ll be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the
United States or of any particular State_," it virtually provides that
these compacts and the rights they secure shall remain untouched by
the legislative power, which shall only make all "_needful rules and
regulations_" for carrying them into effect. All beyond this would seem
to be an assumption of undelegated power.

These ancient compacts are invaluable monuments of an age of virtue,
patriotism, and disinterestedness. They exhibit the price that great
States which had won liberty were willing to pay for that union without
which they plainly saw it could not be preserved. It was not for
territory or state power that our Revolutionary fathers took up arms;
it was for individual liberty and the right of self-government. The
expulsion from the continent of British armies and British power was to
them a barren conquest if through the collisions of the redeemed States
the individual rights for which they fought should become the prey of
petty military tyrannies established at home. To avert such consequences
and throw around liberty the shield of union, States whose relative
strength at the time gave them a preponderating power magnanimously
sacrificed domains which would have made them the rivals of empires,
only stipulating that they should be disposed of for the common benefit
of themselves and the other confederated States. This enlightened policy
produced union and has secured liberty. It has made our waste lands
to swarm with a busy people and added many powerful States to our
Confederation. As well for the fruits which these noble works of our
ancestors have produced as for the devotedness in which they originated,
we should hesitate before we demolish them.

But there are other principles asserted in the bill which would have
impelled me to withhold my signature had I not seen in it a violation
of the compacts by which the United States acquired title to a large
portion of the public lands. It reasserts the principle contained in
the bill authorizing a subscription to the stock of the Maysville,
Washington, Paris and Lexington Turnpike Road Company, from which I was
compelled to withhold my consent for reasons contained in my message of
the 27th May, 1830, to the House of Representatives.

The leading principle then asserted was that Congress possesses no
constitutional power to appropriate any part of the moneys of the
United States for objects of a local ch