and might show again,
that no work--no object--can be so general as to dispense its benefits
with precise equality; and this inequality is chief among the "portentous
consequences" for which he declares that improvements should be arrested.
No, sir. When the President intimates that something in the way of
improvements may properly be done by the General Government, he is
shrinking from the conclusions to which his own arguments would force him.
He feels that the improvements of this broad and goodly land are a mighty
interest; and he is unwilling to confess to the people, or perhaps
to himself, that he has built an argument which, when pressed to its
conclusions, entirely annihilates this interest.

I have already said that no one who is satisfied of the expediency of
making improvements needs be much uneasy in his conscience about its
constitutionality. I wish now to submit a few remarks on the general
proposition of amending the Constitution. As a general rule, I think we
would much better let it alone. No slight occasion should tempt us to
touch it. Better not take the first step, which may lead to a habit
of altering it. Better, rather, habituate ourselves to think of it as
unalterable. It can scarcely be made better than it is. New provisions
would introduce new difficulties, and thus create and increase appetite
for further change. No, sir; let it stand as it is. New hands have never
touched it. The men who made it have done their work, and have passed
away. Who shall improve on what they did?

Mr. Chairman, for the purpose of reviewing this message in the least
possible time, as well as for the sake of distinctness, I have analyzed
its arguments as well as I could, and reduced them to the propositions
I have stated. I have now examined them in detail. I wish to detain the
committee only a little while longer with some general remarks upon the
subject of improvements. That the subject is a difficult one, cannot
be denied. Still it is no more difficult in Congress than in the State
Legislatures, in the counties, or in the smallest municipal districts
which anywhere exist. All can recur to instances of this difficulty in the
case of county roads, bridges, and the like. One man is offended because
a road passes over his land, and another is offended because it does not
pass over his; one is dissatisfied because the bridge for which he is
taxed crosses the river on a different road from that which leads from his
hou