Accept my friendly salutations, and assurances of great esteem and
respect.
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER VIII.--TO MR. GALLATIN, December 13, 1803
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO MR. GALLATIN.
The Attorney General having considered and decided, that the
prescription in the law for establishing a bank, that the officers in
the subordinate offices of discount and deposit, shall be appointed 'on
the same terms and in the same manner practised in the principal bank,'
does not extend to them the principle of rotation, established by the
legislature in the body of directors in the principal bank, it follows
that the extension of that principle has been merely a voluntary and
prudential act of the principal bank, from which they are free to
depart. I think the extension was wise and proper on their part, because
the legislature having deemed rotation useful in the principal bank
constituted by them, there would be the same reason for it in the
subordinate banks to be established by the principal. It breaks in upon
the _esprit de corps_, so apt to prevail in permanent bodies; it gives
a chance for the public eye penetrating into the sanctuary of those
proceedings and practices, which the avarice of the directors may
introduce for their personal emolument, and which the resentments of
excluded directors, or the honesty of those duly admitted, might betray
to the public; and it gives an opportunity at the end of the year, or at
other periods, of correcting a choice, which, on trial, proves to have
been unfortunate; an evil of which themselves complain in their distant
institutions.
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