The States of South-Carolina and Georgia alone,

Leaving a balance in favour of the ten States, of

22,161,349

$3,084,990

But if we take into consideration the produce from those two States, that had gone coast wise to the northern ports of Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and there manufactuered or exported-all of which, when exported, is carried to the account of their own exports, and the exports of New-York is vastly augmented by this means; we shall find, by taking this from the ten States, and adding it to the two States, to which it rightfully belongs, it will far overbalance the $3,084,990, and will prove that these two States export a larger proportion of those articles that enter essentially into national wealth, than those ten northern States export.

In the same year, the exports from all the States and Territories, including these ten Atlantic States, in the Union, except the States of South-Carolina and Geogia, exported in their whole amount only If we deduct the exports from South-Carolina and Georgia, It will leave a balance in favour of the whole of the States and Territories against the two States, of

$47,692,088 22,161,349

23,846,044

And if we again take into calculation, that portion of our produce which goes coastwise, and is either manufactured or exported from the Northern States, it will be seen, evidently, that the small States of SouthCarolina and Georgia, both of which have but sixteen representatives in Congress, out of two hundred and thirteen, exported more than half as much as all the other States and Territories in the Union, including the vast and fertile valley of the Mississippi. If the Constitution authorizes this system of road and canal making, why are not provisions and benefits extended to those two States that have contributed so largely to the growing prosperity of the Union, as well as to all the other States and Territories? The Constitution has wisely provided that all the privileges, immunities, and benefits therein provided for, shall be extended to each State, upon some uniform and fixed principle, and not left to chance, nor yet to the opinions of an interested majority, who should carve out for themselves what suits their own purposes, without regard to the interest of the minority.

The advocates of this system, from the earliest efforts to bring it into operation, have not been able to agree upon any one given power in the Constitution that will justify it. Some derive it from the power given to Congress to declare war; some from the power to establish post-offices and post-roads; some from the power to regulate commerce; some from the power to provide for the common defence and general welfare; and others, from the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. And they have travelled on with these uncertain guides, and with this diversity of opinion, each coming to the same conclusion from different premises, and making a joint stock business of it, and playing political sequents do you take your road and then give me mine-and it is justified upon any ground that happens to correspond with a getleman's views of what he would call good policy.

We are told by some gentlemen, they are pleased with this system, and wish it to be carried on upon an enlarged plan, because it developes the resources of your country, and facilitates your commercial intercourse, and prepare you for war during peace. Others say, without it, you cannot dispose of your surplus revenue. And they tell us so, with a perfect knowledge of a public debt of 70,000,000 dollars, hanging over our heads; a great proportion of which, is the debt created for the support of your revolutionary war, more than fifty years ago. But some of your most sage and experienced statesmen of the present day, have recently discovered, that a national debt is a national blessing. They tell you, were you to pay off your national debt, you would throw too large a quantity of money into circulation; and this is given as a reason for going on with the system of roads and canals. But how fallacious is the argument? If you are to expend your revenue in constructing roads and canals, and lavish it away upon undertakers and idle Engineers, will it not throw your money as much into circulation, as it would were you to pay it to your public creditors? And can it be material, as to its effect, through what channel it goes into circulation? This argument is about as well founded as any other that has been offered in support of this system. Your national debt will be a national blessing to contractors and undertakers of your roads and canals, who will share largely in the spoil; and it will be a blessing to your money lenders, to speculators, to brokers, and to stock-jobbers, whose trade it is to watch over the misfortunes of the rest of the communty, and take advantage of their adversities, but will prove a national curse to the morals of the people of this Government, and bankrupt the Government itself, as it has done in all other Governments that have pursued it; and you will enjoy this blessing to your utmost wishes, before you are done with your roads and canals!

Gentlemen tell us they consider not only the policy, but the constitutional principle likewise, are both settled as regards this long contested question.

Ask upon what principle it had been settled, and one gentleman tells you it was settled by the law Congress passed on the 30th of April, 1824, "to procure the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates, upon the subject of roads and canals;" and which another gentleman very frankly avows, was forced through Congress. And which passed the Senate by less than one half of its members.

Another gentleman affirms the constitutional question was settled twenty years ago, when Congress voted a donation of $50,000 worth of flour to the people of Caracas, and shipped it to that city in American vessels, after they had suffered by the earthquake. This donation was voted by Congress in a moment of good feeling, because they were republicans. And, immediately upon its reaching its port of destination, was seized by a band of the royal forces, and made prize of. And there your republican present terminated. And because Congress arbitrarily assumed the right of voting away a sum of money to a foreign people, it is taken as a fair exposition

3

of the Constitution, to warrant any disposition Congress may think fit to make of the public monies in future; and consequently to appropriate any sum within its grasp to Internal Improvement.

Mr. Smith, supposed the Greek frigate, when it shall have become sufficiently known to bring it on the theatre of action, will be ranked in the first class of Congressional precedents. This Greek frigate was purchased to save a falling mercantile house in New-York. Congress, in the exuberance of its good feelings, of which it always has an abundance in store, was casting about to find some fit occasion to expend a little money in the Greek cause, as they were Christians, and occupied that classic ground, once the seat of the Muses; when it was suggested by some of the members, the expediency of building a frigate, and sending her out for their service. And this was buzzed about Congress in broken accents and whispers, and was adopted with great enthusiasm, and those New-York broken merchants got the job, and with it, upwards of 300,000 dollars, of your public money; and the frigate they supplied you was good for nothing. Here your Greek benevolence expired! But the deed itself will remain as a monument of your power to give away, or to waste as much public money as you please, whenever a majority in Congress shall think fit to do so.

Another gentleman asks, what is to become of the Military Academy at West Point, if you do not go on with Internal Improvement? And further asks, for what are you giving a mathematical and scientific education to the young men of your country, if you would not employ them in developing the resources of the nation? And tells us, this city is to be the centre of science, where all the scientific men in the Union will be brought together. And then asks you, how are the States, and Companies, to progress in their Internal Improvements, but by obtaining the benefit of this science from the general government? And seems to think this a strong illustration of your constitutional power over this subject.

Mr. Smith said he would answer those interrogatories. If the government of the United States is to keep up a Military Academy at West Point, or elsewhere, to educate the sons of the members of Congress, and the sons of their friends and favourites, where they were educated entirely at the expense of the government, and under pay, in the mean time, of $228 per year, there could be no question but you would soon have a number of scientific men without employment. And if you would then give them commissions in the army, with high pay, and increase that pay every session, which you were pretty much in the babit of doing, with additional pay as engineers, transportation and expenses paid, for amusing themselves through the country, you would soon render this the seat of science. And with these inducements, and the growing prospects for all government agents, you will not only collect to this place all the military science from West Point, but from the whole Union, for where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered. But if it has been the policy of the government to increase the military science of the country, and place it here in bureaus and other seats

of idleness, what had that to do with the constitutional question of the powers of Congress to construct roads and canals.

Mr. President, instead of referring to the Constitution itself, the unerring standard of its own solutions, laid down as a guide, even to future ages, are we to look for the solutions of its principles in the laws and resolutions of Congress, passed, no matter under what influence, by less than a majority of either House; and many of them passed without even a majority being present? Or are we to look for the solutions of its principles in the Military Academy, or the accumulation of science at the seat of government? This is but a feeble demonstration of the charter of your liberties. It is the road to tyranny. The despot does not grasp the sceptre at a single move, but by a succession of usurpations that ripen into law. No tyrant that ever lived, who did not make his way by the sword, had ever made greater inroads upon the fundamental principles of free governments, in the same space of time, than Congress had upon the obvious principles of the Constitution within the last twelve years.

Mr. Smith said, when he took the oath, in the presence of this Senate, to protect the Constitution of the United States, he did not go into the Secretary's office, and turn over the musty documents that had laid there for forty years, to teach him the knowledge of that Constitution he had sworn upon the holy Evangelists to protect. Nor did he believe the duty prescribed under that sacred obligation was to be found in the law of the 30th of April, 1824. Nor did he resort to the Brigades of Engineers, with all their science of mathematics and differential calculus, to inspire him with their touch, but to the Constitution itself, to learn its provisions.

But if this important question rested upon authorities alone, the weight of authories are opposed to the system. General Hamilton, who was anxious to support it, doubted, and recommended an amendment of the Constitution, to provide for it. But he had too much good sense to sacrifice the Constitution to convenience; and remarked, that "the degree in which a thing was necessary, could never be the test of the legal right to adopt it." (1.)

Mr. Jefferson is said to have recommended the construction of the Cumberland Road. But all the advocates of the road system, place that road on the ground of compact. Besides, Mr. Jefferson, at the time he recommended it, expressed his doubts, and, like General Hamilton, advised that the Constitution should be amended. Yet he lived to look back upon it as the greatest error of his political life, and to regret it with bitterness of soul.

President Madison negatived the celebrated bonus bill, in 1817, the rallying point of the aspiring politicians of that day, for which he assigned reasons, recorded in your annals, that will bear the scrutiny of the profoundest statesman, and convince the most visionary opponent. Nor did that bill pass in the House of Representatives by more than two votes of a majority, 84 to 82, and that upon grounds that are entirely abandoned now.

(1.) See his Report, 119.

President Monroe, in his first message to Congress, at the succeeding session, anticipated the question, and assured Congress as the subject had undergone an elaborate discussion, and had been negatived by his predecessor, he also would negative such a bill were they to pass it. Although this was no more than fulfilling a faithful duty, yet it gave rise to much zeal, which was followed up by a report that censured the President for anticipating, prematurely, as they supposed, a subject of so much interest; and a number of resolutions were submitted, and discussed at great length. Three of which he would bring to the attention of the Senate, and show how they resulted:

2d, "Resolved, That Congress has power, under the Constitution, to construct post roads and military roads. Provided, private property be not taken for public use without just compensation." Negatived-yeas 32. nays 84.

3d, “Resolved, That Congress has power, under the Constitution, to construct roads and canals, necessary for commerce between the States. Provided, private property be not taken for public use without just compensation." Negatived-yeas 71, nays 95.

4th, "Resolved, That Congress has power, under the Constitution, to construct canals, for military purposes. Provided, private property be not taken for public use without just compensation.” Negatived-yeas 81, nays 83.

These resolutions put the question into every shape, and protected the rights of individuals; yet not one succeeded. A number of gentlemen who voted uniformly against all those resolutions, and against every modification in which they were, on that occasion, so variously placed, are now among the zealous supporters of this system; with their votes recorded against the Constitutional power. Some of those gentlemen are now with us and voting for this bill. What was unconstitutional ten years ago, is constitutional now.

This project proved abortive, and fell in the House of Representatives. But in consequence of censure thrown on President Monroe by that report, he wrote a book, and communicated it to Congress five years after, in the form of a message, with his negative of the "bill to establish turnpike gates on the Cumberland Road," in which he demonstrated, with unanswerable arguments and illustrations, that Congress did not possess the power to construct roads and canals. That message is also recorded in your annals, with President Madison's negative, where they will remain as monuments of the true construction of the Constitution, and of wisdom, that will outweigh all your theories of constructive power, and necessity, and convenience, put together.

Now it is evident, that all the authorities are opposed to the system, up to the law of 30th April, 1824, which, we are told, was forced through Congress, and which passed the Senate by less than a majority of its members. Previous to that law, it had never received the legal sanction of the Government in a single instance, except the Cumberland Road, and some Territorial Roads, both of which its friends had considered exceptions. It was true, the former