contemplation of the House
of Representatives or not known to the members at the time they voted
for the resolution.

Although the charter and the rules of the bank both declare that "not
less than seven directors" shall be necessary to the transaction of
business, yet the most important business, even that of granting
discounts to any extent, is intrusted to a committee of five members,
who do not report to the board.

To cut off all means of communication with the Government in relation
to its most important acts at the commencement of the present year, not
one of the Government directors was placed on any one committee; and
although since, by an unusual remodeling of those bodies, some of those
directors have been placed on some of the committees, they are yet
entirely excluded from the committee of exchange, through which the
greatest and most objectionable loans have been made.

When the Government directors made an effort to bring back the business
of the bank to the board in obedience to the charter and the existing
regulations, the board not only overruled their attempt, but altered the
rule so as to make it conform to the practice, in direct violation of
one of the most important provisions of the charter which gave them
existence.

It has long been known that the president of the bank, by his single
will, originates and executes many of the most important measures
connected with the management and credit of the bank, and that the
committee as well as the board of directors are left in entire ignorance
of many acts done and correspondence carried on in their names, and
apparently under their authority. The fact has been recently disclosed
that an unlimited discretion has been and is now vested in the president
of the bank to expend its funds in payment for preparing and circulating
articles and purchasing pamphlets and newspapers, calculated by their
contents to operate on elections and secure a renewal of its charter.
It appears from the official report of the public directors that on the
30th November, 1830, the president submitted to the board an article
published in the American Quarterly Review containing favorable notices
of the bank, and suggested the expediency of giving it a wider
circulation at the expense of the bank; whereupon the board passed the
following resolution, viz:

_Resolved_, That the president be authorized to take such measures in
regard to the circulation of the contents o