Although clothed with the legal authority and supported by
precedent, I was aware that there was in the act of the removal of the
deposits a liability to excite that sensitiveness to Executive power
which it is the characteristic and the duty of freemen to indulge; but
I relied on this feeling also, directed by patriotism and intelligence,
to vindicate the conduct which in the end would appear to have been
called for by the best interests of my country. The apprehensions
natural to this feeling that there may have been a desire, through the
instrumentality of that measure, to extend the Executive influence, or
that it may have been prompted by motives not sufficiently free from
ambition, were not overlooked. Under the operation of our institutions
the public servant who is called on to take a step of high
responsibility should feel in the freedom which gives rise to such
apprehensions his highest security. When unfounded the attention which
they arouse and the discussions they excite deprive those who indulge
them of the power to do harm; when just they but hasten the certainty
with which the great body of our citizens never fail to repel an attempt
to procure their sanction to any exercise of power inconsistent with the
jealous maintenance of their rights.
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