eep with apparently the acquiescence of the country. I might
particularize the Delaware Breakwater as an improvement which looks
to the security from the storms of our extended Atlantic seaboard of
the vessels of all the country engaged either in the foreign or the
coastwise trade, as well as to the safety of the revenue; but when, in
connection with that, the same bill embraces improvements of rivers at
points far in the interior, connected alone with the trade of such river
and the exertion of mere local influences, no alternative is left me but
to use the qualified veto with which the Executive is invested by the
Constitution, and to return the bill to the House in which it originated
for its ultimate reconsideration and decision.

In sanctioning a bill of the same title with that returned, for the
improvement of the Mississippi and its chief tributaries and certain
harbors on the Lakes, if I bring myself apparently in conflict with any
of the principles herein asserted it will arise on my part exclusively
from the want of a just appreciation of localities. The Mississippi
occupies a footing altogether different from the rivers and water
courses of the different States. No one State or any number of States
can exercise any other jurisdiction over it than for the punishment of
crimes and the service of civil process. It belongs to no particular
State or States, but of common right, by express reservation, to all
the States. It is reserved as a great common highway for the commerce
of the whole country. To have conceded to Louisiana, or to any other
State admitted as a new State into the Union, the exclusive jurisdiction,
and consequently the right to make improvements and to levy tolls on
the segments of the river embraced within its territorial limits, would
have been to have disappointed the chief object in the purchase of
Louisiana, which was to secure the free use of the Mississippi to all
the people of the United States. Whether levies on commerce were made
by a foreign or domestic government would have been equally burdensome
and objectionable. The United States, therefore, is charged with
its improvement for the benefit of all, and the appropriation of
governmental means to its improvement becomes indispensably necessary
for the good of all.

As to the harbors on the Lakes, the act originates no new improvements,
but makes appropriations for the continuance of works already begun.

It is as much the duty of t