vertheless, induced by its
importance to add a few observations of a general character.

In my objections to the bills authorizing subscriptions to the Maysville
and Rockville road companies I expressed my views fully in regard to the
power of Congress to construct roads and canals within a State or to
appropriate money for improvements of a local character. I at the same
time intimated my belief that the right to make appropriations for such
as were of a national character had been so generally acted upon and so
long acquiesced in by the Federal and State Governments and the
constituents of each as to justify its exercise on the ground of
continued and uninterrupted usage, but that it was, nevertheless, highly
expedient that appropriations even of that character should, with the
exception made at the time, be deferred until the national debt is paid,
and that in the meanwhile some general rule for the action of the
Government in that respect ought to be established.

These suggestions were not necessary to the decision of the question
then before me, and were, I readily admit, intended to awake the
attention and draw forth the opinions and observations of our
constituents upon a subject of the highest importance to their
interests, and one destined to exert a powerful influence upon the
future operations of our political system. I know of no tribunal to
which a public man in this country, in a case of doubt and difficulty,
can appeal with greater advantage or more propriety than the judgment of
the people; and although I must necessarily in the discharge of my
official duties be governed by the dictates of my own judgment, I have
no desire to conceal my anxious wish to conform as far as I can to the
views of those for whom I act.

All irregular expressions of public opinion are of necessity attended
with some doubt as to their accuracy, but making full allowances on that
account I can not, I think, deceive myself in believing that the acts
referred to, as well as the suggestions which I allowed myself to make
in relation to their bearing upon the future operations of the
Government, have been approved by the great body of the people. That
those whose immediate pecuniary interests are to be affected by proposed
expenditures should shrink from the application of a rule which prefers
their more general and remote interests to those which are personal and
immediate is to be expected. But even such objections must from th