ecessary to establish
custom-houses in every State along the coast and in many parts of
the interior. The vast amount of goods imported and the duties to be
performed to accommodate the merchants and secure the revenue make it
necessary that spacious buildings should be erected, especially in the
great towns, for their reception. This, it is manifest, could best be
performed under the direction of the General Government. Have Congress
the right to seize the property of individuals if they should refuse
to sell it, in quarters best adapted to the purpose, to have it valued,
and to take it at the valuation? Have they a right to exercise
jurisdiction within those buildings? Neither of these claims has ever
been set up, nor could it, as is presumed, be sustained. They have
invariably either rented houses where such as were suitable could be
obtained, or, where they could not, purchased the ground of individuals,
erected the buildings, and held them under the laws of the State. Under
the power to establish post-offices and post-roads houses are also
requisite for the reception of the mails and the transaction of the
business of the several offices. These have always been rented or
purchased and held under the laws of the State in the same manner as
if they had been taken by a citizen. The United States have a right to
establish tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court, and such have been
established in every State of the Union. It is believed that the houses
for these inferior courts have invariably been rented. No right of
jurisdiction in them has ever been claimed, nor other right than that of
privilege, and that only while the court is in session. A still stronger
case may be urged. Should Congress be compelled by invasion or other
cause to remove the Government to some town within one of the States,
would they have a right of jurisdiction over such town, or hold even the
house in which they held their session under other authority than the
laws of such State? It is believed that they would not. If they have
a right to appropriate money for any of these purposes, to be laid out
under the protection of the laws of the State, surely they have an equal
right to do it for the purposes of internal improvements.

It is believed that there is not a corporation in the Union which does
not exercise great discretion in the application of the money raised
by it to the purposes of its institution. It would be strange if the
Government