with closed doors, and do not report their proceedings to any department of the Government.

The monthly return which the charter requires to be made to the Treasury Department gives nothing more than a general statement of its pecuniary condition, and of that but an imperfect one; for although it shows the amount loaned at the bank and its different branches, it does not show the condition of its debtors nor the circumstances under which the loans were made.  It does not show whether they were in truth accommodations granted in the regular and ordinary course of business upon fair banking principles or from other motives.  Under the name of loans advances may be made to persons notoriously insolvent for the most corrupt and improper purposes, and a course of proceeding may be adopted in violation of its charter, while upon the face of its monthly statement everything would appear to be fair and correct.

How, then, is the executive branch of the Government to become acquainted with the official conduct of the public directors or the abuses practiced by the corporation for its private ends and in violation of its duty to the public?  The power of displacing the public directors and that of issuing a scire facias and of removing the deposits were not intended to be idle and nugatory provisions without the means of enforcement.  Yet they must be wholly inoperative and useless unless there be some means by which the official conduct of the public directors and the abuses of power on the part of the corporation may be brought to the knowledge of the executive department of the Government.