l was delivered to you and Sundays; hence, in the present
case if it is returned on Friday it will be in time.

By this construction, which the President adopted, he gained another day
for deliberation, and it was not until the 25th of February that he
signed the bill, thus affording conclusive proof that he had at last
obtained his own consent to sign it not without great and almost
insuperable difficulty. Additional light has been recently shed upon the
serious doubts which he had on the subject, amounting at one time to a
conviction that it was his duty to withhold his approval from the bill.
This is found among the manuscript papers of _Mr. Madison_, authorized
to be purchased for the use of the Government by an act of the last
session of Congress, and now for the first time accessible to the
public. From these papers it appears that President Washington, while he
yet held the bank bill in his hands, actually requested _Mr. Madison_,
at that time a member of the House of Representatives, to prepare the
draft of a veto message for him. _Mr. Madison_, at his request, did
prepare the draft of such a message, and sent it to him on the 21st of
February, 1791. A copy of this original draft, in Mr. Madison's own
handwriting, was carefully preserved by him, and is among the papers
lately purchased by Congress. It is preceded by a note, written on the
same sheet, which is also in Mr. Madison's handwriting, and is as
follows:

_February 21, 1791_.--Copy of a paper made out and sent to the
President, _at his request,_ to be ready in case his judgment should
finally decide against the bill for incorporating a national bank,
the bill being then before him.

Among the objections assigned in this paper to the bill, and which were
submitted for the consideration of the President, are the following:

I object to the bill, because it is an essential principle of the
Government that powers not delegated by the Constitution can not be
rightfully exercised; because the power proposed by the bill to be
exercised is not expressly delegated, and because I can not satisfy
myself that it results from any express power by fair and safe rules
of interpretation.

The weight of the precedent of the bank of 1791 and the sanction of
the great name of Washington, which has been so often invoked in its
support, are greatly weakened by the development of these facts.

The experiment of that bank satisfied the country