bors, or
appropriate money for that purpose. Among our early statesmen of the
strict-construction class the opinion was universal, when the subject
was first broached, that Congress did not possess the power, although
some of them thought it desirable.

President Jefferson, in his message to Congress in 1806, recommended an
amendment of the Constitution, with a view to apply an anticipated
surplus in the Treasury "to the great purposes of the public education,
roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as
it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of
Federal powers." And he adds:

I suppose an amendment to the Constitution, by consent of the States,
necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those
enumerated in the Constitution, and to which it permits the public
moneys to be applied.

In 1825 he repeated, in his published letters, the opinion that no such
power has been conferred upon Congress.

President Madison, in a message to the House of Representatives of the
3d of March, 1817, assigning his objections to a bill entitled "An act
to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,"
declares that--

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not
include a power to construct roads and canals and to _improve the
navigation of water courses_ in order to facilitate, promote, and
secure such a commerce without a latitude of construction departing
from the ordinary import of the terms, strengthened by the known
inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial
power to Congress.

President Monroe, in a message to the House of Representatives of the
4th of May, 1822, containing his objections to a bill entitled "An act
for the preservation and repair of the Cumberland road," declares:

Commerce between independent powers or communities is universally
regulated by duties and imposts. It was so regulated by the States
before the adoption of this Constitution, equally in respect to each
other and to foreign powers. The goods and vessels employed in the trade
are the only subjects of regulation. It can act on none other. A power,
then, to impose such duties and imposts in regard to foreign nations
and to prevent any on the trade between the States was the only power
granted.

If we recur to the causes which produced the adoption of this
Constitution, we shall