ration only. Let
it be supposed that Congress intended to run a road from the city of
Washington to Baltimore and to connect the Chesapeake Bay with the
Delaware and the Delaware with the Raritan by a canal, what must be
done to carry the project into effect? I make here no question of the
existing power. I speak only of the power necessary for the purpose.
Commissioners would be appointed to trace a route in the most direct
line, paying due regard to heights, water courses, and other obstacles,
and to acquire the right to the ground over which the road and canal
would pass, with sufficient breadth for each. This must be done by
voluntary grants, or by purchases from individuals, or, in case they
would not sell or should ask an exorbitant price, by condemning the
property and fixing its value by a jury of the vicinage. The next object
to be attended to after the road and canal are laid out and made is to
keep them in repair. We know that there are people in every community
capable of committing voluntary injuries, of pulling down walls that are
made to sustain the road, of breaking the bridges over water courses,
and breaking the road itself. Some living near it might be disappointed
that it did not pass through their lands and commit these acts of
violence and waste from revenge or in the hope of giving it that
direction, though for a short time. Injuries of this kind have been
committed and are still complained of on the road from Cumberland to the
Ohio. To accomplish this object Congress should have a right to pass
laws to punish offenders wherever they may be found. Jurisdiction over
the road would not be sufficient, though it were exclusive. It would
seldom happen that the parties would be detected in the act. They would
generally commit it in the night and fly far off before the sun
appeared. The power to punish these culprits must therefore reach them
wherever they go. They must also be amenable to competent tribunals,
Federal or State. The power must likewise extend to another object not
less essential or important than those already mentioned. Experience
has shown that the establishment of turnpikes, with gates and tolls and
persons to collect the tolls, is the best expedient that can be adopted
to defray the expense of these improvements and the repairs which they
necessarily require. Congress must therefore have power to make such
an establishment and to support it by such regulations, with fines and
penalties