Now, Gentlemen, the truth is, that during this session, and a little before the commencement of the new administration, a disposition was manifested by political men to interfere with the management of the bank.  Members of Congress undertook to nominate or recommend individuals as directors in the branches or offices of the bank.  They were kind enough, sometimes, to make out whole lists, or tickets, and to send them to Philadelphia, containing the names of those whose appointments would be satisfactory to General Jackson’s friends.  Portions of the correspondence on these subjects have been published in some of the voluminous reports and other documents connected with the bank, but perhaps have not been generally heeded or noticed.  At first, the bank merely declined, as gently as possible, complying with these and similar requests.  But like applications began to show themselves from many quarters, and a very marked case arose as early as June, 1829.  Certain members of the Legislature of New Hampshire applied for a change in the presidency of the branch which was established in that State.  A member of the Senate of the United States wrote both to the president of the bank and to the Secretary of the Treasury, strongly recommending a change, and in his letter to the Secretary hinting very distinctly at political considerations as the ground of the movement.  Other officers in the service of the government took an interest in the matter, and urged a change; and the Secretary himself wrote to the bank, suggesting and recommending it.  The time had come, then, for the bank to take its position.  It did take it; and, in my judgment, if it had not acted as it did act, not only would those who had the care of it have been most highly censurable, but a claim would have been yielded to, entirely inconsistent with a government of laws, and subversive of the very foundations of republicanism.

A long correspondence between the Secretary of the Treasury and the president of the bank ensued.  The directors determined that they would not surrender either their rights or their duties to the control or supervision of the executive government.  They said they had never appointed directors of their branches on political grounds, and they would not remove them on such grounds.  They had avoided politics.  They had sought for men of business, capacity, fidelity, and experience in the management of pecuniary concerns.  They owed duties, they said, to the government, which they meant to perform, faithfully and impartially, under all administrations; and they owed duties to the stockholders of the bank, which required them to disregard political considerations in their appointments.  This correspondence ran along into the fall of the year, and finally terminated in a stern and unanimous declaration, made by the directors, and transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, that the bank would continue to be independently administered, and that the directors once for all refused to submit to the