that salary out of this money?  Here is an inspector or supervisor of the deposit banks.  But what law has provided for such an officer?  What commission has he received?  Who concurred in his appointment?  What oath does he take?  How is he to be punished or impeached if he colludes with any of these banks to embezzle the public money or defraud the government?  The value of the use of this public money to the deposit banks is probably two hundred thousand dollars a year; or, if less than that, it is yet, certainly, a very great sum.  May the President appoint whatever officers he pleases, with whatever duties he pleases, and pay them as much as he pleases, out of the moneys thus paid by the banks, for the sake of having the deposits?

Mr. President, the executive claim of power is exactly this, that the President may keep the money of the public in whatever banks he chooses, on whatever terms he chooses, and apply the sums which these banks are willing to pay for its use to whatever purposes he chooses.  These sums are not to come into the general treasury.  They are to be appropriated before they get there; they are never to be brought under the control of Congress; they are to be paid to officers and agents not known to the law, not nominated to the Senate, and responsible to nobody but the executive itself.  I ask gentlemen if all this be lawful.  Are they prepared to defend it?  Will they stand up and justify it?  In my opinion, Sir, it is a clear and most dangerous assumption of power.  It is the creation of office without law; the appointment to office without consulting the Senate; the establishment of a salary without law; and the payment of that salary out of a fund which itself is derived from the use of the public treasures.  This, Sir, is my other reason for concurring in the vote of the 28th of March; and on these grounds I leave the propriety of that vote, so far as I am concerned with it, to be judged of by the country.

But, Sir, the President denies the power of the Senate to pass any such resolution, on any ground whatever.  Suppose the declaration contained in the resolution to be true; suppose the President had, in fact, assumed powers not granted to him; does the Senate possess the right to declare its opinion, affirming this fact, or does it not?  I maintain that the Senate does possess such a power; the President denies it.

Mr. President, we need not look far, nor search deep, for the foundation of this right in the Senate.  It is close at hand, and clearly visible.  In the first place, it is the right of self-defence.  In the second place, it is a right founded on the duty of representative bodies, in a free government, to defend the public liberty against encroachment.  We must presume that the Senate honestly entertained the opinion expressed in the resolution of the 28th of March; and, entertaining that opinion, its right to express it is but the necessary consequence of its right to defend its own constitutional authority, as one branch of the government.  This is its clear right, and this, too, is its imperative duty.