It is a constitutional provision “that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law”.  The palpable object of this provision is to prevent the expenditure of the public money for any purpose what so ever which shall not have been 1st approved by the representatives of the people and the States in Congress assembled.  It vests the power of declaring for what purposes the public money shall be expended in the legislative department of the Government, to the exclusion of the executive and judicial, and it is not within the constitutional authority of either of those departments to pay it away without law or to sanction its payment.

According to this plain constitutional provision, the claim of the bank can never be paid without an appropriation by act of Congress.  But the bank has never asked for an appropriation.  It attempts to defeat the provision of the Constitution and obtain payment without an act of Congress.  Instead of awaiting an appropriation passed by both Houses and approved by the President, it makes an appropriation for itself and invites an appeal to the judiciary to sanction it.  That the money had not technically been paid into the Treasury does not affect the principle intended to be established by the Constitution.

The Executive and the judiciary have as little right to appropriate and expend the public money without authority of law before it is placed to the credit of the Treasury as to take it from the Treasury.  In the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury, and in his correspondence with the president of the bank, and the opinions of the Attorney General accompanying it, you will find a further examination of the claims of the bank and the course it has pursued.

It seems due to the safety of the people funds remaining in that bank and to the honor of the American people that measures be taken to separate the Government entirely from an institution so mischievous to the public prosperity and so regardless of the Constitution and laws.  By transferring the public deposits, by appointing other pension agents as far as it had the power, by ordering the discontinuance of the receipt of bank checks in the payment of the public dues after January 1st, 1834, the Executive has exerted all its lawful authority to sever the connection between the Government and this faithless corporation.

The high-handed career of this institution imposes upon the constitutional functionaries of this Government duties of the gravest and most imperative character—­duties which they can not avoid and from which I trust there will be no inclination on the part of any of them to shrink.  My own sense of them is most clear, as is also my readiness to discharge those which may rightfully fall on me.  To continue any business relations with the Bank of the United States that may be avoided without a violation of the national faith after that institution has set at open defiance the