ieved by the
consciousness that it would ultimately contribute to make us independent
of foreign nations for articles of prime necessity by the encouragement
of their growth and manufacture at home. They have been cheerfully borne
because they were thought to be necessary to the support of Government
and the payment of the debts unavoidably incurred in the acquisition and
maintenance of our national rights and liberties. But have we a right to
calculate on the same cheerful acquiescence when it is known that the
necessity for their continuance would cease were it not for irregular,
improvident, and unequal appropriations of the public funds? Will not
the people demand, as they have a right to do, such a prudent system of
expenditure as will pay the debts of the Union and authorize the
reduction of every tax to as low a point as the wise observance of the
necessity to protect that portion of our manufactures and labor whose
prosperity is essential to our national safety and independence will
allow? When the national debt is paid, the duties upon those articles
which we do not raise may be repealed with safety, and still leave, I
trust, without oppression to any section of the country, an accumulating
surplus fund, which may be beneficially applied to some well-digested
system of improvement.

Under this view the question as to the manner in which the Federal
Government can or ought to embark in the construction of roads and
canals, and the extent to which it may impose burthens on the people for
these purposes, may be presented on its own merits, free of all disguise
and of every embarrassment, except such as may arise from the
Constitution itself. Assuming these suggestions to be correct, will not
our constituents require the observance of a course by which they can be
effected? Ought they not to require it? With the best disposition to
aid, as far as I can conscientiously, in furtherance of works of
internal improvement, my opinion is that the soundest views of national
policy at this time point to such a course. Besides the avoidance of an
evil influence upon the local concerns of the country, how solid is the
advantage which the Government will reap from it in the elevation of its
character! How gratifying the effect of presenting to the world the
sublime spectacle of a Republic of more than 12,000,000 happy people, in
the fifty-fourth year of her existence, after having passed through two
protracted wars--the one fo