ealth and comfort of their inhabitants, constitute the surest mode
of conferring permanent and substantial advantages upon the whole. The
strength as well as the true glory of the Confederacy is founded on the
prosperity and power of the several independent sovereignties of which
it is composed and the certainty with which they can be brought into
successful active cooperation through the agency of the Federal
Government.

It is, moreover, within the knowledge of such as are at all conversant
with public affairs that schemes of internal improvement have from time
to time been proposed which, from their extent and seeming magnificence,
were readily regarded as of national concernment, but which upon fuller
consideration and further experience would now be rejected with great
unanimity.

That the plan under consideration would derive important advantages from
its certainty, and that the moneys set apart for these purposes would be
more judiciously applied and economically expended under the direction
of the State legislatures, in which every part of each State is
immediately represented, can not, I think, be doubted. In the new States
particularly, where a comparatively small population is scattered over
an extensive surface, and the representation in Congress consequently
very limited, it is natural to expect that the appropriations made by
the Federal Government would be more likely to be expended in the
vicinity of those members through whose immediate agency they were
obtained than if the funds were placed under the control of the
legislature, in which every county of the State has its own
representative. This supposition does not necessarily impugn the motives
of such Congressional representatives, nor is it so intended. We are all
sensible of the bias to which the strongest minds and purest hearts are,
under such circumstances, liable. In respect to the last objection--its
probable effect upon the dignity and independence of State
governments--it appears to me only necessary to state the case as it is,
and as it would be if the measure proposed were adopted, to show that
the operation is most likely to be the very reverse of that which the
objection supposes.

In the one case the State would receive its quota of the national
revenue for domestic use upon a fixed principle as a matter of right,
and from a fund to the creation of which it had itself contributed its
fair proportion. Surely there could be nothing der