appropriation ever made for the improvement of a navigable river,
unless it be small appropriations for examinations and surveys in 1820.
During the residue of that Administration many other appropriations of
a similar character were made, embracing roads, rivers, harbors, and
canals, and objects claiming the aid of Congress multiplied without
number.

This was the first breach effected in the barrier which the universal
opinion of the framers of the Constitution had for more than thirty
years thrown in the way of the assumption of this power by Congress.
The general mind of Congress and the country did not appreciate the
distinction taken by President Monroe between the right to appropriate
money for an object and the right to apply and expend it without the
embarrassment and delay of applications to the State governments.
Probably no instance occurred in which such an application was made, and
the flood gates being thus hoisted the principle laid down by him was
disregarded, and applications for aid from the Treasury, virtually to
make harbors as well as improve them, clear out rivers, cut canals, and
construct roads, poured into Congress in torrents until arrested by the
veto of President Jackson. His veto of the Maysville road bill was
followed up by his refusal to sign the "Act making appropriations for
building light-houses, light-boats, beacons, and monuments, placing
buoys, improving harbors, and directing surveys;" "An act authorizing
subscriptions for stock in the Louisville and Portland Canal Company;"
"An act for the improvement of certain harbors and the navigation of
certain rivers;" and, finally, "An act to improve the navigation of
the Wabash River." In his objections to the act last named he says:

The desire to embark the Federal Government in works of internal
improvement prevailed in the highest degree during the first session of
the first Congress that I had the honor to meet in my present situation.
When the bill authorizing a subscription on the part of the United
States for stock in the Maysville and Lexington Tumpike Company passed
the two Houses, there had been reported by the Committees of Internal
Improvements bills containing appropriations for such objects, inclusive
of those for the Cumberland road and for harbors and light-houses, to
the amount of $106,000,000. In this amount was included authority to
the Secretary of the Treasury to subscribe for the stock of differen