authorized to use the money of the bank in the manner stated in the two
reports, and have not denied that the charges there made against the
corporation are substantially true.

It must be taken, therefore, as admitted that the statements of the
public directors in the reports above mentioned are correct, and they
disclose the most alarming abuses on the part of the corporation and the
most strenuous exertions on their part to put an end to them. They prove
that enormous sums were secretly lavished in a manner and for purposes
that can not be justified, and that the whole of the immense capital
of the bank has been virtually placed at the disposal of a single
individual, to be used, if he thinks proper, to corrupt the press and
to control the proceedings of the Government by exercising an undue
influence over elections.

The reports are made in obedience to my official directions, and I
herewith transmit copies of my letters calling for information of the
proceedings of the bank. Were they bound to disregard the call? Was it
their duty to remain silent while abuses of the most injurious and
dangerous character were daily practiced? Were they bound to conceal
from the constituted authorities a course of measures destructive to the
best interests of the country and intended gradually and secretly to
subvert the foundations of our Government and to transfer its powers
from the hands of the people to a great moneyed corporation? Was it
their duty to sit in silence at the board and witness all these abuses
without an attempt to correct them, or, in case of failure there, not to
appeal to higher authority? The eighth fundamental rule authorizes any
one of the directors, whether elected or appointed, who may have been
absent when an excess of debt was created, or who may have dissented
from the act, to exonerate himself from personal responsibility by