isting, without affecting the sovereignty of the States
except in the particular offices to be performed. The jurisdiction of
the several States may still exist over the roads and canals within
their respective limits, extending alike to persons and property, as if
the right to make and protect such improvements had not been vested in
Congress. The right, being made commensurate simply with the purposes
indispensable to the system, may be strictly confined to them. The
right of Congress to protect the works by laws imposing penalties would
operate on the same principles as the right to protect the mail. The act
being punishable only, a jurisdiction over the place would be altogether
unnecessary and even absurd.

In the preceding inquiry little has been said of the advantages which
would attend the exercise of such a power by the General Government.
I have made the inquiry under a deep conviction that they are almost
incalculable, and that there was a general concurrence of opinion among
our fellow-citizens to that effect. Still, it may not be improper for
me to state the grounds upon which my own impression is founded. If it
sheds no additional light on this interesting part of the subject, it
will at least show that I have had more than one powerful motive for
making the inquiry. A general idea is all that I shall attempt.

The advantages of such a system must depend upon the interests to be
affected by it and the extent to which they may be affected, and those
must depend on the capacity of our country for improvement and the means
at its command applicable to that object.

I think that I may venture to affirm that there is no part of our globe
comprehending so many degrees of latitude on the main ocean and so
many degrees of longitude into the interior that admits of such great
improvement and at so little expense. The Atlantic on the one side, and
the Lakes, forming almost inland seas, on the other, separated by high
mountains, which rise in the valley of the St. Lawrence and determine
in that of the Mississippi, traversing from north to south almost the
whole interior, with innumerable rivers on every side of those mountains,
some of vast extent, many of which take their sources near to each other,
give the great outline. The details are to be seen on the valuable maps
of our country.

It appears by the light already before the public that it is practicable
and easy to connect by canals the whole coast from its