be done again.

Now for the second portion of the message--namely, that the burdens of
improvements would be general, while their benefits would be local and
partial, involving an obnoxious inequality. That there is some degree
of truth in this position, I shall not deny. No commercial object of
government patronage can be so exclusively general as to not be of some
peculiar local advantage. The navy, as I understand it, was established,
and is maintained at a great annual expense, partly to be ready for
war when war shall come, and partly also, and perhaps chiefly, for the
protection of our commerce on the high seas. This latter object is, for
all I can see, in principle the same as internal improvements. The driving
a pirate from the track of commerce on the broad ocean, and the removing
of a snag from its more narrow path in the Mississippi River, cannot,
I think, be distinguished in principle. Each is done to save life and
property, and for nothing else.

The navy, then, is the most general in its benefits of all this class
of objects; and yet even the navy is of some peculiar advantage to
Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, beyond what it
is to the interior towns of Illinois. The next most general object I
can think of would be improvements on the Mississippi River and its
tributaries. They touch thirteen of our States-Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Now I suppose it will not be denied
that these thirteen States are a little more interested in improvements on
that great river than are the remaining seventeen. These instances of the
navy and the Mississippi River show clearly that there is something of
local advantage in the most general objects. But the converse is also
true. Nothing is so local as to not be of some general benefit. Take,
for instance, the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Considered apart from its
effects, it is perfectly local. Every inch of it is within the State of
Illinois. That canal was first opened for business last April. In a very
few days we were all gratified to learn, among other things, that sugar
had been carried from New Orleans through this canal to Buffalo in New
York. This sugar took this route, doubtless, because it was cheaper than
the old route. Supposing benefit of the reduction in the cost of carriage
to be shared between seller and the buyer, result is th