power to increase itself. By making the President
the sole distributer of all the patronage of the Government
the framers of the Constitution do not appear to have
anticipated at how short a period it would become a
formidable instrument to control the free operations
of the State governments. Of trifling importance
at first, it had early in Mr. Jefferson’s Administration
become so powerful as to create great alarm in the
mind of that patriot from the potent influence it might
exert in controlling the freedom of the elective franchise.
If such could have then been the effects of its influence,
how much greater must be the danger at this time,
quadrupled in amount as it certainly is and more completely
under the control of the Executive will than their
construction of their powers allowed or the forbearing
characters of all the early Presidents permitted them
to make. But it is not by the extent of its patronage
alone that the executive department has become dangerous,
but by the use which it appears may be made of the
appointing power to bring under its control the whole
revenues of the country. The Constitution has
declared it to be the duty of the President to see
that the laws are executed, and it makes him the Commander
in Chief of the Armies and Navy of the United States.
If the opinion of the most approved writers upon that
species of mixed government which in modern Europe
is termed monarchy in contradistinction to despotism
is correct, there was wanting no other addition to
the powers of our Chief Magistrate to stamp a monarchical
character on our Government but the control of the
public finances; and to me it appears strange indeed
that anyone should doubt that the entire control which
the President possesses over the officers who have
the custody of the public money, by the power of removal
with or without cause, does, for all mischievous purposes
at least, virtually subject the treasure also to his
disposal. The first Roman Emperor, in his attempt
to seize the sacred treasure, silenced the opposition
of the officer to whose charge it had been committed
by a significant allusion to his sword. By a selection
of political instruments for the care of the public
money a reference to their commissions by a President
would be quite as effectual an argument as that of
Caesar to the Roman knight. I am not insensible
of the great difficulty that exists in drawing a proper
plan for the safe-keeping and disbursement of the
public revenues, and I know the importance which has
been attached by men of great abilities and patriotism
to the divorce, as it is called, of the Treasury from
the banking institutions It is not the divorce which
is complained of, but the unhallowed union of the
Treasury with the executive department, which has created
such extensive alarm. To this danger to our republican
institutions and that created by the influence given
to the Executive through the instrumentality of the
Federal officers I propose to apply all the remedies


