United States in places in which the
said bank and branches thereof may be established shall be made in said
bank or branches thereof unless the Secretary of the Treasury shall at
any time otherwise order and direct, in which case the Secretary of the
Treasury shall immediately lay before Congress, if in session, and, if
not, immediately after the commencement of the next session, the reasons
of such order or direction.

The power of the Secretary of the Treasury over the deposits is
_unqualified_. The provision that he shall report his reasons to
Congress is no limitation. Had it not been inserted he would have been
responsible to Congress had he made a removal for any other than good
reasons, and his responsibility now ceases upon the rendition of
sufficient ones to Congress. The only object of the provision is to make
his reasons accessible to Congress and enable that body the more readily
to judge of their soundness and purity, and thereupon to make such
further provision by law as the legislative power may think proper in
relation to the deposit of the public money. Those reasons may be very
diversified. It was asserted by the Secretary of the Treasury, without
contradiction, as early as 1817, that he had power "to control the
proceedings" of the Bank of the United States at any moment "by changing
the deposits to the State banks" should it pursue an illiberal course
toward those institutions; that "the Secretary of the Treasury will
always be disposed to support the credit of the State banks, and will
invariably direct transfers from the deposits of the public money in aid
of their legitimate exertions to maintain their credit;" and he asserted
a right to employ the State banks when the Bank of the United States
should refuse to receive on deposit the notes of such State banks as the
public interest required should be received in payment of the public
dues. In several instances he did transfer the public deposits to State
banks in the immediate vicinity of branches, for reasons connected only
with the safety of those banks, the public convenience, and the
interests of the Treasury.

If it was lawful for Mr. Crawford, the Secretary of the Treasury at that
time, to act on these principles, it will be difficult to discover any
sound reason against the application of similar principles in still
stronger cases. And it is a matter of surprise that a power which in
the infancy of the bank was freely asserted