ineralogy to superintend them, under the direction of
the proper department.

It is understood that the Cumberland road, which was constructed at
a great expense, has already suffered from the want of that regular
superintendence and of those repairs which are indispensable to the
preservation of such a work. This road is of incalculable advantage
in facilitating the intercourse between the Western and the Atlantic
States. Through it the whole country from the northern extremity of Lake
Erie to the Mississippi, and from all the waters which empty into each,
finds an easy and direct communication to the seat of Government, and
thence to the Atlantic. The facility which it affords to all military
and commercial operations, and also to those of the Post-Office
Department, can not be estimated too highly. This great work is likewise
an ornament and an honor to the nation. Believing that a competent power
to adopt and execute a system of internal improvement has not been
granted to Congress, but that such a power, confined to great national
purposes and with proper limitations, would be productive of eminent
advantage to our Union, I have thought it advisable that an amendment
of the Constitution to that effect should be recommended to the several
States. A bill which assumed the right to adopt and execute such a
system having been presented for my signature at the last session,
I was compelled, from the view which I had taken of the powers of the
General Government, to negative it, on which occasion I thought it
proper to communicate the sentiments which I had formed, on mature
consideration, on the whole subject. To that communication, in all the
views in which the great interest to which it relates may be supposed
to merit your attention, I have now to refer. Should Congress, however,
deem it improper to recommend such an amendment, they have, according to
my judgment, the right to keep the road in repair by providing for the
superintendence of it and appropriating the money necessary for repairs.
Surely if they had the right to appropriate money to make the road they
have a right to appropriate it to preserve the road from ruin. From the
exercise of this power no danger is to be apprehended. Under our happy
system the people are the sole and exclusive fountain of power. Each
government originates from them, and to them alone, each to its proper
constituents, are they respectively and solely responsible for the
faithful d