rnment and the people? It is believed that a considerate and
candid investigation of these questions will result in the conviction
that the proposed plan is far less liable to objection on the score of
Executive patronage and control than any bank agency that has been or
can be devised.

With these views I leave to Congress the measures necessary to regulate
in the present emergency the safe-keeping and transfer of the public
moneys. In the performance of constitutional duty I have stated to them
without reserve the result of my own reflections. The subject is of
great importance, and one on which we can scarcely expect to be as
united in sentiment as we are in interest. It deserves a full and
free discussion, and can not fail to be benefited by a dispassionate
comparison of opinions. Well aware myself of the duty of reciprocal
concession among the coordinate branches of the Government, I can
promise a reasonable spirit of cooperation, so far as it can be indulged
in without the surrender of constitutional objections which I believe
to be well founded. Any system that may be adopted should be subjected
to the fullest legal provision, so as to leave nothing to the Executive
but what is necessary to the discharge of the duties imposed on him;
and whatever plan may be ultimately established, my own part shall be
so discharged as to give to it a fair trial and the best prospect of
success.

The character of the funds to be received and disbursed in the
transactions of the Government likewise demands your most careful
consideration.

There can be no doubt that those who framed and adopted the
Constitution, having in immediate view the depreciated paper of the
Confederacy--of which $500 in paper were at times only equal to $1 in
coin--intended to prevent the recurrence of similar evils, so far at
least as related to the transactions of the new Government. They gave
to Congress express powers to coin money and to regulate the value
thereof and of foreign coin; they refused to give it power to establish
corporations--the agents then as now chiefly employed to create a paper
currency; they prohibited the States from making anything but gold
and silver a legal tender in payment of debts; and the First Congress
directed by positive law that the revenue should be received in nothing
but gold and silver.

Public exigency at the outset of the Government, without direct
legislative authority, led to the use of banks as fiscal aid