President would be quite as effectual an argument as that of Caesar to
the Roman knight. I am not insensible of the great difficulty that
exists in drawing a proper plan for the safe-keeping and disbursement
of the public revenues, and I know the importance which has been
attached by men of great abilities and patriotism to the divorce, as it
is called, of the Treasury from the banking institutions. It is not the
divorce which is complained of, but the unhallowed union of the
Treasury with the executive department, which has created such
extensive alarm. To this danger to our republican institutions and that
created by the influence given to the Executive through the
instrumentality of the Federal officers I propose to apply all the
remedies which may be at my command. It was certainly a great error in
the framers of the Constitution not to have made the officer at the
head of the Treasury Department entirely independent of the Executive.
He should at least have been removable only upon the demand of the
popular branch of the Legislature. I have determined never to remove a
Secretary of the Treasury without communicating all the circumstances
attending such removal to both Houses of Congress.

The influence of the Executive in controlling the freedom of the
elective franchise through the medium of the public officers can be
effectually checked by renewing the prohibition published by Mr.
Jefferson forbidding their interference in elections further than
giving their own votes, and their own independence secured by an
assurance of perfect immunity in exercising this sacred privilege of
freemen under the dictates of their own unbiased judgments. Never with
my consent shall an officer of the people, compensated for his services
out of their pockets, become the pliant instrument of Executive will.

There is no part of the means placed in the hands of the Executive