d the open seizure of the
dividends on the public stock to the amount of $170,041, under pretense
of paying damages, cost, and interest upon the protested French bill.
This sum constituted a portion of the estimated revenues for the year
1834, upon which the appropriations made by Congress were based. It
would as soon have been expected that our collectors would seize on the
customs or the receivers of our land offices on the moneys arising from
the sale of public lands under pretenses of claims against the United
States as that the bank would have retained the dividends. Indeed, if
the principle be established that anyone who chooses to set up a claim
against the United States may without authority of law seize on the
public property or money wherever he can find it to pay such claim,
there will remain no assurance that our revenue will reach the Treasury
or that it will be applied after the appropriation to the purposes
designated in the law. The paymasters of our Army and the pursers of our
Navy may under like pretenses apply to their own use moneys appropriated
to set in motion the public force, and in time of war leave the country
without defense. This measure resorted to by the bank is disorganizing
and revolutionary, and if generally resorted to by private citizens in
like cases would fill the land with anarchy and violence.

It is a constitutional provision "that no money shall be drawn from
the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law." The
palpable object of this provision is to prevent the expenditure of the
public money for any purpose whatsoever which shall not have been first
approved by the representatives of the people and the States in Congress
assembled. It vests the power of declaring for what purposes the public
money shall be expended in the legislative department of the Government,
to the exclusion of the executive and judicial, and it is not within
the constitutional authority of either of those departments to pay it
away without law or to sanction its payment. According to this plain
constitutional provision, the claim of the bank can never be paid
without an appropriation by act of Congress. But the bank has never
asked for an appropriation. It attempts to defeat the provision of the
Constitution and obtain payment without an act of Congress. Instead of
awaiting an appropriation passed by both Houses and approved by the
President, it makes an appropriation for itself and invites