Chapter X: Part 10

I come next to the right to regulate commerce, the third source from whence the right to make internal improvements is claimed. It is expressed in the following words: "Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States and with the Indian tribes." The reasoning applicable to the preceding claims is equally so to this. The mischief complained of was that this power could not be exercised with advantage by the individual States, and the object was to transfer it to the United States. The sense in which the power was understood and exercised by the States was doubtless that in which it was transferred to the United States. The policy was the same as to three branches of this grant, and it is scarcely possible to separate the two first from each other in any view which may be taken of the subject. The last, relating to the Indian tribes, is of a nature distinct from the others for reasons too well known to require explanation. Commerce between independent powers or communities is universally regulated by duties and imposts. It was so regulated by the States before the adoption of this Constitution equally in respect to each other and to foreign powers. The goods and vessels employed in the trade are the only subjects of regulation. It can act on none other. A power, then, to impose such duties and imposts in regard to foreign nations and to prevent any on the trade between the States was the only power granted.

If we recur to the causes which produced the adoption of this Constitution, we shall find that injuries resulting from the regulation of trade by the States respectively and the advantages anticipated from the transfer of the power to Congress were among those which had the most weight. Instead of acting as a nation in regard to foreign powers, the States individually had commenced a system of restraint on each other whereby the interests of foreign powers were promoted at their expense. If one State imposed high duties on the goods or vessels of a foreign power to countervail the regulations of such power, the next adjoining States imposed lighter duties to invite those articles into their ports, that they might be transferred thence into the other States, securing the duties to themselves. This contracted policy in some of the States was soon counteracted by others. Restraints were immediately laid on such commerce by the suffering States, and thus had grown up a state of affairs disorderly and unnatural, the tendency of which was to destroy the Union itself and with it all hope of realizing those blessings which we had anticipated from the glorious Revolution which had been so recently achieved. From this deplorable dilemma, or, rather, certain ruin, we were happily rescued by the adoption of the Constitution.

Among the first and most important effects of this great Revolution was the complete abolition of this pernicious policy. The States were brought together by the Constitution as to commerce into one community equally in regard to foreign nations and each other. The regulations that were adopted regarded us in both respects as one people. The duties and imposts that were laid on the vessels and merchandise of foreign nations were all uniform throughout the United States, and in the intercourse between the States themselves no duties of any kind were imposed other than between different ports and counties within the same State.

This view is supported by a series of measures, all of a marked character, preceding the adoption of the Constitution. As early as the year 1781 Congress recommended it to the States to vest in the United States a power to levy a duty of 5 per cent on all goods imported from foreign countries into the United States for the term of fifteen years. In 1783 this recommendation, with alterations as to the kind of duties and an extension of this term to twenty-five years, was repeated and more earnestly urged. In 1784 it was recommended to the States to authorize Congress to prohibit, under certain modifications, the importation of goods from foreign powers into the United States for fifteen years. In 1785 the consideration of the subject was resumed, and a proposition presented in a new form, with an address to the States, explaining fully the principles on which a grant of the power to regulate trade was deemed indispensable. In 1786 a meeting took place at Annapolis of delegates from several of the States on this subject, and on their report a convention was formed at Philadelphia the ensuing year from all the States, to whose deliberations we are indebted for the present Constitution.

In none of these measures was the subject of internal improvement mentioned or even glanced at. Those of 1784, 1785, 1786, and 1787, leading step by step to the adoption of the Constitution, had in view only the obtaining of a power to enable Congress to regulate trade with foreign powers. It is manifest that the regulation of trade with the several States was altogether a secondary object, suggested by and adopted in connection with the other. If the power necessary to this system of improvement is included under either branch of this grant, I should suppose that it was the first rather than the second. The pretension to it, however, under that branch has never been set up. In support of the claim under the second no reason has been assigned which appears to have the least weight.

The fourth claim is founded on the right of Congress to "pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare" of the United States. This claim has less reason on its side than either of those which we have already examined. The power of which this forms a part is expressed in the following words: "Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." That the second part of this grant gives a right to appropriate the public money, and nothing more, is evident from the following considerations: First. If the right of appropriation is not given by this clause, it is not given at all, there being no other grant in the Constitution which gives it directly or which has any bearing on the subject, even by implication, except the two following: First, the prohibition, which is contained in the eleventh of the enumerated powers, not to appropriate money for the support of armies for a longer term than two years; and, second, the declaration of the sixth member or clause of the ninth section of the first article that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. Second. This part of the grant has none of the characteristics of a distinct and original power. It is manifestly incidental to the great objects of the first part of the grant, which authorizes Congress to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, a power of vast extent, not granted by the Confederation, the grant of which formed one of the principal inducements to the adoption of this Constitution. If both parts of the grant are taken together (as they must be, for the one follows immediately after the other in the same sentence), it seems to be impossible to give to the latter any other construction than that contended for. Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. For what purpose? To pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, an arrangement and phraseology which clearly show that the latter part of the clause was intended to enumerate the purposes to which the money thus raised might be appropriated. Third. If this is not the real object and fair construction of the second part of this grant, it follows either that it has no import or operation whatever or one of much greater extent than the first part. This presumption is evidently groundless in both instances. In the first because no part of the Constitution can be considered useless; no sentence or clause in it without a meaning. In the second because such a construction as made the second part of the clause an original grant, embracing the same object with the first, but with much greater power than it, would be in the highest degree absurd. The order generally observed in grants, an order founded in common sense, since it promotes a clear understanding of their import, is to grant the power intended to be conveyed in the most full and explicit manner, and then to explain or qualify it, if explanation or qualification should be necessary. This order has, it is believed, been invariably observed in all the grants contained in the Constitution. In the second because if the clause in question is not construed merely as an authority to appropriate the public money, it must be obvious that it conveys a power of indefinite and unlimited extent; that there would have been no use for the special powers to raise and support armies and a navy, to regulate commerce, to call forth the militia, or even to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. An unqualified power to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare, as the second part of this clause would be if considered as a distinct and separate grant, would extend to every object in which the public could be interested. A power to provide for the common defense would give to Congress the command of the whole force and of all the resources of the Union; but a right to provide for the general welfare would go much further. It would, in effect, break down all the barriers between the States and the General Government and consolidate the whole under the latter.

The powers specifically granted to Congress are what are called the enumerated powers, and are numbered in the order in which they stand, among which that contained in the first clause holds the first place in point of importance. If the power created by the latter part of the clause is considered an original grant, unconnected with and independent of the first, as in that case it must be, then the first part is entirely done away, as are all the other grants in the Constitution, being completely absorbed in the transcendent power granted in the latter part; but if the clause be construed in the sense contended for, then every part has an important meaning and effect; not a line, a word, in it is superfluous. A power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises subjects to the call of Congress every branch of the public revenue, internal and external, and the addition to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare gives the right of applying the money raised--that is, of appropriating it to the purposes specified according to a proper construction of the terms. Hence it follows that it is the first part of the clause only which gives a power which affects in any manner the power remaining to the States, as the power to raise money from the people, whether it be by taxes, duties, imposts, or excises, though concurrent in the States as to taxes and excises must necessarily do. But the use or application of the money after it is raised is a power altogether of a different character. It imposes no burden on the people, nor can it act on them in a sense to take power from the States or in any sense in which power can be controverted, or become a question between the two Governments. The application of money raised under a lawful power is a right or grant which may be abused. It may be applied partially among the States, or to improper purposes in our foreign and domestic concerns; but still it is a power not felt in the sense of other power, since the only complaint which any State can make of such partiality and abuse is that some other State or States have obtained greater benefit from the application than by a just rule of apportionment they were entitled to. The right of appropriation is therefore from its nature secondary and incidental to the right of raising money, and it was proper to place it in the same grant and same clause with that right. By rinding them, then, in that order we see a new proof of the sense in which the grant was made, corresponding with the view herein taken of it.

The last part of this grant, which provides that all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States, furnishes another strong proof that it was not intended that the second part should constitute a distinct grant in the sense above stated, or convey any other right than that of appropriation. This provision operates exclusively on the power granted in the first part of the clause. It recites three branches of that power--duties, imposts, and excises--those only on which it could operate, the rule by which the fourth--that is, taxes--should be laid being already provided for in another part of the Constitution. The object of this provision is to secure a just equality among the States in the exercise of that power by Congress. By placing it after both the grants--that is, after that to raise and that to appropriate the public money--and making it apply to the first only it shows that it was not intended that the power granted in the second should be paramount to and destroy that granted in the first. It shows also that no such formidable power as that suggested had been granted in the second, or any power against the abuse of which it was thought necessary specially to provide. Surely if it was deemed proper to guard a specific power of limited extent and well-known import against injustice and abuse, it would have been much more so to have guarded against the abuse of a power of such vast extent and so indefinite as would have been granted by the second part of the clause if considered as a distinct and original grant.

With this construction all the other enumerated grants, and, indeed, all the grants of power contained in the Constitution, have their full operation and effect. They all stand well together, fulfilling the great purposes intended by them. Under it we behold a great scheme, consistent in all its parts, a Government instituted for national purposes, vested with adequate powers for those purposes, commencing with the most important of all, that of the revenue, and proceeding in regular order to the others with which it was deemed proper to endow it, all, too, drawn with the utmost circumspection and care. How much more consistent is this construction with the great objects of the institution and with the high character of the enlightened and patriotic citizens who framed it, as well as of those who ratified it, than one which subverts every sound principle and rule of construction and throws everything into confusion.

I have dwelt thus long on this part of the subject from an earnest desire to fix in a clear and satisfactory manner the import of the second part of this grant, well knowing from the generality of the terms used their tendency to lead into error. I indulge a strong hope that the view herein presented will not be without effect, but will tend to satisfy the unprejudiced and impartial that nothing more was granted by that part than a power to _appropriate_ the public money raised under the other part. To what extent that power may be carried will be the next object of inquiry.

It is contended on the one side that as the National Government is a government of limited powers it has no right to expend money except in the performance of acts authorized by the other specific grants according to a strict construction of their powers; that this grant in neither of its branches gives to Congress discretionary power of any kind, but is a mere instrument in its hands to carry into effect the powers contained in the other grants. To this construction I was inclined in the more early stage of our Government; but on further reflection and observation my mind has undergone a change, for reasons which I will frankly unfold.

The grant consists, as heretofore observed, of a twofold power--the first to raise, the second to appropriate, the public money--and the terms used in both instances are general and unqualified. Bach branch was obviously drawn with a view to the other, and the import of each tends to illustrate that of the other. The grant to raise money gives a power over every subject from which revenue may be drawn, and is made in the same manner with the grants to declare war, to raise and support armies and a navy, to regulate commerce, to establish post-offices and post-roads, and with all the other specific grants to the General Government. In the discharge of the powers contained in any of these grants there is no other check than that which is to be found in the great principles of our system, the responsibility of the representative to his constituents. If war, for example, is necessary, and Congress declare it for good cause, their constituents will support them in it. A like support will be given them for the faithful discharge of their duties under any and every other power vested in the United States. It affords to the friends of our free governments the most heartfelt consolation to know--and from the best evidence, our own experience--that in great emergencies the boldest measures, such as form the strongest appeals to the virtue and patriotism of the people, are sure to obtain the most decided approbation. But should the representative act corruptly and betray his trust, or otherwise prove that he was unworthy of the confidence of his constituents, he would be equally sure to lose it and to be removed and otherwise censured, according to his deserts. The power to raise money by taxes, duties, imposts, and excises is alike unqualified, nor do I see any check on the exercise of it other than that which applies to the other powers above recited, the responsibility of the representative to his constituents. Congress know the extent of the public engagements and the sums necessary to meet them; they know how much may be derived from each branch of revenue without pressing it too far; and, paying due regard to the interests of the people, they likewise know which branch ought to be resorted to in the first instance. From the commencement of the Government two branches of this power, duties and imposts, have been in constant operation, the revenue from which has supported the Government in its various branches and met its other ordinary engagements. In great emergencies the other two, taxes and excises, have likewise been resorted to, and neither was the right or the policy ever called in question.

If we look to the second branch of this power, that which authorizes the appropriation of the money thus raised, we find that it is not less general and unqualified than the power to raise it. More comprehensive terms than to "pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare" could not have been used. So intimately connected with and dependent on each other are these two branches of power that had either been limited the limitation would have had the like effect on the other. Had the power to raise money been conditional or restricted to special purposes, the appropriation must have corresponded with it, for none but the money raised could be appropriated, nor could it be appropriated to other purposes than those which were permitted. On the other hand, if the right of appropriation had been restricted to certain purposes, it would be useless and improper to raise more than would be adequate to those purposes. It may fairly be inferred these restraints or checks have been carefully and intentionally avoided. The power in each branch is alike broad and unqualified, and each is drawn with peculiar fitness to the other, the latter requiring terms of great extent and force to accommodate the former, which have been adopted, and both placed in the same clause and sentence.

Can it be presumed that all these circumstances were so nicely adjusted by mere accident? Is it not more just to conclude that they were the result of due deliberation and design? Had it been intended that Congress should be restricted in the appropriation of the public money to such expenditures as were authorized by a rigid construction of the other specific grants, how easy would it have been to have provided for it by a declaration to that effect. The omission of such declaration is therefore an additional proof that it was not intended that the grant should be so construed.

It was evidently impossible to have subjected this grant in either branch to such restriction without exposing the Government to very serious embarrassment. How carry it into effect? If the grant had been made in any degree dependent upon the States, the Government would have experienced the fate of the Confederation. Like it, it would have withered and soon perished. Had the Supreme Court been authorized, or should any other tribunal distinct from the Government be authorized, to impose its veto, and to say that more money had been raised under either branch of this power--that is, by taxes, duties, imposts, or excises--than was necessary, that such a tax or duty was useless, that the appropriation to this or that purpose was unconstitutional, the movement might have been suspended and the whole system disorganized. It was impossible to have created a power within the Government or any other power distinct from Congress and the Executive which should control the movement of the Government in this respect and not destroy it. Had it been declared by a clause in the Constitution that the expenditures under this grant should be restricted to the construction which might be given of the other grants, such restraint, though the most innocent, could not have failed to have had an injurious effect on the vital principles of the Government and often on its most important measures. Those who might wish to defeat a measure proposed might construe the power relied on in support of it in a narrow and contracted manner, and in that way fix a precedent inconsistent with the true import of the grant. At other times those who favored a measure might give to the power relied on a forced or strained construction, and, succeeding in the object, fix a precedent in the opposite extreme. Thus it is manifest that if the right of appropriation be confined to that limit, measures may oftentimes be carried or defeated by considerations and motives altogether independent of and unconnected with their merits, and the several powers of Congress receive constructions equally inconsistent with their true import. No such declaration, however, has been made, and from the fair import of the grant, and, indeed, its positive terms, the inference that such was intended seems to be precluded.

Many considerations of great weight operate in favor of this construction, while I do not perceive any serious objections to it. If it be established, it follows that the words "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" have a definite, safe, and useful meaning. The idea of their forming an original grant, with unlimited power, superseding every other grant, is abandoned. They will be considered simply as conveying a right of appropriation, a right indispensable to that of raising a revenue and necessary to expenditures under every grant. By it, as already observed, no new power will be taken from the States, the money to be appropriated being raised under a power already granted to Congress. By it, too, the motive for giving a forced or strained construction to any of the other specific grants will in most instances be diminished and in many utterly destroyed. The importance of this consideration can not be too highly estimated, since, in addition to the examples already given, it ought particularly to be recollected that to whatever extent any specified power may be carried the right of jurisdiction goes with it, pursuing it through all its incidents. The very important agency which this grant has in carrying into effect every other grant is a wrong argument in favor of the construction contended for. All the other grants are limited by the nature of the offices which they have severally to perform, each conveying a power to do a certain thing, and that only, whereas this is coextensive with the great scheme of the Government itself. It is the lever which raises and puts the whole machinery in motion and continues the movement. Should either of the other grants fail in consequence of any condition or limitation attached to it or misconstruction of its powers, much injury might follow, but still it would be the failure of one branch of power, of one item in the system only. All the others might move on. But should the right to raise and appropriate the public money be improperly restricted, the whole system might be sensibly affected, if not disorganized. Each of the other grants is limited by the nature of the grant itself; this, by the nature of the Government only. Hence it became necessary that, like the power to declare war, this power should be commensurate with the great scheme of the Government and with all its purposes.

If, then, the right to raise and appropriate the public money is not restricted to the expenditures under the other specific grants according to a strict construction of their powers, respectively, is there no limitation to it? Have Congress a right to raise and appropriate the money to any and to every purpose according to their will and pleasure? They certainly have not. The Government of the United States is a limited Government, instituted for great national purposes, and for those only. Other interests are committed to the States, whose duty it is to provide for them. Each government should look to the great and essential purposes for which it was instituted and confine itself to those purposes. A State government will rarely if ever apply money to national purposes without making it a charge to the nation. The people of the State would not permit it. Nor will Congress be apt to apply money in aid of the State administrations for purposes strictly local in which the nation at large has no interest, although the State should desire it. The people of the other States would condemn it. They would declare that Congress had no right to tax them for such a purpose, and dismiss at the next election such of their representatives as had voted for the measure, especially if it should be severely felt. I do not think that in offices of this kind there is much danger of the two Governments mistaking their interests or their duties. I rather expect that they would soon have a clear and distinct understanding of them and move on in great harmony.

Good roads and canals will promote many very important national purposes. They will facilitate the operations of war, the movements of troops, the transportation of cannon, of provisions, and every warlike store, much to our advantage and to the disadvantage of the enemy in time of war. Good roads will facilitate the transportation of the mail, and thereby promote the purposes of commerce and political intelligence among the people. They will by being properly directed to these objects enhance the value of our vacant lands, a treasure of vast resource to the nation. To the appropriation of the public money to improvements having these objects in view and carried to a certain extent I do not see any well-founded constitutional objection.

In regard to our foreign concerns, provided they are managed with integrity and ability, great liberality is allowable in the application of the public money. In the management of these concerns no State interests can be affected, no State rights violated. The complete and exclusive control over them is vested in Congress. The power to form treaties of alliance and commerce with foreign powers, to regulate by law our commerce with them, to determine on peace or war, to raise armies and a navy, to call forth the militia and direct their operations belongs to the General Government. These great powers, embracing the whole scope of our foreign relations, being granted, on what principle can it be said that the minor are withheld? Are not the latter clearly and evidently comprised in the former? Nations are sometimes called upon to perform to each other acts of humanity and kindness, of which we see so many illustrious examples between individuals in private life. Great calamities make appeals to the benevolence of mankind which ought not to be resisted. Good offices in such emergencies exalt the character of the party rendering them. By exciting grateful feelings they soften the intercourse between nations and tend to prevent war. Surely if the United States have a right to make war they have a right to prevent it. How was it possible to grant to Congress a power for such minor purposes other than in general terms, comprising it within the scope and policy of that which conveyed it for the greater?

The right of appropriation is nothing more than a right to apply the public money to this or that purpose. It has no incidental power, nor does it draw after it any consequences of that kind. All that Congress could do under it in the case of internal improvements would be to appropriate the money necessary to make them. For every act requiring legislative sanction or support the State authority must be relied on. The condemnation of the land, if the proprietors should refuse to sell it, the establishment of turnpikes and tolls, and the protection of the work when finished must be done by the State. To these purposes the powers of the General Government are believed to be utterly incompetent.

To the objection that the United States have no power in any instance which is not complete to all the purposes to which it may be made instrumental, and in consequence that they have no right to appropriate any portion of the public money to internal improvements because they have not the right of sovereignty and jurisdiction over them when made, a full answer has, it is presumed, been already given. It may, however, be proper to add that if this objection was well founded it would not be confined to the simple case of internal improvements, but would apply to others of high importance. Congress have a right to regulate commerce. To give effect to this power it becomes necessary to establish custom-houses in every State along the coast and in many parts of the interior. The vast amount of goods imported and the duties to be performed to accommodate the merchants and secure the revenue make it necessary that spacious buildings should be erected, especially in the great towns, for their reception. This, it is manifest, could best be performed under the direction of the General Government. Have Congress the right to seize the property of individuals if they should refuse to sell it, in quarters best adapted to the purpose, to have it valued, and to take it at the valuation? Have they a right to exercise jurisdiction within those buildings? Neither of these claims has ever been set up, nor could it, as is presumed, be sustained. They have invariably either rented houses where such as were suitable could be obtained, or, where they could not, purchased the ground of individuals, erected the buildings, and held them under the laws of the State. Under the power to establish post-offices and post-roads houses are also requisite for the reception of the mails and the transaction of the business of the several offices. These have always been rented or purchased and held under the laws of the State in the same manner as if they had been taken by a citizen. The United States have a right to establish tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court, and such have been established in every State of the Union. It is believed that the houses for these inferior courts have invariably been rented. No right of jurisdiction in them has ever been claimed, nor other right than that of privilege, and that only while the court is in session. A still stronger case may be urged. Should Congress be compelled by invasion or other cause to remove the Government to some town within one of the States, would they have a right of jurisdiction over such town, or hold even the house in which they held their session under other authority than the laws of such State? It is believed that they would not. If they have a right to appropriate money for any of these purposes, to be laid out under the protection of the laws of the State, surely they have an equal right to do it for the purposes of internal improvements.

It is believed that there is not a corporation in the Union which does not exercise great discretion in the application of the money raised by it to the purposes of its institution. It would be strange if the Government of the United States, which was instituted for such important purposes and endowed with such extensive powers, should not be allowed at least equal discretion and authority. The evil to be particularly avoided is the violation of State rights. Shunning that, it seems to be reasonable and proper that the powers of Congress should be so construed as that the General Government in its intercourse with other nations and in our internal concerns should be able to adopt all such measures lying within the fair scope and intended to facilitate the direct objects of its powers as the public welfare may require and a sound and provident policy dictate.

The measures of Congress have been in strict accord with the view taken of the right of appropriation both as to its extent and limitation, as will be shown by a reference to the laws, commencing at a very early period. Many roads have been opened, of which the following are the principal: The first from Cumberland, at the head waters of the Potomac, in the State of Maryland, through Pennsylvania and Virginia, to the State of Ohio (March 29, 1806; see vol. 4, p. 13, of the late edition of the laws). The second from the frontiers of Georgia, on the route from Athens to New Orleans, to its intersection with the thirty-first degree of north latitude (April 31, 1806, p. 58). The third from the Mississippi at a point and by a route described to the Ohio (same act). The fourth from Nashville, in Tennessee, to Natchez (same act). The fifth from the thirty-first degree of north latitude, on the route from Athens to New Orleans, under such regulations as might be agreed on between the Executive and the Spanish Government (March 3, 1807, p. 117). The sixth from the foot of the rapids of the river Miami, of Lake Erie, to the western line of the Connecticut Reserve (December 12, 1811, p. 364). The seventh from the Lower Sandusky to the boundary line established by the treaty of Greenville (same act). The eighth from a point where the United States road leading from Vincennes to the Indian boundary line, established by the treaty of Greenville, strikes the said line, to the North Bend, in the State of Ohio (January 8, 1812, p. 367). The ninth for repairing and keeping in repair the road between Columbia, on Duck River, in Tennessee, and Madisonville, in Louisiana, and also the road between Fort Hawkins, in Georgia, and Fort Stoddard (April 27, 1816, p. 104 of the acts of that year). The tenth from the Shawneetown, on the Ohio River, to the Sabine, and to Kaskaskias, in Illinois (April 27, 1816, p. 112). The eleventh from Reynoldsburg, on Tennessee River, in the State of Tennessee, through the Chickasaw Nation, to intersect the Natchez road near the Chickasaw old town (March 3, 1817, p. 252). The twelfth: By this act authority was given to the President to appoint three commissioners for the purpose of examining the country and laying out a road from the termination of the Cumberland road, at Wheeling, on the Ohio, through the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, to a point to be chosen by them, on the left bank of the Mississippi, between St. Louis and the mouth of the Illinois River, and to report an accurate plan of the said road, with an estimate of the expense of making it. It is, however, declared by the act that nothing was thereby intended to imply an obligation on the part of the United States to make or defray the expense of making the said road or any part thereof.

In the late war two other roads were made by the troops for military purposes--one from the Upper Sandusky, in the State of Ohio, through the Black Swamp, toward Detroit, and another from Plattsburg, on Lake Champlain, through the Chatauga woods toward Sacketts Harbor, which have since been repaired and improved by the troops. Of these latter there is no notice in the laws. The extra pay to the soldiers for repairing and improving those roads was advanced in the first instance from the appropriation to the Quartermaster's Department and afterwards provided for by a specific appropriation by Congress. The necessity of keeping those roads open and in good repair, being on the frontier, to facilitate a communication between our posts, is apparent.

All of these roads except the first were formed merely by cutting down the trees and throwing logs across, so as to make causeways over such parts as were otherwise impassable. The execution was of the coarsest kind. The Cumberland road is the only regular work which has been undertaken by the General Government or which could give rise to any question between the two Governments respecting its powers. It is a great work, over the highest mountains in our Union, connecting from the seat of the General Government the Eastern with the Western waters, and more intimately the Atlantic with the Western States, in the formation of which $1,800,000 have been expended. The measures pursued in this case require to be particularly noticed as fixing the opinion of the parties, and particularly of Congress, on the important question of the right. Passing through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, it was thought necessary and proper to bring the subject before their respective legislatures to obtain their sanction, which was granted by each State by a legislative act, approving the route and providing for the purchase and condemnation of the land. This road was founded on an article of compact between the United States and the State of Ohio, under which that State came into the Union, and by which the expense attending it was to be defrayed by the application of a certain portion of the money arising from the sale of the public lands within that State. In this instance, which is by far the strongest in respect to the expense, extent, and nature of the work done, the United States have exercised no act of jurisdiction or sovereignty within either of the States by taking the land from the proprietors by force, by passing acts for the protection of the road, or to raise a revenue from it by the establishment of turnpikes and tolls, or any other act founded on the principle of jurisdiction or right. Whatever they have done has, on the contrary, been founded on the opposite principle, on the voluntary and unqualified admission that the sovereignty belonged to the State and not to the United States, and that they could perform no act which should tend to weaken the power of the State or to assume any to themselves. All that they have done has been to appropriate the public money to the construction of this road and to cause it to be constructed, for I presume that no distinction can be taken between the appropriation of money raised by the sale of the public lands and of that which arises from taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; nor can I believe that the power to appropriate derives any sanction from a provision to that effect having been made by an article of compact between the United States and the people of the then Territory of Ohio. This point may, however, be placed in a clearer light by a more particular notice of the article itself.

By an act of April 30, 1802, entitled "An act to enable the people of the eastern division of the territory northwest of the river Ohio to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes," after describing the limits of the proposed new State and authorizing the people thereof to elect a convention to form a constitution, the three following propositions were made to the convention, to be obligatory on the United States if accepted by it: First, that section No. 16 of every township, or, where such section had been sold, other lands equivalent thereto, should be granted to the inhabitants of such township for the use of free schools. Second, that the 6 miles' reservation, including the salt springs commonly called the Sciota Salt Springs, the salt springs near the Muskingum River and in the military tract, with the sections which include the same, should be granted to the said State for the use of the people thereof, under such regulations as the legislature of the State should prescribe: _Provided_, That it should never sell or lease the same for more than ten years. Third, that one twentieth part of the proceeds of the public lands lying within the said State which might be sold by Congress from and after the 30th June ensuing should be applied to the laying out and making public roads from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, and through the State of Ohio, such roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress, with the consent of the several States through which they should pass.

These three propositions were made on the condition that the convention of the State should provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without the consent of the United States, that every tract of land sold by Congress after the 30th of June ensuing should remain for the term of five years after sale exempt from every species of tax whatsoever.

It is impossible to read the ordinance of the 23d of April, 1784, or the provisions of the act of April 30, 1802, which are founded on it, without being profoundly impressed with the enlightened and magnanimous policy which dictated them. Anticipating that the new States would be settled by the inhabitants of the original States and their offspring, no narrow or contracted jealousy was entertained of their admission into the Union in equal participation in the national sovereignty with the original States. It was foreseen at the early period at which that ordinance passed that the expansion of our Union to the Lakes and to the Mississippi and all its waters would not only make us a greater power, but cement the Union itself. These three propositions were well calculated to promote these great results. A grant of land to each township for free schools, and of the salt springs to the State, which were within its limits, for the use of its citizens, with 5 per cent of the money to be raised from the sale of lands within the State for the construction of roads between the original States and the new State, and of other roads within the State, indicated a spirit not to be mistaken, nor could it fail to produce a corresponding effect in the bosoms of those to whom it was addressed. For these considerations the sole return required of the convention was that the new State should not tax the public lands which might be sold by the United States within it for the term of five years after they should be sold. As the value of these lands would be enhanced by this exemption from taxes for that term, and from which the new State would derive its proportionable benefit, and as it would also promote the rapid sale of those lands, and with it the augmentation of its own population, it can not be doubted, had this exemption been suggested unaccompanied by any propositions of particular advantage, that the convention would, in consideration of the relation which had before existed between the parties, and was about to be so much improved, most willingly have acceded to it and without regarding it as an onerous condition.

Since, then, it appears that the whole of the money to be employed in making this road was to be raised from the sale of the public lands, and which would still belong to the United States, although no mention had been made of them in the compact, it follows that the application of the money to that purpose stands upon the same ground as if such compact had not been made, and in consequence that the example in favor of the right of appropriation is in no manner affected by it.

The same rule of construction of the right of appropriation has been observed and the same liberal policy pursued toward the other new States, with certain modifications adapted to the situation of each, which were adopted with the State of Ohio. As, however, the reasoning which is applicable to the compact with Ohio in relation to the right of appropriation, in which light only I have adverted to it, is equally applicable to the several compacts with the other new States, I deem it unnecessary to take a particular notice of them.

It is proper to observe that the money which was employed in the construction of all the other roads was taken directly from the Treasury. This fact affords an additional proof that in the contemplation of Congress no difference existed in the application of money to those roads between that which was raised by the sale of lands and that which was derived from taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.

So far I have confined my remarks to the acts of Congress respecting the right of appropriation to such measures only as operate internally and affect the territory of the individual States. In adverting to those which operate externally and relate to foreign powers I find only two which appear to merit particular attention. These were gratuitous grants of money for the relief of foreigners in distress--the first in 1794 to the inhabitants of St. Domingo, who sought an asylum on our coast from the convulsions and calamities of the island; the second in 1812 to the people of Caracas, reduced to misery by an earthquake. The considerations which were applicable to these grants have already been noticed and need not be repeated.

In this examination of the right of appropriation I thought it proper to present to view also the practice of the Government under it, and to explore the ground on which each example rested, that the precise nature and extent of the construction thereby given of the right might be clearly understood. The right to raise money would have given, as is presumed, the right to use it, although nothing had been said to that effect in the Constitution; and where the right to raise it is granted without special limitation, we must look for such limitation to other causes. Our attention is first drawn to the right to appropriate, and not finding it there we must then look to the general powers of the Government as designated by the specific grants and to the purposes contemplated by them, allowing to this (the right to raise money), the first and most important of the enumerated powers, a scope which will be competent to those purposes. The practice of the Government, as illustrated by numerous and strong examples directly applicable, ought surely to have great weight in fixing the construction of each grant. It ought, I presume, to settle it, especially where it is acquiesced in by the nation and produces a manifest and positive good. A practical construction, thus supported, shows that it has reason on its side and is called for by the interests of the Union. Hence, too, the presumption that it will be persevered in. It will surely be better to admit that the construction given by these examples has been just arid proper than to deny that construction and still to practice on it--to say one thing and to do another.

Wherein consists the danger of giving a liberal construction to the right of Congress to raise and appropriate the public money? It has been shown that its obvious effect is to secure the rights of the States from encroachment and greater harmony in the political movement between the two governments, while it enlarges to a certain extent in the most harmless way the useful agency of the General Government for all the purposes of its institution. Is not the responsibility of the representative to his constituent in every branch of the General Government equally strong and as sensibly felt as in the State governments, and is not the security against abuse as effectual in the one as in the other government? The history of the General Government in all its measures fully demonstrates that Congress will never venture to impose unnecessary burdens on the people or any that can be avoided. Duties and imposts have always been light, not greater, perhaps, than would have been imposed for the encouragement of our manufactures had there been no occasion for the revenue arising from them; and taxes and excises have never been laid except in cases of necessity, and repealed as soon as the necessity ceased. Under this mild process and the sale of some hundreds of millions of acres of good land the Government will be possessed of money, which may be applied with great advantage to national purposes. Within the States only will it be applied, and, of course, for their benefit, it not being presumable that such appeals as were made to the benevolence of the country in the instances of the inhabitants of St. Domingo and Caracas will often occur. How, then, shall this revenue be applied? Should it be idle in the Treasury? That our resources will be equal to such useful purposes I have no doubt, especially if by completing our fortifications and raising and maintaining our Navy at the point provided for immediately after the war we sustain our present altitude and preserve by means thereof for any length of time the peace of the Union.

When we hear charges raised against other governments of breaches of their constitutions, or, rather, of their charters, we always anticipate the most serious consequences--communities deprived of privileges which they have long enjoyed, or individuals oppressed and punished in violation of the ordinary forms and guards of trial to which they were accustomed and entitled. How different is the situation of the United States! Nor can anything mark more strongly the great characteristics of that difference than the grounds on which like charges are raised against this Government. It is not alleged that any portion of the community or any individual has been oppressed or that money has been raised under a doubtful title. The principal charges are that a work of great utility to the Union and affecting immediately and with like advantage many of the States has been constructed; that pensions to the surviving patriots of our Revolution, to patriots who fought the battles and promoted the independence of their country, have been granted, by money, too, raised not only without oppression, but almost without being felt, and under an acknowledged constitutional power.