to be in the President.  The committee then proceeded to the consideration of the Treasury Department.  Gerry at once made a plea for delay.  “He thought they were hurrying on business too rapidly.  Gentlemen had already committed themselves on one very important point.”  He “knew nothing of the system which gentlemen proposed to adopt in arranging the Treasury Department,” but the fact was worth considering that “the late Congress had, on long experience, thought proper to organize the Treasury Department, in a mode different from that now proposed.”  He “would be glad to know what the reasons were that would induce the committee to adopt a different system from that which had been found most beneficial to the United States.”

What Gerry had in view was the retention of the then existing system of Treasury management by a Board of Commissioners.  In 1781 the Continental Congress had been forced to let the Treasury pass out of its own hands into those of a Superintendent of Finance, through sheer inability to get any funds unless the change was made.  Robert Morris, who held the position, had resigned in January, 1783, because of the behavior of Congress, but the attitude of the army had become so menacing that he was implored to remain in office and attend to the arrears of military pay.  He had managed to effect a settlement, and at length retired from office on November 1, 1784.  Congress then put the Treasury in the hands of three commissioners appointed and supervised by it.  Gerry was now striving to continue this arrangement with as little change as possible.

When debate was resumed the next day, Gerry made a long, smooth speech on the many superior advantages of the Board system.  The extent and variety of the functions of the office would be a trial to any one man’s integrity.  “Admit these innumerable opportunities for defrauding the revenue, without check or control, and it is next to impossible he should remain unsullied in reputation, or innoxious with respect to misapplying his trust.”  The situation would be “Very disagreeable to the person appointed, provided he is an honest, upright man; it will be disagreeable also to the people of the Union, who will always have reason to suspect” misconduct.  “We have had a Board of Treasury and we have had a Financier.  Have not express charges, as well as vague rumors, been brought against him at the bar of the public?  They may be unfounded, it is true; but it shows that a man cannot serve in such a station without exciting popular clamor.  It is very well known, I dare say, to many gentlemen in this House, that the noise and commotion were such as obliged Congress once more to alter their Treasury Department, and place it under the management of a Board of Commissioners.”  He descanted upon the perils to liberty involved in the course they were pursuing.  Surround the President with Ministers of State and “the President will be induced to place more confidence in them than in the Senate....  An oligarchy will be confirmed upon the ruin of the democracy; a government most hateful will descend to our posterity and all our exertions in the glorious cause of freedom will be frustrated.”