f such a call it was
obviously proper that he should confine himself to pointing out those
prominent features in the act; presented which in his opinion make it
incompatible with the Constitution and sound policy. A general
discussion will now take place, eliciting new light and settling
important principles; and a new Congress, elected in the midst of such
discussion, and furnishing an equal representation of the people
according to the last census, will bear to the Capitol the verdict of
public opinion, and, I doubt not, bring this important question to a
satisfactory result.

Under such circumstances the bank comes forward and asks a renewal of
its charter for a term of fifteen years upon conditions which not only
operate as a gratuity to the stockholders of many millions of dollars,
but will sanction any abuses and legalize any encroachments.

Suspicions are entertained and charges are made of gross abuse and
violation of its charter. An investigation unwillingly conceded and so
restricted in time as necessarily to make it incomplete and
unsatisfactory discloses enough to excite suspicion and alarm. In the
practices of the principal bank partially unveiled, in the absence of
important witnesses, and in numerous charges confidently made and as yet
wholly uninvestigated there was enough to induce a majority of the
committee of investigation--a committee which was selected from the most
able and honorable members of the House of Representatives--to recommend
a suspension of further action upon the bill and a prosecution of the
inquiry. As the charter had yet four years to run, and as a renewal now
was not necessary to the successful prosecution of its business, it was
to have been expected that the bank itself, conscious of its purity and
proud of its character, would have withdrawn its application for the
present, and demanded the severest scrutiny into all its transactions.
In their declining to do so there seems to be an additional reason why
the functionaries of the Government should proceed with less haste and
more caution in the renewal of their monopoly.

The bank is professedly established as an agent of the executive branch
of the Government, and its constitutionality is maintained on that
ground. Neither upon the propriety of present action nor upon the
provisions of this act was the Executive consulted. It has had no
opportunity to say that it neither needs nor wants an agent clothed with
such powers and