e admitted that so far as the mere
appropriation of money is concerned they present the principle in its
most imposing aspect. No less than twenty-three different laws have been
passed, through all the forms of the Constitution, appropriating upward
of $2,500,000 out of the National Treasury in support of that
improvement, with the approbation of every President of the United
States, including my predecessor, since its commencement.

Independently of the sanction given to appropriations for the Cumberland
and other roads and objects under this power, the Administration of Mr.
Madison was characterized by an act which furnishes the strongest
evidence of his opinion of its extent. A bill was passed through both
Houses of Congress and presented for his approval, "setting apart and
pledging certain funds for constructing roads and canals and improving
the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and
give security to internal commerce among the several States and to
render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the
common defense." Regarding the bill as asserting a power in the Federal
Government to construct roads and canals within the limits of the States
in which they were made, he objected to its passage on the ground of its
unconstitutionality, declaring that the assent of the respective States
in the mode provided by the bill could not confer the power in question;
that the only cases in which the consent and cession of particular
States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided
for in the Constitution, and superadding to these avowals his opinion
that "a restriction of the power 'to provide for the common defense and
general welfare' to cases which are to be provided for by the
expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of
Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money
being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution."
I have not been able to consider these declarations in any other point
of view than as a concession that the right of appropriation is not
limited by the power to carry into effect the measure for which the
money is asked, as was formerly contended.

The views of Mr. Monroe upon this subject were not left to inference.
During his Administration a bill was passed through both Houses of
Congress conferring the jurisdiction and prescribing the mode by which
the Federal Go