_Ordered_, that the remainder of Mr Morris's letter be referred to a committee of three. The members appointed were Messrs Houston, Burke, and Wolcott.
TO THOMAS BURKE, WILLIAM HOUSTON, AND OLIVER WOLCOTT, COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS.
When I had the honor of a visit from you on the subject of my interview with Congress, it was agreed that I should make out and deliver you a list of the several officers concerned in the expenditure of public money, over whom I judged it necessary for the Superintendent of Finance to have the uncontrolled power of dismission. But on reflection I found it was not in my power to render such a list, because I do not know the several degrees of officers now in employment, and even if I did, such a list would not answer the end, because others may hereafter be created, who should also be subjected to the power of the Financier, and it would be very troublesome for Congress on every such appointment to pass a resolution for the purpose. There will also be appointments made occasionally by the Commander in Chief, the Heads of Department, and by other officers, in which the expenditure of public moneys will be involved, and of course such appointments must also be subject to the same authority. For these reasons, it seems proper that the power of the Minister of Finance, with respect to the control and dismission from office of all persons concerned in the expenditure of public property, should be defined in one Act of Congress, vesting him with that authority.
To me it appears absolutely necessary, that this power should be vested in the Financier to enable him to remedy and prevent public abuses; and the _extent_ should be measured by the _necessity_ and the _use_. As to myself, I am far from desiring power for the sake of power. Indeed I think it is generally more dangerous to the possessor than to the objects of it. Consequently I cannot have a wish to extend it beyond the necessity and utility mentioned.
The whole business of finance may be described in two short but comprehensive sentences, if I have proper notions on the subject. _It is to raise the public revenues, by such modes as may be most easy and most equal to the people; and to expend them in the most frugal, fair, and honest manner._ In our case the first part must ever be the business of Congress, and the Legislatures of the respective States; because the powers of taxation cannot be delegated. The second I take to be the most essential part of the duty of the Superintendent of Finance. He must ever have it in view to reduce the expenditures as nearly as possible to what in justice and in reason they ought to be; and to do this, he must be vested with power to dismiss from employment those officers he shall find unnecessary, unequal to their stations, inattentive to their duty, or dishonest in the exercise of it.