the others, in the amount of expenditure and number of the persons employed, which would thus be thrown upon the general government.

This position may be illustrated by taking, as a single example, one of the many things comprehended clearly in the idea of "a general system of internal improvements," namely, roads. Let it be supposed that the power to construct roads over the whole Union, according to the suggestion of President J. Q. Adams, in 1807, whilst a member of the Senate of the United States, had been conceded. Congress would have begun, in pursuance of the state of knowledge at the time, by constructing turnpikes. Then, as knowledge advanced, it would have constructed canals; and at the present time, it would have been embarked in an almost limitless scheme of railroads.

Now, there are in the United States, the results of State or private enterprise, upwards of 17,000 miles of railroads, and 5,000 miles of canals, in all 22,000 miles, the total cost of which may be estimated at little short of six hundred millions of dollars; and if the same works had been constructed by the federal government, supposing the thing to have been practicable, the cost would have probably been. not less than nine hundred millions of dollars. The number of persons employed in superintending, managing, and keeping up these canals and railroads, may be stated at one hundred and twenty-six thousand, or thereabouts; to which are to be added seventy thousand or eighty thousand employed on the railroads in construction, making a total of at least two hundred thousand persons, representing in families nearly a million of souls, employed on or maintained by this one class of public works in the United States.

In view of all this, it is not easy to estimate the disastrous consequences which must have resulted from such extended local improvements being undertaken by the general government. State legislation upon this subject would have been suspended, and private enterprise paralyzed, while applications for appropriations would have perverted the legislation of Congress, exhausted the national treasury, and left the people burdened with a heavy public debt, beyond the capacity of generations to discharge.

Is it conceivable that the framers of the Constitution intended that authority, drawing after it such immense consequences, should be inferred by implication as the incident of enumerated powers? I cannot think this; and the impossibility of supposing it would be still more glaring, if similar calculations were carried out in regard to the numerous objects of material, moral, and political usefulness, of which the idea of internal improvement admits. It may be safely inferred, that if the framers of the Constitution had intended to confer the power to make appropriations for the objects indicated, it would have been enumerated among the grants expressly made to Congress. When, therefore, any one of the powers actually enumerated is adduced or referred to, as the ground of an assumption to warrant the incidental or implied power of "internal improvement," that hypothesis must be rejected, or at least can be no further admitted than as the particular act of internal improvement may happen to be necessary to the exercise of the granted power. Thus, when the object of a given road, the clearing of a particular channel, or the construction of a particular

harbor of refuge, is manifestly required by the exigencies of the naval or military service of the country, then it seems to me undeniable that it may be constitutionally comprehended in the powers to declare war, to provide and maintain a navy, and to raise and support armies. At the same time, it would be a misuse of these powers, and a violation of the Constitution, to undertake to build upon them a great system of internal improvements. And similar reasoning applies to the assumption of any such power as involved in that to establish postroads and to regulate commerce. If the particular improvement, whether by land or sea, be necessary to the execution of the enumerated. powers, then, but not otherwise, it falls within the jurisdiction of Congress. To this extent only can the power be claimed as the incident of any express grant to the federal government.

But there is one clause of the Constitution in which it has been suggested, that express authority to construct works of internal improvement has been conferred on Congress, namely, that which empowers it "to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings." But any such supposition will be seen to be groundless, when this provision is carefully examined, and compared with other parts of the Constitution.

It is undoubtedly true, that "like authority" refers back to "exclusive legislation in all cases whatever," as applied to the District of Columbia; and there is, in the District, no division of powers as between the general and the State governments.

In those places which the United States has purchased or retains within any of the States-sites for dock-yards or forts, for example-legal process of the given State is still permitted to run for some purposes, and therefore the jurisdiction of the United States is not absolutely perfect. But let us assume, for the argument's sake, that the jurisdiction of the United States in a tract of land ceded to it for the purpose of a dock-yard or fort. by Virginia or Maryland, is as complete as in that ceded by them for the seat of government, and then proceed to analyze this clause of the Constitution.

It provides that Congress shall have certain legislative authority over all places purchased by the United States for certain purposes. It implies that Congress has otherwise the power to purchase. But where does Congress get the power to purchase? Manifestly it must be from some other clause of the Constitution, for it is not conferred by this one. Now, as it is a fundamental principle that the Constitution is one of limited powers, the authority to purchase must be conferred in one of the enumerations of legislative power. So that the power to purchase is itself not an unlimited one, but is limited by the objects in regard to which legislative authority is directly conferred.

The other expressions of the clause in question confirm this conclusion, since the jurisdiction is given as to places purchased for certain enumerated objects or purposes. Of these, the first great division,

forts, magazines, arsenals and dock-yards are obviously referable to recognized heads of specific constitutional power. There remains only the phrase "and other needful buildings." Wherefore needful? Needful for any possible purpose within the whole range of the business of society and of government? Clearly not; but only such "buildings" as are "needful" to the United States in the exercise of any of the powers conferred on Congress.

Thus the United States need, in the exercise of admitted powers, not only forts, magazines, arsenals, and dock-yards, but also courthouses, prisons, custom-houses, and post offices, within the respective States. Places for the erection of such buildings the general government may constitutionally purchase, and, having purchased them, the jurisdiction over them belongs to the United States. So, if the general government has the power to build a light-house or a beacon, it may purchase a place for that object; and having purchased it, then this clause of the Constitution gives jurisdiction over it. Still the power to purchase for the purpose of erecting a light-house or beacon, must depend on the existence of the power to erect; and if that power exists, it must be sought after in some other clause of the Constitution.

From whatever point of view, therefore, the subject is regarded, whether as a question of express or implied power, the conclusion is the same, that Congress has no constitutional authority to carry on a systemi of internal improvements; and in this conviction the system has been steadily opposed by the soundest expositors of the functions of the government.

It is not to be supposed that in no conceivable case shall there be doubt as to whether a given object be, or not, a necessary incident of the military, naval, or any other power. As man is imperfect, so are his methods of uttering his thoughts. Human language, save in expressions for the exact sciences, must always fail to preclude all possibility of controversy. Hence it is that, in one branch of the subject-the question of the power of Congress to make appropriations in aid of navigation-there is less of positive conviction than in regard to the general subject; and it therefore seems proper, in this respect, to revert to the history of the practice of the government.

Among the very earliest acts of the first session of Congress, was that for the establishment and support of light-houses, approved by President Washington on the 7th of August, 1789, which contains the following provisions:

"That all expenses which shall accrue, from and after the fifteenth day of August, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, in the necessary support, maintenance, and repairs of all light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers, erected, placed, or sunk before the passing of this act, at the entrance of or within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States, for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe, shall be defrayed out of the treasury of the United States: Provided, nevertheless, That none of the said expenses shall continue to be so defrayed, after the expiration of one year from the day aforesaid, unless such light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers shall, in the meantime, be ceded to, and vested in the United States, by the State or States, respectively, in which the same may be, together with the lands and

tenements thereunto belonging, and together with the jurisdiction of the same." Acts containing appropriations for this class of public works were passed in 1791, 1792, 1793, and so on, from year to year, down to the present time; and the tenor of these acts, when examined with reference to other parts of the subject, is worthy of special consideration. It is a remarkable fact that, for a period of more than thirty years after the adoption of the Constitution, all appropriations of this class were confined, with scarcely an apparent exception, to the construction of lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and public piers, and the stakeage of channels;— to render navigation "safe and easy," it is true, but only by indicating to the navigator obstacles in his way, not by removing those obstacles, nor in any other respect changing artificially the pre-existing natural condition of the earth and sea. It is obvious, however, that works of art for the removal of natural impediments to navigation, or to prevent their formation, or for supplying harbors where these do not exist, are also means of rendering navigation safe and easy; and may, in supposable cases, be the most efficient, as well as the most economical, of such means. Nevertheless, it is not until the year 1824 that, in an act to improve the navigation of the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, and in another act making appropriations for deepening the channel leading into the harbor of Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, and for repairing Plymouth beach, in Massachusetts Bay, we have any example of an appropriation for the improvement of harbors, in the nature of those provided for in the bill returned by me to the House of Representatives.

It appears not probable that the abstinence of Congress in this respect is attributable altogether to considerations of economy, or to any failure to perceive that the removal of an obstacle to navigation might be not less useful than the indication of it for avoidance; and it may be well assumed that the course of legislation, so long pursued, was induced, in whole or in part, by solicitous consideration in regard to the constitutional power over such matters vested in Congress.

One other peculiarity in this course of legislation is not less remarkable. It is, that when the general government first took charge of lighthouses and beacons, it required the works themselves, and the lands on which they were situated, to be ceded to the United States. And although for a time this precaution was neglected in the case of new works, in the sequel it was provided by general laws that no lighthouse should be constructed on any site previous to the jurisdiction over the same being ceded to the United States.

Constitutional authority for the construction and support of many of the public works of this nature, it is certain, may be found in the power of Congress to maintain a navy and provide for the general defence; but their number, and, in many instances, their location, preclude the idea of their being fully justified as necessary and proper incidents of that power. And they do not seem susceptible of being referred to any other of the specific powers vested in Congress by the Constitution, unless it be that to raise revenue, in so far as this relates to navigation. The practice under all my predecessors in office, the express admissions of some of them, and absence of denial by any, sufficiently manifest their belief that the power to erect light-houses, beacons, and piers,

is possessed by the general government. In the acts of Congress, as we have already seen, the inducement and object of the appropriations are expressly declared: those appropriations being for "light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers" erected or placed "within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe."

If it be contended that this review of the history of appropriations of this class leads to the inference, that, beyond the purposes of national defence and maintenance of a navy, there is authority in the Constitution to construct certain works in aid of navigation, it is at the same time to be remembered that the conclusions thus deduced from cotemporaneous construction and long continued acquiescence are themselves directly suggestive of limitations of constitutionality, as well as expediency, regarding the nature and the description of those aids to navigation which Congress may provide as incident to the revenue power. For, at this point controversy begins, not so much as to the principle as to its application.

In accordance with long established legislative usage, Congress may construct light-houses and beacons, and provide, as it does, other means to prevent shipwrecks on the coasts of the United States. But the general government cannot go beyond this, and make improvements of rivers and harbors of the nature, and to the degree, of all the provisions of the bill of the last session of Congress.

To justify such extended power, it has been urged that, if it be constitutional to appropriate money for the purpose of pointing out, by the construction of light-houses or beacons, where an obstacle to navigation exists, it is equally so to remove such obstacle, or to avoid it by the creation of an artificial channel; that if the object be lawful, then the means adopted solely with reference to the end must be lawful, and that therefore it is not material, constitutionally speaking, whether a given obstruction to navigation be indicated for avoidance, or be actually avoided by excavating a new channel; that if it be a legitimate object of expenditure to preserve a ship from wreck, by means of a beacon, or of revenue cutters, it must be not less so to provide places of safety by the improvement of harbors, or, where none exist, by their artificial construction; and thence the argument naturally passes to the propriety of improving rivers for the benefit of internal navigation: because all these objects are of more or less importance to the commercial, as well as the naval, interests of the United States.

The answer to all this is, that the question of opening speedy and easy communication to and through all parts of the country is substantially the same, whether done by land or water; that the uses of roads and canals in facilitating commercial intercourse, and uniting by community of interests the most remote quarters of the country by land communication, are the same in their nature as the uses of navigable waters; and that therefore, the question of the facilities and aids to be provided to navigation, by whatsoever means, is but a sub-division of the great question of the constitutionality and expediency of internal improvements by the general government. In confirmation of this, it is to be remarked, that one of the most important acts of appropriation of this class, that of the year 1833, under the administration of