The several officers of this bank, especially those at a distance, are in the habit of drawing checks on the bank for the accommodation of the community in its exchange operations.  These checks, from the nature of the business they are designed to facilitate, as well as from the labor of multiplying them, and the hazard of their being counterfeited, have generally been for large sums.  It is proposed, with a view to the more general accommodation of the community and the bank, that the offices should be instructed to issue these checks for smaller sums, such as twenty, ten, and five dollars, whenever requested by the dealers with those offices; and, in order to relieve the offices from the burden of preparing them, to transmit, from the bank, the blank forms of the checks, wanting only the signatures of the proper persons at the respective offices.  With a view to the prevention of counterfeits, and the security of the bank as well as the public, it is further pressed, that the general appearance of these checks should be uniform, and approaching, as near as their different natures will permit, to that of the notes of this bank, to which the community is now habituated; and, also, that they should be signed, not by the cashiers alone, as the checks are at present, but by both the presidents and cashiers of the respective offices.

This statement, with the accompanying form of the proposed check, is now submitted to your judgment, and you will have the goodness to give your opinions, whether this plan is or is not within the constitutional power of the bank, and whether there occur to you any objections, either of law or expediency, to prevent the adoption of it.

I have considered the questions submitted in Mr. Biddle's letter of the 22nd instant, and am of the following opinion:

As there is no substantial difference between the checks or drafts heretofore drawn at the different officer upon the Bank of the United States, and those which it is proposed hereafter to draw, the difference being in appearance more even than in form, there can be no legal objection to them, which does nut apply to every thing of this nature that has been done by the present Bank of the United States, by the former bank, and by almost all the banks in the country:  checks or drafts of a similar description between banks and their branches, and between independent banks, have been coeval with these institutions in the United States.

If the former practice has been lawful, so must the proposed practice be; for, whether the drafts be for large sums or small, whether they are signed by one officer or more, and whether they have the external appearance of a bank note or otherwise, must be a matter of perfect indifference, and entirely within the competency of the bank to regulate at its pleasure.

That the former practice is without objection, is to be inferred from its long continuance.  It is a practice, moreover, within the powers of every banking corporation, for, in this way only, can the intercourse of a bank and its offices, and the exchange operations between banking institutions, be adequately prosecuted, and consequently, unless restrained by charter, every bank is competent to empower its officers to draw such drafts or checks upon its funds, wherever situated, and to bind the corporation to the holder for their due honor.  It is an ordinary banking operation, to which their general faculties are perfectly competent.  A restraint upon the exercise of this power, is, I believe, without example in the charter of any bank; certainly I am unable to discover such in the charter of the Bank of the United States.  Whether it is within the power of the corporation to issue "bills or notes promising the payment of money to any person or persons, his of their order, or to bearer," unless signed by the president, and countersigned by the principal cashier or treasurer, is not the present inquiry.  The affirmative provision in the 12th fundamental article, which gives such bills or notes, though unsealed, a particular effect, has no reference, I conceive, to checks or drafts drawn at the offices upon the bank.  It is, perhaps owing to the practice only of the various banks in the country under this clause, that a doubt has arisen whether it is lawful for these corporations to issue such notes, signed and countersigned by other officers;  but the argument of practice is at least equally cogent to show, on the other hand, that the clause has never been supposed to prohibit checks and drafts signed by officers of the branches, and drawn upon the principal bank.  I am unable to discover any legal objection to the plan proposed, and, since it will facilitate the exchanges of the country, and secures the public and the bank from frauds, it seems to me as expedient as it is lawful.