appointed, provided he is an honest, upright man; it will be disagreeable
also to the people of the Union, who will always have reason to suspect"
misconduct. "We have had a Board of Treasury and we have had a Financier.
Have not express charges, as well as vague rumors, been brought against
him at the bar of the public? They may be unfounded, it is true; but it
shows that a man cannot serve in such a station without exciting popular
clamor. It is very well known, I dare say, to many gentlemen in this
House, that the noise and commotion were such as obliged Congress once
more to alter their Treasury Department, and place it under the management
of a Board of Commissioners." He descanted upon the perils to liberty
involved in the course they were pursuing. Surround the President with
Ministers of State and "the President will be induced to place more
confidence in them than in the Senate.... An oligarchy will be confirmed
upon the ruin of the democracy; a government most hateful will descend to
our posterity and all our exertions in the glorious cause of freedom will
be frustrated."

Gerry's speech as a whole was tactful and persuasive, but he made a
blunder when he appealed to the recollections of the old members, men who
had been in the Continental Congress, or else in some position where they
could view its springs of action. Their recollections now came forward to
his discomfiture. "My official duty," said Wadsworth of Connecticut, "has
led me often to attend at the Treasury of the United States, and, from my
experience, I venture to pronounce that a Board of Treasury is the worst
of all institutions. They have doubled our national debt." He contrasted
the order and clearness of accounts while the Superintendent of Finance
was in charge with the situation since then. If the committee had before
them the transactions of the Treasury Board, "instead of system and
responsibility they would find nothing but confusion and disorder, without
a possibility of checking their accounts." Boudinot of New Jersey said he