g the necessary order and direction. So glaring were the
abuses and corruptions of the bank, so evident its fixed purpose to
persevere in them, and so palpable its design by its money and power to
control the Government and change its character, that I deemed it the
imperative duty of the Executive authority, by the exertion of every
power confided to it by the Constitution and laws, to check its career
and lessen its ability to do mischief, even in the painful alternative
of dismissing the head of one of the Departments. At the time the
removal was made other causes sufficient to justify it existed, but
if they had not the Secretary would have been dismissed for this
cause only.

His place I supplied by one whose opinions were well known to me,
and whose frank expression of them in another situation and generous
sacrifices of interest and feeling when unexpectedly called to the
station he now occupies ought forever to have shielded his motives from
Suspicion and his character from reproach. In accordance with the views
long before expressed by him he proceeded, with my sanction, to make
arrangements for depositing the moneys of the United States in other
safe institutions.

The resolution of the Senate as originally framed and as passed, if it
refers to these acts, presupposes a right in that body to interfere with
this exercise of Executive power. If the principle be once admitted, it
is not difficult to perceive where it may end. If by a mere denunciation
like this resolution the President should ever be induced to act in a
matter of official duty contrary to the honest convictions of his own
mind in compliance with the wishes of the Senate, the constitutional
independence of the executive department would be as effectually
destroyed and its power as effectually transferred to the Senate as if
that end had been accomplished by an amendment of the Constitution. But
if the Senate have a right to interfere with the Executive powers, they
have also the right to make that interference effective, and if the
assertion of the power implied in the resolution be silently acquiesced
in we may reasonably apprehend that it will be followed at some future
day by an attempt at actual enforcement. The Senate may refuse, except
on the condition that he will surrender his opinions to theirs and obey
their will, to perform their own constitutional functions, to pass the
necessary laws, to sanction appropriations proposed by the House