st jewel it possesses--its political purity. The
influence which the national executive exercises over the present Bank
of the United States, is moderate, and not more than is salutary. It
annually appoints a part of its directors, and, at stated periods, may,
moreover, exercise its right, of having the government funds transferred
from one part of the Union to the other, in a more or less accommodating
way. But here its influence stops. The law, in pursuance of the charter,
directs that the public money shall be deposited in the Bank of the
United States or its branches, and in these it must be deposited,
whether the president or his secretaries have good will or ill will to
the bank, or whether the bank is willing to give any thing in return for
their favour or not. These public deposits are valuable to the bank;
and, for the benefit, they have paid, and we presume are yet willing to
pay, a fair price. But the compensation is not paid to any officer of
the government; it goes into the national treasury, and it consists of
gold and silver, and not in the base metal of political influence.

We are well aware that many of the state banks are under the management
of high-minded and honourable men, who would not be bidders at this
auction, and who would scorn to purchase a share of the public deposits,
at the price of their independence. But such might not prove to be the
character of the greater number. Besides, in some of these cases, a
majority of the stockholders might not sit idly by, and see the bank
deprived of its share of government favour by the squeamishness of its
officers, and might therefore either coerce them into compliance, or
remove them.

If so much has been said about the influence attached to the office of
the secretary of state, arising from the paltry patronage of printing
the laws of the United States, what should be thought of that privilege
of giving the permanent and uncompensated use of many millions of
dollars to such powerful corporations as the state banks--embracing some
thousands of directors, and some tens, nay, hundreds of thousands of
stockholders and borrowers? We would appeal to that intelligent class of
our citizens, who are quietly pursuing their occupations or professions
at home, by which they secure to themselves independence and
respectability, and who see, in the purity of our political
institutions, their country's present happiness and future greatness, to
take these things i