struction of the Guerriere or the Franklin, or both; and, judging from the number of wagons and horses, and the number of days employed, I believe the additional expense of that single operation would have gone very far to complete that canal, whose cause was espoused with so much eloquence in the Senate, and with so much effect, too; bills having passed that body more than once to give aid, in some shape or other, to that canal. With notorious facts like this, is it not obvious, that a line of military canals is not only necessary and proper, but almost indispensable to the war-making power?

One of the rules of construction which has been laid down, I acknowledge my incapacity to comprehend. Gentlemen say, that the power in question is a substantive power; and that no substantive power can be derived by implication. What is their definition of a substantive power? Will they favor us with the principle of discrimination between powers which, being substantive, are not grantable but by express grant, and those which, not being substantive, may be conveyed by implication? Although I do not perceive why this power is more entitled than many implied powers, to the denomination of substantive, suppose that be yielded, how do gentlemen prove that it may not be conveyed by implication? If the positions were maintained, which have not yet been proved, that the power is substantive, and that no substantive power can be implied, yet I trust it has been satisfactorily shown that there is an express grant...

My honorable friend from Virginia (Mr. Nelson), has denied the operation of executive influence on his mind; and has informed the committee, that from that quarter he has nothing to expect, to hope, or to fear. I did not impute to my honorable friend any such motive; I knew his independence of character and of mind too well to do so. But I entreat him to reflect, if he does not expose himself to such an imputation by those less friendly disposed toward him than myself. Let us look a little at facts. The president recommends the establishment of a bank. If ever there were a stretch of implied powers conveyed by the Constitution, it has been thought that the grant of the charter of the national bank was one. But the president recommends it. Where was then my honorable friend, the friend of State rights, who so pathetically calls upon us to repent, in sackcloth and ashes, our meditated violation of the Constitution; and who kindly expresses his hope, that we shall be made to feel the public indignation? Where was he at that awful epoch? Where was that eloquent tongue, which we have now heard with so much pleasure? Silent! Silent as the grave!

[Mr. Nelson said, across the House, that he had voted against the bank bill when first recommended.]

Alas! my honorable friend had not the heart to withstand a second recommendation from the president; but, when it came, yielded, no doubt

most reluctantly, to the executive wishes, and voted for the bank. At the last session of Congress, Mr. Madison recommended (and I will presently make some remarks on that subject) an exercise of all the existing powers of the general government, to establish a comprehensive system of internal improvements. Where was my honorable friend on that occasion? Not silent as the grave, but he gave a negative vote, almost as silent. No effort was made on his part, great as he is when he exerts the powers of his well-stored mind, to save the commonwealth from that greatest of all calamities, a system of internal improvement. No; although a war with all the allies, he now thinks, would be less terrible than the adoption of this report, not one word then dropped from his lips against the measure.

[Mr. Nelson said he voted against the bill.]

That he whispered out an unwilling negative, I do not deny; but it was unsustained by that torrent of eloquence which he has poured out on the present occasion. But we have an executive message now, not quite as ambiguous in its terms, nor as oracular in its meaning, as that of Mr. Madison appears to have been. No; the president now says, that he has made great efforts to vanquish his objections to the power, and that he can not but believe that it does not exist. Then my honorable friend rouses, thunders forth the danger in which the Constitution is, and sounds the tocsin of alarm. Far from insinuating that he is at all biased by the executive wishes, I appeal to his candor to say, if there is not a remarkable coincidence between his zeal and exertions, and the opinions of the chief magistrate?

Now let us review those opinions as communicated at different periods. It was the opinion of Mr. Jefferson, that, although there was no genera. power vested by the Constitution in Congress, to construct roads and canals, without the consent of the States, yet such a power might be exercised with their assent. Mr. Jefferson not only held this opinion in the abstract, but he practically executed it in the instance of the Cumberland road; and how? First, by a compact made with the State of Ohio, for the application of a specified fund, and then by compacts with Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, to apply the fund so set apart within their respective limits. If, however, I rightly understood my honorable friend the other day, he expressly denied (and in that I concur with him) that the power could be acquired by the mere consent of the State. Yet he defended the act of Mr. Jefferson, in the case referred to.

[Mr. Nelson expressed his dissent to this statement of his argument.]

It is far from my intention to misstate the gentleman. I certainly understood him to say, that, as the road was first stipulated for in the compact with Ohio, it was competent afterward to carry it through the States mentioned with their assent. Now, if we have not the right to make a

road in virtue of one compact made with a single State, can we obtain it by two contracts made with several States? The character of the fund can not affect the question. It is totally immaterial whether it arises from the sales of the public lands, or from the general revenue. Suppose a contract made with Massachusetts, that a certain portion of the revenue, collected at the port of Boston, from foreign trade, should be expended in making roads and canals leading to that State, and that a subsequent compact should be made with Connecticut or New Hampshire, for the expenditure of the fund on these objects, within their limits. Can we acquire the power, in this manner, over internal improvements, if we do not possess it independently of such compacts? I conceive, clearly not. And I am entirely at a loss to comprehend how gentlemen, consistently with their own principles, can justify the erection of the Cumberland road. No man is prouder than I am of that noble monument of the provident care of the nation, and of the public spirit of its projectors; and I trust that, in spite of all constitutional and other scruples, here or elsewhere, an appropriation will be made to complete that road. I confess, however, freely, that I am entirely unable to conceive of any principle on which that road can be supported, that would not uphold the general power contended for.

I will now examine the opinion of Mr. Madison. Of all the acts of that pure, virtuous, and illustrious statesman, whose administration has so powerfully tended to advance the glory, honor, and prosperity of this country, I must regret, for his sake and for the sake of the country, the rejection of the bill of the last session. I think it irreconcilable with Mr. Madison's own principles-those great, broad, and liberal principles, on which he so ably administered the government. And, sir, when I appeal to the members of the last Congress, who are now in my hearing, I am authorized to say, with regard to the majority of them, that no circumstances, not even an earthquake, that should have swallowed up one half of this city, could have excited more surprise than when it was first communicated to this House, that Mr. Madison had rejected his own bill-I say his own bill, for his message at the opening of the session meant nothing, if it did not recommend such an exercise of power as was contained in that bill. My friend, who is near me (Mr. Johnson, of Virginia), the operations of whose vigorous and independent mind, depend upon his own internal perceptions, has expressed himself with becoming manliness, and thrown aside the authority of names, as having no bearing with him on the question. But their authority has been referred to, and will have influence with others. It is impossible, moreover, to disguise the fact, that the question is now a question between the executive on the one side, and the representatives of the people on the other. So it is understood in the country, and such is the fact. Mr. Madison enjoys, in his retreat at Montpelier, the repose and the honors due to his eminent and laborious services; and I would be among the last to disturb it. However painful it is to me to animadvert upon any of his opinions, I feel perfectly sure that the circumstance can

only be viewed by him with an enlightened liberality. What are the opinions which have been expressed by Mr. Madison on this subject? I will not refer to all the messages wherein he has recommended internal improvements; but to that alone which he addressed to Congress, at the commencement of the last session, which contains this passage:

"I particularly invite again the attention of Congress to the expediency of exercising their existing powers, and, where necessary, of resorting to the prescribed mode of enlarging them, in order to effectuate a comprehensive system of roads and canals, such as will have the effect of drawing more closely together every part of our country, by promoting intercourse and improvements, and by increasing the share of every part in the common stock of national prosperity."

In the examination of this passage, two positions force themselves upon our attention. The first is, the assertion that there are existing powers in Congress to effectuate a comprehensive system of roads and canals, the ef fect of which would be to draw the different parts of the country more closely together. And I would candidly admit, in the second place, that it was intimated, that, in the exercise of those existing powers, some defect might be discovered which would render an amendment of the Constitution necessary. Nothing could be more clearly affirmed than the first position; but in the message of Mr. Madison returning the bill, passed in consequence of his recommendation, he has not specified a solitary case to which those existing powers are applicable; he has not told us what he meant by those existing powers; and the general scope of his reasoning, in that message, if well founded, proves that there are no existing powers whatever. It is apparent, that Mr. Madison himself has not examined some of those principal sources of the Constitution from which, during this debate, the power has been derived. I deeply regret, and I know that Mr. Madison regretted that the circumstances under which the bill was presented to him (the last day but one of a most busy session) deprived him of an opportunity of that thorough investigation of which no man is more capable. It is certain, that, taking his two messages at the same session together, they are perfectly irreconcilable. What, moreover, was the nature of that bill? It did not apply the money to any specific object of internal improvement, nor designate any particular mode in which it should be applied; but merely set apart and pledged the fund to the general purpose, subject to the future disposition of Congress. If, then, there were any supposable case whatever, to which Congress might apply money in the erection of a road, or cutting a canal, the bill did not violate the Constitution. And it ought not to be anticipated, that money constitutionally appropriated by one Congress would be unconstitutionally expended by another.

I come now to the message of Mr. Monroe; and if, by the communication of his opinion to Congress, he intended to prevent discussion, he has most wofully failed. I know that, according to a most venerable and ex

cellent usage, the opinion, neither of the president or of the Senate, upon any proposition depending in this House, ought to be adverted to. Even in the Parliament of Great Britain, a member who would refer to the opinion of the sovereign, in such a case, would be instantly called to order; but under the extraordinary circumstances of the president having, with, I have no doubt, the best motives, volunteered his opinion on this head, and inverted the order of legislation by beginning where it should end, I am compelled, most reluctantly, to refer to that opinion. I can not but deprecate the practice of which the president has, in this instance, set the example to his successors. The constitutional order of legislation supposes that every bill originating in one House, shall be there deliberately investigated, without influence from any other branch of the Legislature; and then remitted to the other House for a like free and unbiased consideration. Having passed both Houses, it is to be laid before the president; signed if approved, and if disapproved, to be returned, with his objections, to the originating House. In this manner, entire freedom of thought and of action is secured, and the president finally sees the proposition in the most matured form which Congress can give to it. The practical effect, to say no more, of forestalling the legislative opinion, and teiling us what we may or may not do, will be to deprive the president himself of the opportunity of considering a proposition so matured, and us of the benefit of his reasoning applied specifically to such proposition. For the Constitution further enjoins it upon him, to state his objections upon returning the bill. The originating House is then to reconsider it, and deliberately to weigh those objections; and it is further required, when the question is again taken, Shall the bill pass, those objections notwithstanding? that the votes shall be solemnly spread, by ayes and noes, upon the record. Of this opportunity of thus recording our opinions, in matters of great public concern, we are deprived, if we submit to the innovation of the president. I will not press this part of the subject further. I repeat, again and again, that I have no doubt but that the president was actuated by the purest motives. I am compelled, however, in the exercise of that freedom of opinion which, so long as I exist, I will maintain, to say, that the proceeding is irregular and unconstitutional. Let us, however, examine the reasoning and opinion of the president:

"A difference of opinion has existed from the first formation of our Constitution to the present time, among our most enlightened and virtuous citizens respecting the right of Congress to establish a system of internal improvement. Taking into view the trust with which I am now honored, it would be improper, after what has passed, that this discussion should be revived, with an uncertainty of my opinion respecting the right. Disregarding early impressions, I have bestowed on the subject all the deliberation which its great importance and a just sense of my duty required; and the result is, a settled conviction in my mind, that Congress does not possess the right. It is not contained in any of the specified powers granted to Congress; nor can I consider it incidental