r the acquisition and the other for the
maintenance of liberty--free from debt and with all her immense
resources unfettered! What a salutary influence would not such an
exhibition exercise upon the cause of liberal principles and free
government throughout the world! Would we not ourselves find in its
effect an additional guaranty that our political institutions will be
transmitted to the most remote posterity without decay? A course of
policy destined to witness events like these can not be benefited by a
legislation which tolerates a scramble for appropriations that have no
relation to any general system of improvement, and whose good effects
must of necessity be very limited. In the best view of these
appropriations, the abuses to which they lead far exceed the good which
they are capable of promoting. They may be resorted to as artful
expedients to shift upon the Government the losses of unsuccessful
private speculation, and thus, by ministering to personal ambition and
self-aggrandizement, tend to sap the foundations of public virtue and
taint the administration of the Government with a demoralizing
influence.

In the other view of the subject, and the only remaining one which it is
my intention to present at this time, is involved the expediency of
embarking in a system of internal improvement without a previous
amendment of the Constitution explaining and defining the precise powers
of the Federal Government over it. Assuming the right to appropriate
money to aid in the construction of national works to be warranted by
the cotemporaneous and continued exposition of the Constitution, its
insufficiency for the successful prosecution of them must be admitted by
all candid minds. If we look to usage to define the extent of the right,
that will be found so variant and embracing so much that has been
overruled as to involve the whole subject in great uncertainty and to
render the execution of our respective duties in relation to it replete
with difficulty and embarrassment. It is in regard to such works and the
acquisition of additional territory that the practice obtained its first
footing. In most, if not all, other disputed questions of appropriation
the construction of the Constitution may be regarded as unsettled if the
right to apply money in the enumerated cases is placed on the ground of
usage.

This subject has been one of much, and, I may add, painful, reflection
to me. It has bearings that are well calcul