expenses, with convenient means for its prompt application to the
purposes for which it was raised, are the objects which we should seek
to accomplish. The collection, safe-keeping, transfer, and disbursement
of the public money can, it is believed, be well managed by officers of
the Government. Its collection, and to a great extent its disbursement
also, have indeed been hitherto conducted solely by them, neither
national nor State banks, when employed, being required to do more than
keep it safely while in their custody, and transfer and pay it in such
portions and at such times as the Treasury shall direct.

Surely banks are not more able than the Government to secure the money
in their possession against accident, violence, or fraud. The assertion
that they are so must assume that a vault in a bank is stronger than
a vault in the Treasury, and that directors, cashiers, and clerks not
selected by the Government nor under its control are more worthy of
confidence than officers selected from the people and responsible to the
Government--officers bound by official oaths and bonds for a faithful
performance of their duties, and constantly subject to the supervision
of Congress.

The difficulties of transfer and the aid heretofore rendered by banks
have been less than is usually supposed. The actual accounts show that
by far the larger portion of payments is made within short or convenient
distances from the places of collection; and the whole number of
warrants issued at the Treasury in the year 1834--a year the result of
which will, it is believed, afford a safe test for the future--fell
short of 5,000, or an average of less than 1 daily for each State; in
the city of New York they did not average more than 2 a day, and at the
city of Washington only 4.

The difficulties heretofore existing are, moreover, daily lessened by an
increase in the cheapness and facility of communication, and it may be
asserted with confidence that the necessary transfers, as well as the
safe-keeping and disbursements of the public moneys, can be with safety
and convenience accomplished through the agencies of Treasury officers.
This opinion has been in some degree confirmed by actual experience
since the discontinuance of the banks as fiscal agents in May last--a
period which from the embarrassments in commercial intercourse presented
obstacles as great as any that may be hereafter apprehended.

The manner of keeping the public money sinc