Unless, therefore, the Secretary of the
Treasury first acts, Congress have no power over the subject, for they
can not add a new clause to the charter or strike one out of it without
the consent of the bank, and consequently the public money must remain
in that institution to the last hour of its existence unless the
Secretary of the Treasury shall remove it at an earlier day. The
responsibility is thus thrown upon the executive branch of the
Government of deciding how long before the expiration of the charter the
public interest will require the deposits to be placed elsewhere; and
although according to the frame and principle of our Government this
decision would seem more properly to belong to the legislative power,
yet as the law has imposed it upon the executive department the duty
ought to be faithfully and firmly met, and the decision made and
executed upon the best lights that can be obtained and the best judgment
that can be formed. It would ill become the executive branch of the
Government to shrink from any duty which the law imposes on it, to fix
upon others the responsibility which justly belongs to itself.
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