Developments have been made from time to time of its faithlessness as
a public agent, its misapplication of public funds, its interference in
elections, its efforts by the machinery of committees to deprive the
Government directors of a full knowledge of its concerns, and, above
all, its flagrant misconduct as recently and unexpectedly disclosed
in placing all the funds of the bank, including the money of the
Government, at the disposition of the president of the bank as means
of operating upon public opinion and procuring a new charter, without
requiring him to render a voucher for their disbursement. A brief
recapitulation of the facts which justify these charges, and which have
come to the knowledge of the public and the President, will, he thinks,
remove every reasonable doubt as to the course which it is now the duty
of the President to pursue.
We have seen that in sixteen months ending in May, 1832, the bank
had extended its loans more than $28,000,000, although it knew the
Government intended to appropriate most of its large deposit during that
year in payment of the public debt. It was in May, 1832, that its loans
arrived at the maximum, and in the preceding March so sensible was the
bank that it would not be able to pay over the public deposit when
it would be required by the Government that it commenced a secret
negotiation, without the approbation or knowledge of the Government,
with the agents for about $2,700,000 of the 3 per cent stocks held in
Holland, with a view of inducing them not to come forward for payment
for one or more years after notice should be given by the Treasury
Department.
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