and asserted. No such right has been asserted by
anybody. Congress passed the bill, not as a bounty or a favor to the
present stockholders, nor to comply with any demand of right on their
part; but to promote great public interests, for great public objects.
Every bank must have some stockholders, unless it be such a bank as the
President has recommended, and in regard to which he seems not likely to
find much concurrence of other men's opinions; and if the stockholders,
whoever they may be, conduct the affairs of the bank prudently, the
expectation is always, of course, that they will make it profitable to
themselves, as well as useful to the public. If a bank charter is not to
be granted, because, to some extent, it may be profitable to the
stockholders, no charter can be granted. The objection lies against all
banks.

Sir, the object aimed at by such institutions is to connect the public
safety and convenience with private interests. It has been found by
experience, that banks are safest under private management, and that
government banks are among the most dangerous of all inventions. Now,
Sir, the whole drift of the message is to reverse the settled judgment
of all the civilized world, and to set up government banks, independent
of private interest or private control. For this purpose the message
labors, even beyond the measure of all its other labors, to create
jealousies and prejudices, on the ground of the alleged benefit which
individuals will derive from the renewal of this charter. Much less
effort is made to show that government, or the public, will be injured
by the bill, than that individuals will profit by it. Following up the
impulses of the same spirit, the message goes on gravely to allege, that
the act, as passed by Congress, proposes to make a _present_ of some
millions of dollars to foreigners, because a portion of the stock is
held by foreigners. Sir, how would this sort of argument apply to other
cases? The President has shown himself not only willing, but anxious, to
pay off the three per cent stock of the United States at _par_,
notwithstanding that it is notorious that foreigners are owners of the
greater part of it. Why should he not call that a donation to foreigners
of many millions?

I will not dwell particularly on this part of the message. Its tone and
its arguments are all in the same strain. It speaks of the certain gain
of the present stockholders, of the value of the monopoly; it sa