d States, whether the public be
stockholders or not. They are officers of the United States, and not
the mere representatives of a stockholder.

The mode of their appointment and their tenure of office confirm this
position. They are appointed like other officers of the Government and
by the same authority. They do not hold their offices irrevocably a year
after their appointment; on the contrary, by the express terms of the
law, they are liable to be removed from office at any time by the
President when in his judgment the public interest shall require it.
In every aspect, therefore, in which the subject can be considered it is
evident that the five directors appointed by the United States are to be
regarded as public officers who are placed there in order to observe the
conduct of the corporation and to prevent abuses which might otherwise
be committed.

Such being the character of the directors appointed on behalf of the
United States, it is obviously their duty to resist, and in case of
failure to report to the President or to the Secretary of the Treasury,
any proceedings of the board by which the public interests may be
injuriously affected. The President may order a _scire facias_ against
the bank for a violation of its charter, and the Secretary of the
Treasury is empowered to direct the money of the United States to be
deposited elsewhere when in his judgment the public interest requires it
to be done. The directors of this bank, like all others, are accustomed
to sit with closed doors, and do not report their proceedings to any
department of the Government.

The monthly return which the charter requires to be made to the Treasury
Department gives nothing more than a general statement of its pecuniary
condition, and of that but an imperfect one; for although it shows the
amount loaned at the bank and its different branches, it does not show
the condition of its debtors nor the circumstances under which the loans
were made. It does not show whether they were in truth accommodations
granted in the regular and ordinary course of business upon fair banking
principles or from other motives. Under the name of loans advances may
be made to persons notoriously insolvent for the most corrupt and
improper purposes, and a course of proceeding may be adopted in
violation of its charter, while upon the face of its monthly statement
everything would appear to be fair and correct.

How, then, is the executive branch of th