le which
he has thereby set to future Committees of Ways and Means, to cite as
_precedents_ for yet ranker rottenness, that, if there were a prospect
of his remaining in office longer than till the close of the present
session of the Senate, I should deem it an indispensable, albeit a
painful, duty of my station, to take the sense of this house on the
question. And, sir, if, after this explicit declaration by me, the
chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means has not yet slaked his
thirst for _precedents_, he may gratify it by offering a fifth
resolution, in addition to the four reported by the committee, as thus:
Resolved, that the thanks of this house be given to Roger B. Taney,
Secretary of the Treasury, for his pure and DISINTERESTED patriotism in
transferring the use of the public funds from the Bank of the United
States, where they were profitable to the people, to the Union Bank of
Baltimore, where they were profitable to himself."

He then proceeds to show, in a severe and searching examination of
the proceedings of this secretary, that the transfers were utterly
unwarrantable; that he _tampered_ with the public moneys to sustain the
staggering credit of selected depositaries, and "scatter it abroad
among swarms of rapacious political partisans." After stating and
answering all the charges brought by the Secretary of the Treasury
against the Bank of the United States, and showing their falsehood or
futility, he declares all the proceedings of the directors of the
bank to have been within the pale of action warranted by the laws of
the land; and, so long as they do this, "a charge of dishonesty or
corruption against them, uttered by the President of the United States,
or by the Secretary of the Treasury, is neither more nor less than
slander, emitted under the protection of official station, against
private citizens. This is both ungenerous and unjust. It is the abuse
of the shelter of official station to circulate calumny with impunity."

Mr. Adams next examines and severely reprobates the declaration of
the President of the United States, that, "if the last Congress had
continued in session one week longer, the bank would, by corrupt means,
have procured a re-charter by majorities of two thirds in both houses
of Congress;" and declares the imputation as unjust as it was
dishonorable to all the parties implicated in it. He did not believe
there was _one_ member in the last Congress, who voted against
re-chart