ce
in other matters teaches us--and we are not at liberty to disregard its
admonitions--that unless an entire stop be put to them it will soon be
impossible to prevent their accumulation until they are spread over the
whole country and made to embrace many of the private and appropriate
concerns of individuals.

The power which the General Government would acquire within the several
States by becoming the principal stockholder in corporations,
controlling every canal and each 60 or 100 miles of every important
road, and giving a proportionate vote in all their elections, is almost
inconceivable, and in my view dangerous to the liberties of the people.

This mode of aiding such works is also in its nature deceptive, and in
many cases conducive to improvidence in the administration of the
national funds. Appropriations will be obtained with much greater
facility and granted with less security to the public interest when the
measure is thus disguised than when definite and direct expenditures of
money are asked for. The interests of the nation would doubtless be
better served by avoiding all such indirect modes of aiding particular
objects. In a government like ours more especially should all public
acts be, as far as practicable, simple, undisguised, and intelligible,
that they may become fit subjects for the approbation or animadversion
of the people. The bill authorizing a subscription to the Louisville and
Portland Canal affords a striking illustration of the difficulty of
withholding additional appropriations for the same object when the first
erroneous step has been taken by instituting a partnership between the
Government and private companies. It proposes a third subscription on
the part of the United States, when each preceding one was at the time
regarded as the extent of the aid which Government was to render to that
work; and the accompanying bill for light-houses, etc., contains an
appropriation for a survey of the bed of the river, with a view to its
improvement by removing the obstruction which the canal is designed to
avoid. This improvement, if successful, would afford a free passage of
the river and render the canal entirely useless. To such improvidence is
the course of legislation subject in relation to internal improvements
on local matters, even with the best intentions on the part of Congress.

Although the motives which have influenced me in this matter may be
already sufficiently stated, I am, ne