ing 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 Treasury Department entirely independent of the
Executive. He should at least have been removable only upon the demand
of the po