Although the charter and the rules of the bank both declare that "not
less than seven directors" shall be necessary to the transaction of
business, yet the most important business, even that of granting
discounts to any extent, is intrusted to a committee of five members,
who do not report to the board.
To cut off all means of communication with the Government in relation
to its most important acts at the commencement of the present year, not
one of the Government directors was placed on any one committee; and
although since, by an unusual remodeling of those bodies, some of those
directors have been placed on some of the committees, they are yet
entirely excluded from the committee of exchange, through which the
greatest and most objectionable loans have been made.
When the Government directors made an effort to bring back the business
of the bank to the board in obedience to the charter and the existing
regulations, the board not only overruled their attempt, but altered the
rule so as to make it conform to the practice, in direct violation of
one of the most important provisions of the charter which gave them
existence.
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