portance, and they thought that the public could not
be too soon engaged in discussing the merits of a question which in so
many ways concerned the general welfare. Of this opinion seemed to be
the committee of the house of representatives, to which this part of the
message was referred, and which, after giving the subject a full
consideration, reported in favour of renewing the charter of the present
bank, and against the substitute for it which the president had ventured
to suggest.

The subject being thus fairly before the people, and in fact undergoing
a very thorough investigation in the public journals, it was expected
that the president would be contented with having done his duty on the
occasion, and, if not silenced by the gentle dissuasive of the senate,
or the bold and uncompromising logic of the house, he would merely
regret that truth should be so hoodwinked by prejudice, or that error
should have found so many apologists and supporters in those august
bodies, and that he would leave the question where it properly belonged,
and where he himself had placed it--with "the legislature and the
people." It was, then, with no little surprise, perceived, that the
succeeding annual message, which is at the head of this article, had
brought the same subject to the notice of the legislature, consisting
precisely of the same individuals as before, when nothing was pretended
to have occurred to induce them to change their former opinion, and when
the only reason which had been given, at the preceding session, for
inviting the consideration of what neither required nor admitted
immediate legislation, no longer existed. Public attention had been
fully drawn to the subject. The stockholders of the bank, who are
profiting by the good management of the institution, and who naturally
wish the charter renewed, had taken the alarm, and, trusting to the
omnipotence of truth, had every where invited investigation and
discussion--and all those who hoped to profit by the new national bank,
or who felt themselves bound to second the wishes of the administration,
had opposed the renewal of the charter, through the prints devoted to
the same cause.

When the avowed purpose of the president had been thus completely
answered, by his first communication to congress, it is natural to ask
what could have prompted the second? Were the majorities in both houses
of congress personally hostile to the president, or unfriendly to his
administr