A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 1: James Monroe · Chapter 28Views of the President of the United States on the Subject of Internal Improvements. (5)
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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.
From this view of the right to appropriate and of the practice under it I think that I am authorized to conclude that the right to make internal improvements has not been granted by the power "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare," included in the first of the enumerated powers; that that grant conveys nothing more than a right to appropriate the public money, and stands on the same ground with the right to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, conveyed by the first branch of that power; that the Government itself being limited, both branches of the power to raise and appropriate the public money are also limited, the extent of the Government as designated by the specific grants marking the extent of the power in both branches, extending, however, to every object embraced by the fair scope of those grants and not confined to a strict construction of their respective powers, it being safer to aid the purposes of those grants by the appropriation of money than to extend by a forced construction the grant itself; that although the right to appropriate the public money to such improvements affords a resource indispensably necessary to such a scheme, it is nevertheless deficient as a power in the great characteristics on which its execution depends.
The substance of what has been urged on this subject may be expressed in a few words. My idea is that Congress have an unlimited power to raise money, and that in its appropriation they have a discretionary power, restricted only by the duty to appropriate it to purposes of common defense and of general, not local, national, not State, benefit.
I will now proceed to the fifth source from which the power is said to be derived, viz, the power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof. This is the seventeenth and last of the enumerated powers granted to Congress.
I have always considered this power as having been granted on a principle of greater caution to secure the complete execution of all the powers which had been vested in the General Government. It contains no distinct and specific power, as every other grant does, such as to lay and collect taxes, to declare war, to regulate commerce, and the like. Looking to the whole scheme of the General Government, it gives to Congress authority to make all laws which should be deemed necessary and proper for carrying all its powers into effect. My impression has been invariably that this power would have existed substantially if this grant had not been made; for why is any power granted unless it be to be executed when required, and how can it be executed under our Government unless it be by laws necessary and proper for the purpose—that is, well adapted to the end? It is a principle universally admitted that a grant of a power conveys as a necessary consequence or incident to it the means of carrying it into effect by a fair construction of its import. In the formation, however, of the Constitution, which was to act directly upon the people and be paramount to the extent of its powers to the constitutions of the States, it was wise in its framers to leave nothing to implication which might be reduced to certainty. It is known that all power which rests solely on that ground has been systematically and zealously opposed under all governments with which we have any acquaintance; and it was reasonable to presume that under our system, where there was a division of the sovereignty between the two independent governments, the measures of the General Government would excite equal jealousy and produce an opposition not less systematic, though, perhaps, less violent. Hence the policy by the framers of our Government of securing by a fundamental declaration in the Constitution a principle which in all other governments had been left to implication only. The terms "necessary" and "proper" secure to the powers of all the grants to which the authority given in this is applicable a fair and sound construction, which is equally binding as a rule on both Governments and on all their departments.
In examining the right of the General Government to adopt and execute under this grant a system of internal improvement the sole question to be decided is whether the power has been granted under any of the other grants. If it has, this power is applicable to it to the extent stated. If it has not, it does not exist at all, for it has not been hereby granted. I have already examined all the other grants (one only excepted, which will next claim attention) and shown, as I presume, on the most liberal construction of their powers that the right has not been granted by any of them; hence it follows that in regard to them it has not been granted by this.
I come now to the last source from which this power is said to be derived, viz, the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United States, which is contained in the second clause of the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution.
To form a just opinion of the nature and extent of this power it will be necessary to bring into view the provisions contained in the first clause of the section of the article referred to, which makes an essential part of the policy in question. By this it is declared that new States shall be admitted into the Union, but that no new States shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any States be formed by the junction of two or more States or parts of States, without the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the United States.
If we recur to the condition of our country at the commencement of the Revolution, we shall see the origin and cause of these provisions. By the charters of the several colonies limits by latitude and other descriptions were assigned to each. In commencing the Revolution the colonies, as has already been observed, claimed by those limits, although their population extended in many instances to a small portion of the territory lying within them. It was contended by some of the States after the declaration of independence that the vacant lands lying within any of the States should become the property of the Union, as by a common exertion they would be acquired. This claim was resisted by the others on the principle that all the States entered into the contest in the full extent of their chartered rights, and that they ought to have the full benefit of those rights in the event of success. Happily this controversy was settled, as all interfering claims and pretensions between the members of our Union and between the General Government and any of these members have been, in the most amicable manner and to the satisfaction of all parties. On the recommendation of Congress the individual States having such territory within their chartered limits ceded large portions thereof to the United States on condition that it should be laid off into districts of proper dimensions, the lands to be sold for the benefit of the United States, and that the districts be admitted into the Union when they should obtain such a population as it might be thought proper and reasonable to prescribe. This is the territory and this the property referred to in the second clause of the fourth article of the Constitution.
All the States which had made cessions of vacant territory except Georgia had made them before the adoption of the Constitution, and that State had made a proposition to Congress to that effect which was under consideration at the time the Constitution was adopted. The cession was completed after the adoption of the Constitution. It was made on the same principle and on similar conditions with those which had been already made by the other States. As differences might arise respecting the right or the policy in Congress to admit new States into the Union under the new Government, or to make regulations for the government of the territory ceded in the intermediate state, or for the improvement and sale of the public lands, or to accept other cessions, it was thought proper to make special provisions for these objects, which was accordingly done by the above-recited clause in the Constitution.
Thus the power of Congress over the ceded territory was not only limited to these special objects, but was also temporary. As soon as the territory became a State the jurisdiction over it as it had before existed ceased. It extended afterwards only to the unsold lands, and as soon as the whole were sold it ceased in that sense also altogether. From that moment the United States have no jurisdiction or power in the new States other than in the old, nor can it be obtained except by an amendment of the Constitution.
Since, then, it is manifest that the power granted to Congress to dispose of and make all needful regulations respecting the territory and other property of the United States relates solely to the territory and property which had been ceded by individual States, and which after such cession lay without their respective limits, and for which special provision was deemed necessary, the main power of the Constitution operating internally, not being applicable or adequate thereto, it follows that this power gives no authority, and has even no bearing on the question of internal improvement. The authority to admit new States and to dispose of the property and regulate the territory is not among the enumerated powers granted to Congress, because the duties to be performed under it are not among the ordinary duties of that body, like the imposition of taxes, the regulation of commerce, and the like. They are objects in their nature special, and for which special provision was more suitable and proper.
Having now examined all the powers of Congress under which the right to adopt and execute a system of internal improvement is claimed and the reasons in support of it in each instance, I think that it may fairly be concluded that such a right has not been granted. It appears and is admitted that much may be done in aid of such a system by the right which is derived from several of the existing grants, and more especially from that to appropriate the public money. But still it is manifest that as a system for the United States it can never be carried into effect under that grant nor under all of them united, the great and essential power being deficient, consisting of a right to take up the subject on principle; to cause our Union to be examined by men of science, with a view to such improvements; to authorize commissioners to lay off the roads and canals in all proper directions; to take the land at a valuation if necessary, and to construct the works; to pass laws with suitable penalties for their protection; and to raise a revenue from them, to keep them in repair, and make further improvement by the establishment of turnpikes and tolls, with gates to be placed at the proper distances.
It need scarcely be remarked that this power will operate, like many others now existing, without affecting the sovereignty of the States except in the particular offices to be performed. The jurisdiction of the several States may still exist over the roads and canals within their respective limits, extending alike to persons and property, as if the right to make and protect such improvements had not been vested in Congress. The right, being made commensurate simply with the purposes indispensable to the system, may be strictly confined to them. The right of Congress to protect the works by laws imposing penalties would operate on the same principles as the right to protect the mail. The act being punishable only, a jurisdiction over the place would be altogether unnecessary and even absurd.
In the preceding inquiry little has been said of the advantages which would attend the exercise of such a power by the General Government. I have made the inquiry under a deep conviction that they are almost incalculable, and that there was a general concurrence of opinion among our fellow-citizens to that effect. Still, it may not be improper for me to state the grounds upon which my own impression is founded. If it sheds no additional light on this interesting part of the subject, it will at least show that I have had more than one powerful motive for making the inquiry. A general idea is all that I shall attempt.
The advantages of such a system must depend upon the interests to be affected by it and the extent to which they may be affected, and those must depend on the capacity of our country for improvement and the means at its command applicable to that object.
I think that I may venture to affirm that there is no part of our globe comprehending so many degrees of latitude on the main ocean and so many degrees of longitude into the interior that admits of such great improvement and at so little expense. The Atlantic on the one side, and the Lakes, forming almost inland seas, on the other, separated by high mountains, which rise in the valley of the St. Lawrence and determine in that of the Mississippi, traversing from north to south almost the whole interior, with innumerable rivers on every side of those mountains, some of vast extent, many of which take their sources near to each other, give the great outline. The details are to be seen on the valuable maps of our country.
It appears by the light already before the public that it is practicable and easy to connect by canals the whole coast from its southern to its northern extremity in one continued inland navigation, and to connect in like manner in many parts the Western lakes and rivers with each other. It is equally practicable and easy to facilitate the intercourse between the Atlantic and the Western country by improving the navigation of many of the rivers which have their sources near to each other in the mountains on each side, and by good roads across the mountains between the highest navigable points of those rivers. In addition to the example of the Cumberland road, already noticed, another of this kind is now in train from the head waters of the river James to those of the Kanawha; and in like manner may the Savannah be connected with the Tennessee. In some instances it is understood that the Eastern and Western waters may be connected together directly by canals. One great work of this kind is now in its progress and far advanced in the State of New York, and there is good reason to believe that two others may be formed, one at each extremity of the high mountains above mentioned, connecting in the one instance the waters of the St. Lawrence with Lake Champlain, and in the other some of the most important of the Western rivers with those emptying into the Gulf of Mexico, the advantage of which will be seen at the first glance by an enlightened observer.
Great improvements may also be made by good roads in proper directions through the interior of the country. As these roads would be laid out on principle on a full view of the country, its mountains, rivers, etc., it would be useless, if I had the knowledge, to go into detail respecting them. Much has been done by some of the States, but yet much remains to be done with a view to the Union.
Under the colonial governments improvements of this kind were not thought of. There was, it is believed, not one canal and little communication from colony to colony. It was their policy to encourage the intercourse between each colony and the parent country only. The roads which were attended to were those which led from the interior of each colony to its principal towns on the navigable waters. By those routes the produce of the country was carried to the coast, and shipped thence to the mercantile houses in London, Liverpool, Glasgow, or other towns to which the trade was carried on. It is believed that there was but one connected route from North to South at the commencement of the Revolution, and that a very imperfect one. The existence and principle of our Union point out the necessity of a very different policy.
The advantages which would be derived from such improvements are incalculable. The facility which would thereby be afforded to the transportation of the whole of the rich productions of our country to market would alone more than amply compensate for all the labor and expense attending them. Great, however, as is that advantage, it is one only of many and by no means the most important, Every power of the General Government and of the State governments connected with the strength and resources of the country would be made more efficient for the purposes intended by them. In war they would facilitate the transportation of men, ordnance, and provisions, and munitions of war of every kind to every part of our extensive coast and interior on which an attack might be made or threatened. Those who have any knowledge of the occurrences of the late war must know the good effect which would result in the event of another war from the command of an interior navigation alone along the coast for all the purposes of war as well as of commerce between the different parts of our Union. The impediments to all military operations which proceeded from the want of such a navigation and the reliance which was placed, notwithstanding those impediments, on such a commerce can not be forgotten. In every other line their good effect would be most sensibly felt. Intelligence by means of the Post-Office Department would be more easily, extensively, and rapidly diffused. Parts the most remote from each other would be brought more closely together. Distant lands would be made more valuable, and the industry of our fellow-citizens on every portion of our soil be better rewarded.
It is natural in so great a variety of climate that there should be a corresponding difference in the produce of the soil; that one part should raise what the other might want. It is equally natural that the pursuits of industry should vary in like manner; that labor should be cheaper and manufactures succeed better in one part than in another; that were the climate the most severe and the soil less productive, navigation, the fisheries, and commerce should be most relied on. Hence the motive for an exchange for mutual accommodation and active intercourse between them. Each part would thus find for the surplus of its labor, in whatever article it consisted, an extensive market at home, which would be the most profitable because free from duty.
There is another view in which these improvements are of still more vital importance. The effect which they would have on the bond of union itself affords an inducement for them more powerful than any which have been urged or than all of them united. The only danger to which our system is exposed arises from its expansion over a vast territory. Our union is not held together by standing armies or by any ties other than the positive interests and powerful attractions of its parts toward each other. Ambitious men may hereafter grow up among us who may promise to themselves advancement from a change, and by practicing upon the sectional interests, feelings, and prejudices endeavor under various pretexts to promote it. The history of the world is replete with examples of this kind—of military commanders and demagogues becoming usurpers and tyrants, and of their fellow-citizens becoming their instruments and slaves. I have little fear of this danger, knowing well how strong the bond which holds us together is and who the people are who are thus held together; but still, it is proper to look at and to provide against it, and it is not within the compass of human wisdom to make a more effectual provision than would be made by the proposed improvements. With their aid and the intercourse which would grow out of them the parts would soon become so compacted and bound together that nothing could break it.
The expansion of our Union over a vast territory can not operate unfavorably to the States individually. On the contrary, it is believed that the greater the expansion within practicable limits—and it is not easy to say what are not so—the greater the advantage which the States individually will derive from it. With governments separate, vigorous, and efficient for all local purposes, their distance from each other can have no injurious effect upon their respective interests. It has already been shown that in some important circumstances, especially with the aid of these improvements, they must derive great advantage from that cause alone—that is, from their distance from each other. In every other way the expansion of our system must operate favorably for every State in proportion as it operates favorably for the Union. It is in that sense only that it can become a question with the States, or, rather, with the people who compose them. As States they can be affected by it only by their relation to each other through the General Government and by its effect on the operations of that Government. Manifest it is that to any extent to which the General Government can sustain and execute its functions with complete effect will the States—that is, the people who compose them—be benefited. It is only when the expansion shall be carried beyond the faculties of the General Government so as to enfeeble its operations to the injury of the whole that any of the parts can be injured. The tendency in that stage will be to dismemberment and not to consolidation. This danger should, therefore, be looked at with profound attention as one of a very serious character. I will remark here that as the operations of the National Government are of a general nature, the States having complete power for internal and local purposes, the expansion may be carried to very great extent and with perfect safety. It must be obvious to all that the further the expansion is carried, provided it be not beyond the just limit, the greater will be the freedom of action to both Governments and the more perfect their security, and in all other respects the better the effect will be to the whole American people. Extent of territory, whether it be great or small, gives to a nation many of its characteristics. It marks the extent of its resources, of its population, of its physical force. It marks, in short, the difference between a great and a small power.