s never intended any ever
should be made! Take money from the people to run out piers from the
sandy shores of Lake Erie, or deepen the channels of her shallow rivers!
Where was the constitutional authority for this? Where would such
strides of power stop? How long would the States have any power at all
left, if their territory might be ruthlessly invaded for such unhallowed
purposes, or how long would the people have any money in their pockets,
if the government of the United States might tax them, at pleasure, for
such extravagant projects as these? Piers, wharves, harbors, and
breakwaters in the Lakes! These arguments, Gentlemen, however earnestly
put forth heretofore, do not strike us with great power, at the present
day, if we stand on the shores of Lake Erie, and see hundreds of
vessels, with valuable cargoes and thousands of valuable lives, moving
on its waters, with few shelters from the storm, except what is
furnished by the havens created, or made useful, by the aid of
government. These great lakes, stretching away many thousands of miles,
not in a straight line, but with turns and deflections, as if designed
to reach, by water communication, the greatest possible number of
important points through a region of vast extent, cannot but arrest the
attention of any one who looks upon the map. They lie connected, but
variously placed; and interspersed, as if with studied variety of form
and direction, over that part of the country. They were made for man,
and admirably adapted for his use and convenience. Looking, Gentlemen,
over our whole country, comprehending in our survey the Atlantic coast,
with its thick population, its advanced agriculture, its extended
commerce, its manufactures and mechanic arts, its varieties of
communication, its wealth, and its general improvements; and looking,
then, to the interior, to the immense tracts of fresh, fertile, and
cheap lands, bounded by so many lakes, and watered by so many
magnificent rivers, let me ask if such a MAP was ever before presented
to the eye of any statesman, as the theatre for the exercise of his
wisdom and patriotism? And let me ask, too, if any man is fit to act a
part, on such a theatre, who does not comprehend the whole of it within
the scope of his policy, and embrace it all as his country?

Again, Gentlemen, we are one in respect to the glorious Constitution
under which we live. We are all united in the great brotherhood of
American liberty. Descendin