employed in the
construction of all the other roads was taken directly from the
Treasury. This fact affords an additional proof that in the
contemplation of Congress no difference existed in the application of
money to those roads between that which was raised by the sale of lands
and that which was derived from taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.

So far I have confined my remarks to the acts of Congress respecting the
right of appropriation to such measures only as operate internally and
affect the territory of the individual States. In adverting to those
which operate externally and relate to foreign powers I find only two
which appear to merit particular attention. These were gratuitous grants
of money for the relief of foreigners in distress--the first in 1794
to the inhabitants of St. Domingo, who sought an asylum on our coast
from the convulsions and calamities of the island; the second in 1812
to the people of Caracas, reduced to misery by an earthquake. The
considerations which were applicable to these grants have already
been noticed and need not be repeated.

In this examination of the right of appropriation I thought it proper
to present to view also the practice of the Government under it, and to
explore the ground on which each example rested, that the precise nature
and extent of the construction thereby given of the right might be
clearly understood. The right to raise money would have given, as is
presumed, the right to use it, although nothing had been said to that
effect in the Constitution; and where the right to raise it is granted
without special limitation, we must look for such limitation to other
causes. Our attention is first drawn to the right to appropriate, and
not finding it there we must then look to the general powers of the
Government as designated by the specific grants and to the purposes
contemplated by them, allowing to this (the right to raise money), the
first and most important of the enumerated powers, a scope which will
be competent to those purposes. The practice of the Government, as
illustrated by numerous and strong examples directly applicable, ought
surely to have great weight in fixing the construction of each grant.
It ought, I presume, to settle it, especially where it is acquiesced
in by the nation and produces a manifest and positive good. A practical
construction, thus supported, shows that it has reason on its side and
is called for by the interests of the Union.