posed to be
the incident, if the framers of the Constitution, wise and thoughtful
men as they were, intended to confer on Congress the power over a
subject so wide as the whole field of internal improvements, it is
remarkable that they did not use language clearly to express it, or, in
other words, that they did not give it as a distinct and substantive
power instead of making it the implied incident of some other one; for
such is the magnitude of the supposed incidental power and its capacity
of expansion that any system established under it would exceed each of
the others in the amount of expenditure and number of the persons
employed, which would thus be thrown upon the General Government.

This position may be illustrated by taking as a single example one of
the many things comprehended clearly in the idea of "a general system of
internal improvements," namely, roads. Let it be supposed that the power
to construct roads over the whole Union, according to the suggestion of
President J.Q. Adams in 1807, whilst a member of the Senate of the
United States, had been conceded. Congress would have begun, in
pursuance of the state of knowledge at the time, by constructing
turnpikes; then, as knowledge advanced, it would have constructed
canals, and at the present time it would have been embarked in an almost
limitless scheme of railroads.

Now there are in the United States, the results of State or private
enterprise, upward of 17,000 miles of railroads and 5,000 miles of
canals; in all, 22,000 miles, the total cost of which may be estimated
at little short of $600,000,000; and if the same works had been
constructed by the Federal Government, supposing the thing to have
been practicable, the cost would have probably been not less than
$900,000,000. The number of persons employed in superintending,
managing, and keeping up these canals and railroads may be stated at
126,000 or thereabouts, to which are to be added 70,000 or 80,000
employed on the railroads in construction, making a total of at least
200,000 persons, representing in families nearly 1,000,000 souls,
employed on or maintained by this one class of public works in the
United States.

In view of all this, it is not easy to estimate the disastrous
consequences which must have resulted from such extended local
improvements being undertaken by the General Government. State
legislation upon this subject would have been suspended and private
enterprise paralyzed, w