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 which may be at my command. It was certainly a great error in
the framers of the Constitution not to have made the officer at the head
of the Treasury Department entirely independent of the Executive. He
should at least have been removable only upon the demand of the popular
branch of the Legislature. I have determined never to remove a Secretary
of the Treasury without communicating all the circumstances attending
such removal to both Houses of Congress.
The influence of the Executive in controlling the freedom of the
elective franchise through the medium of the public officers can be
effectually checked by renewing the prohibition published by Mr.
Jefferson forbidding their interference in elections further than giving
their own votes, and their own independence secured by an assurance of
perfect immunity in exercising this sacred privilege of freemen under
the dictates of their own unbiased judgments.
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