ertainly is and more
completely under the control of the Executive will than their
construction of their powers allowed or the forbearing characters of all
the early Presidents permitted them to make. But it is not by the extent
of its patronage alone that the executive department has become
dangerous, but by the use which it appears may be made of the appointing
power to bring under its control the whole revenues of the country. The
Constitution has declared it to be the duty of the President to see that
the laws are executed, and it makes him the Commander in Chief of the
Armies and Navy of the United States. If the opinion of the most
approved writers upon that species of mixed government which in modern
Europe is termed monarchy in contradistinction to despotism is correct,
there was wanting no other addition to the powers of our Chief
Magistrate to stamp a monarchical character on our Government but the
control of the public finances; and to me it appears strange indeed that
anyone should doubt that the entire control which the President
possesses over the officers who have the custody of the public money, by
the power of removal with or without cause, does, for all mischievous
purposes at least, virtually subject the treasure also to his disposal.
The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt to seize the sacred treasure,
silenced the opposition of the officer to whose charge it had been
committed by a significant allusion to his sword. By a selection of
political instruments for the care of the public money a reference to
their commissions by a President would be quite as effectual an argument
as that of Caesar to the Roman knight. I am not insensible of the great
difficulty that exists in drawing a proper plan for the safe-keeping
and disbursement of the public revenues, and I know the importance which
has been attached by men of great abilities and patriotism to the
divorce, as it is called, of the Treasury from the banking institutions
It is not the divorce which is complained of, but the unhallowed union
of the Treasury with the executive department, which has created such
extensive alarm. To this danger to our republican institutions and that
created by the influence given to the Executive through the
instrumentality of the Federal officers I propose to apply all the
remedies which may be at my command. It was certainly a great error in
the framers of the Constitution not to have made the officer at the head
of the