Secretary of State James Monroe supported the new bank initiative, wishing to bind these highly regarded and pro-Republican business figures to government financial operations. Republicans in the South and West joined with monied interests in the mid-Atlantic states. Pro-SBUS Congressman John C. Calhoun argued forcefully that the federal government had a constitutional obligation to regulate bank credit as part of the national money supply. In January 1816, he introduced a bill of incorporation in the House of Representatives for a government bank (which would become the Second Bank of the United States). The measure was passed by Congress and signed by President James Madison in April 1816.