Columbia is made the seat of the principal bank, its citizens are
excluded from all participation in any benefit it might afford by
a positive prohibition on the bank from all discounting within the
District.

These are some of the objections which prominently exist against the
details of the bill. Others might be urged of much force, but it would
be unprofitable to dwell upon them. Suffice it to add that this charter
is designed to continue for twenty years without a competitor; that the
defects to which I have alluded, being founded on the fundamental law of
the corporation, are irrevocable, and that if the objections be well
founded it would be overhazardous to pass the bill into a law.

In conclusion I take leave most respectfully to say that I have felt the
most anxious solicitude to meet the wishes of Congress in the adoption
of a fiscal agent which, avoiding all constitutional objections, should
harmonize conflicting opinions. Actuated by this feeling, I have been
ready to yield much in a spirit of conciliation to the opinions of
others; and it is with great pain that I now feel compelled to differ
from Congress a second time in the same session. At the commencement of
this session, inclined from choice to defer to the legislative will, I
submitted to Congress the propriety of adopting a fiscal agent which,
without violating the Constitution, would separate the public money from
the Executive control and perform the operations of the Treasury without
being burdensome to the people or inconvenient or expensive to the
Government. It is deeply to be regretted that this department of the
Government can not upon constitutional and other grounds concur with the
legislative department in this last measure proposed to attain these
desirable objects. Owing to the brief space between the period of the
death of my lamented predecessor and my own installation into office,