At the end of the last session of Congress, the public moneys of the United States were still in their proper place.  That place was fixed by the law of the land, and no power of change was conferred on any other human being than the Secretary of the Treasury.  On him the power of change was conferred, to be exercised by himself, if emergency should arise, and to be exercised for reasons which he was bound to lay before Congress.  No other officer of the government had the slightest pretence of authority to lay his hand on these moneys for the purpose of changing the place of their custody.  All the other heads of departments together could not touch them.  The President could not touch them.  The power of change was a trust confided to the discretion of the Secretary, and to his discretion alone.  The President had no more authority to take upon himself this duty, thus assigned expressly by law to the Secretary, than he had to make the annual report to Congress, or the annual commercial statements, or to perform any other service which the law specially requires of the Secretary.  He might just as well sign the warrants for moneys, in the ordinary daily disbursements of government, instead of the Secretary.  The statute had assigned the especial duty of removing the deposits, if removed at all, to the Secretary of the Treasury, and to him alone.  The consideration of the propriety or necessity of removal must be the consideration of the Secretary; the decision to remove, his decision; and the act of removal, his act.

Now, Sir, on the 18th day of September last, a resolution was taken to remove these deposits from their legislative, that is to say, their legal custody. Whose resolution was this? On the 1st of October, they were removed. By whose power was this done? The papers necessary to accomplish the removal (that is, the orders and drafts) are, it is true, signed by the Secretary.  The President’s name is not subscribed to them; nor does the Secretary, in any of them, recite or declare that he does the act by direction of the President, or on the President’s responsibility.  In form, the whole proceeding is the proceeding of the Secretary, and, as such, had the legal effect.  The deposits were removed.  But whose act was it, in truth and reality?  Whose will accomplished it?  On whose responsibility was it adopted?

These questions are all explicitly answered by the President himself, in the paper, under his own hand, read to the Cabinet on the 18th of September, and published by his authority.  In this paper the President declares, in so many words, that he begs his Cabinet to consider the proposed measure as his own; that its responsibility has been assumed by him; and that he names the first day of October as a period proper for its execution.