as one of the ordinary and
familiar duties of the Secretary of the Treasury should now be gravely
questioned, and attempts made to excite and alarm the public mind as if
some new and unheard-of power was about to be usurped by the executive
branch of the Government.

It is but a little more than two and a half years to the termination of
the charter of the present bank. It is considered as the decision of the
country that it shall then cease to exist, and no man, the President
believes, has reasonable ground for expectation that any other Bank of
the United States will be created by Congress.

To the Treasury Department is intrusted the safe-keeping and faithful
application of the public moneys. A plan of collection different from
the present must therefore be introduced and put in complete operation
before the dissolution of the present bank. When shall it be commenced?
Shall no step be taken in this essential concern until the charter
expires and the Treasury finds itself without an agent, its accounts in
confusion, with no depository for its funds, and the whole business of
the Government deranged, or shall it be delayed until six months, or a
year, or two years before the expiration of the charter? It is obvious
that any new system which may be substituted in the place of the Bank
of the United States could not be suddenly carried into effect on the
termination of its existence without serious inconvenience to the
Government and the people. Its vast amount of notes are then to be
redeemed and withdrawn-from circulation and its immense debt collected.
These operations must be gradual, otherwise much suffering and distress
will be brought upon the community.

It ought to be not a work of months only, but of years, and the
President thinks it can not, with due attention to the interests of the
people, be longer postponed. It is safer to begin it too soon than to
delay it too long.

It is for the wisdom of Congress to decide upon the best substitute
to be adopted in the place of the Bank of the United States, and the
President would have felt himself relieved from a heavy and painful
responsibility if in the charter to the bank Congress had reserved to
itself the power of directing at its pleasure the public money to be
elsewhere deposited, and had not devolved that power exclusively on one
of the Executive Departments. It is useless now to inquire why this high
and important power was surrendered by those who are