supervision of the executive authority, in any of its branches, in the appointment of local directors and agents.  This resolution decided the character of the future.  Hostility towards the bank, thenceforward, became the settled policy of the government; and the message of December, 1829, was the clear announcement of that policy.  If the bank had appointed those directors, thus recommended by members of Congress; if it had submitted all its appointments to the supervision of the treasury; if it had removed the president of the New Hampshire branch; if it had, in all things, showed itself a complying, political, party machine, instead of an independent institution;—­if it had done this, I leave all men to judge whether such an entire change of opinion, as to its constitutionality, its utility, and its good effects on the currency, would have happened between March and December.

From the moment in which the bank asserted its independence of treasury control, and its elevation above mere party purposes, down to the end of its charter, and down even to the present day, it has been the subject to which the selectest phrases of party denunciation have been plentifully applied.

But Congress manifested no disposition to establish a treasury bank.  On the contrary, it was satisfied, and so was the country, most unquestionably, with the bank then existing.  In the summer of 1832, Congress passed an act for continuing the charter of the bank, by strong majorities in both houses.  In the House of Representatives, I think, two thirds of the members voted for the bill.  The President gave it his negative; and as there were not two thirds of the Senate, though a large majority were for it, the bill failed to become a law.

But it was not enough that a continuance of the charter of the bank was thus refused.  It had the deposit of the public money, and this it was entitled to, by law, for the few years which yet remained of its chartered term.  But this it was determined it should not continue to enjoy.  At the commencement of the session of 1832-33, a grave and sober doubt was expressed by the Secretary of the Treasury, in his official communication, whether the public moneys were safe in the custody of the bank!  I confess, Gentlemen, when I look back to this suggestion, thus officially made, so serious in its import, so unjust, if not well founded, and so greatly injurious to the credit of the bank, and injurious, indeed, to the credit of the whole country, I cannot but wonder that any man of intelligence and character should have been willing to make it.  I read in it, however, the first lines of another chapter.  I saw an attempt was now to be made to remove the deposits of the public money from the bank, and such an attempt was made that very session.  But Congress was not to be prevailed upon to accomplish the end by its own authority.  It was well ascertained that neither house would consent to it.  The House of Representatives, indeed, at the heel of the session, decided against the proposition by a very large majority.