four candidates for Presidency. When the election was thrown into the House, Clay and his friends supported John Quincy Adams as against General Jackson. Adams made him Secretary of State, and Jackson's adherents immediately raised the cry of "bargain and corruption." He fought a bloodless duel with John Randolph, who had denounced this coalition as a "combination of the Puritan and blackleg" in 1826.

He again stood for the Presidency in 1832, but was defeated by Jackson. Out of the anti-Jacksonian element was formed the new Whig party with Clay and Webster as its leaders.

In 1820 he had been one of the foremost in advocating the Missouri Compromise and in 1833 formulated the compromise on the tariff. Ever after this he stood as the embodiment of this spirit, one who be lieved that it was possible by mutual yielding on radical points to preserve the Union intact in spite of the tendencies to disintegration which he saw only too well.

He was again a candidate for the Presidency in 1844, and received 105 electoral votes, but was defeated by Polk. The compromise of 1850 was his handiwork. He died in 1852.

He did his best to preserve the Union by constitutional means, but the forces at work were too strong and too radically contradictory to make permanent reconciliation possible.

THE "AMERICAN POLICY" OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT

Mr. Clay delivered this speech, in the House of Representatives of the United States, on the sixteenth of January, 1824; on "a bill authorizing the President of the United States to cause certain surveys and estimates to be made on the subject of roads and canals:"

MR. CHAIRMAN: I cannot enter on the discussion of the subject before us, without first asking leave to express my thanks for the kindness of the committee, in so far accommodating me as to agree, unanimously, to adjourn its sitting to the present time, in order to afford me. the opportunity of exhibiting my views; which, however, I fear I shall do very unacceptably. As a requittal for this kindness, I will endeavor, as far as practicable, to abbreviate what I have to present to your consideration. Yet, on a question of this extent and moment, there are so many topics which demand a deliberate examination, that, from the

nature of the case, it will be impossible, I am afraid, to reduce the argument to any thing that the committee will consider a reasonable compass.

It is known to all who hear me, that there has now existed for several years a difference of opinion between the executive and legislative branches of this government, as to the nature and extent of certain powers conferred upon it by the constitution. Two succesive Presidents have returned to Congress bills which had previously passed both Houses of that body, with a communication of the opinion, that Congress, under the constitution, possessed no power to enact such laws. High respect, personal and official, must be felt by all, as it is due, to those distinguished officers, and to their opinions, thus solemnly announced; and the most profound consideration belongs to our present chief magistrate, who has favored this House with a written argument, of great length and labor, consisting of not less than sixty or seventy pages, in support of his exposition of the constitution. From the magnitude of the interests involved in the question, all will readily concur that, if the power is granted, and does really exist, it ought to be vindicated, upheld, and maintained, that the country may derive the great benefits which may flow from its prudent exercise. If it has not been communicated to Congress, then all claim to it should be, at once, surrendered. It is a circumstance of peculiar regret to me, that one more competent than myself had not risen to support the course which the legislative department has heretofore felt itself bound to pursue on this great question. Of all the trusts which are created by human agency, that is the highest, most solemn, and most responsible, which involves the exercise of political power. Exerted when it has not been intrusted, the public functionary is guilty of usurpation. And his infidelity to the public good is not, perhaps, less culpable, when he neglects or refuses to exercise a power which has been fairly conveyed, to promote the public prosperity. If the power, which he thus forbears to exercise, can only be exerted by him-if no other public functionary can employ it, and the public good requires its exercise, his treachery is greatly aggravated. It is only in those cases where the object of the investment of power is the personal ease or aggrandizement of the public agent, that his forbearance to use it is praiseworthy, gracious, or magnanimous.

I was extremely happy to find, that, on many of the points of the argument of the honorable gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Barbour, there

is entire concurrence between us, widely as we differ in our ultimate conclusions. On this occasion (as on all others on which that gentleman. obliges the House with an expression of his opinions), he displayed great ability and ingenuity; and, as well from the matter as from the respectful manner of his argument, it is deserving of the most thorough consideration. I am compelled to differ from that gentleman at the very threshold. He commenced by laying down as a general principle, that, in the distribution of powers among our federal and State governments, those which are of a municipal character are to be considered as appertaining to the State governments, and those which relate to external affairs, to the general government. If I may be allowed to throw the argument of the gentleman into the form of a syllogism (a shape which I presume would be quite agreeable to him), it amounts to this: municipal powers belong exclusively to the State governments; but the power to make internal improvements is municipal; therefore it belongs to the State governments alone. I deny both the premises and the conclusion. If the gentleman had affirmed that certain municipal powers, and the great mass of them, belong to the State governments, his proposition would have been incontrovertible. But if he had so qualified it, it would not have assisted the gentleman at all in his conclusion. But surely the power of taxation, the power to regulate the value of coin, the power to establish a uniform standard of weights and measures, to establish post offices and post roads, to regulate commerce among the several States, that in relation to the judiciary, besides many other powers indisputably belonging to the federal government, are strictly municipal. If, as I understood the gentleman in the course of the subsequent part of his argument to admit, some municipal powers belong to the one system, and some to the other, we shall derive very little aid from the gentleman's principle, in making the discrimination between the two. The question must ever remain open-whether any given power, and, of course, that in question, is or is not delegated to this government, or retained by the States?

The conclusion of the gentleman is, that all internal improvements belong to the State governments: that they are of a limited and local character, and are not comprehended within the scope of the federal powers, which relate to external or general objects. That many, perhaps most internal improvements, partake of the character described by the gentleman, I shall not deny. But it is no less true that there are others, emphatically national, which neither the policy, nor the

power, nor the interests, of any State will induce it to accomplish, and which can only be effected by the application of the resources of the nation. The improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi furnishes a striking example. This is undeniably a great and important object. The report of a highly scientific and intelligent officer of the engineer corps (which I hope will be soon taken up and acted upon) has shown that the cost of any practicable improvement in the navigation of that river, in the present state of the inhabitants of its banks, is a mere trifle in comparison to the great benefits which would accrue from it. I believe that about double the amount of the loss of a single steamboat and cargo (the Tennessee) would effect the whole improvement in the navigation of that river, which ought to be at this time attempted. In this great object twelve States and two territories are, in different degrees, interested. The power to effect the improvement of that river is surely not municipal, in the sense in which the gentleman used the term. If it were, to which of the twelve States and two territories concerned does it belong? It is a great object, which can only be effected by a confederacy. And here is existing that confederacy, and no other can lawfully exist: for the constitution prohibits the States, immediately interested, from entering into any treaty or compact with each other. Other examples might be given to show, that, if even the power existed, the inclination to exert it would not be felt, to effectuate certain improvements eminently calculated to promote the prosperity of the union. Neither of the three States, nor all of them united, through which the Cumberland road passes, would ever have erected that road. Two of them would have thrown in every impediment to its completion in their power. Federative in its character, it could only have been executed so far by the application of federative means. Again, the contemplated canal through New Jersey; that to connect the waters of the Chesapeake and Delaware; that to unite the Ohio and the Potomac, are all objects of a general and federative nature, in which the States, through which they might severally pass, could not be expected to feel any such special interest as would lead to their execution. Tending, as undoubtedly they would do, to promote the good of the whole, the power and the treasure of the whole must be applied to their execution, if they are ever consummated.

I do not think, then, that we shall be at all assisted in expounding the Constitution of the United States, by the principle which the gentleman from Virginia has suggested in respect to municipal powers.

The powers of both governments are undoubtedly municipal, often operating upon the same subject. I think a better rule than that which the gentleman furnished for interpreting the constitution, might be deduced from an attentive consideration of the peculiar character of the articles of confederation, as contrasted with that of the present constitution. By those articles, the powers of the thirteen United States were exerted collaterally. They operated through an intermediary. They were addressed to the several States, and their execution depended upon the pleasure and the co-operation of the States individually. The States seldom fulfilled the expectations of the general government in regard to its requisitions, and often wholly disappointed them. Languor and debility, in the movement of the old confederation, were the inevitable consequence of that arrangement of power. By the existing constitution, the powers of the general government act directly on the persons and things within its scope, without the intervention or impediments incident to any intermediary. In executing the great trust which the Constitution of the United States creates, we must, therefore, reject that interpretation of its provisions which would make the general government dependent upon those of the States for the execution of any of its powers, and may safely conclude that the only genuine construction would be that which should enable this government to execute the great purposes of its institution, without the co-operation, and, if indispensably necessary, even against the will, of any particular State. This is the characteristic difference between the two systems of government, of which we should never lose sight. Interpreted in the one way, we shall relapse into the feebleness and debility of the old confederacy. In the other, we shall escape from its evils, and fulfil the great purposes which the enlightened framers of the existing constitution intended to effectuate. The importance of this essential difference in the two forms of government, will be shown in the future progress of the argument.

Before I proceed to comment upon those parts of the constitution which appear to me to convey the power in question, I hope I shall be allowed to disclaim, for my part, several sources whence others have deduced the authority. The gentleman from Virginia seemed to think it remarkable that the friends of the power should disagree so much among themselves; and to draw a conclusion against its existence from the fact of this discrepancy. But I can see nothing extraordinary in this diversity of views. What is more common than for different men to contemplate the same subject under various aspects? Such is the