gress may exercise it as fully as though the appropriations which it proposes were applicable to the construction of roads and canals. If there be a distinction in principle, it is not perceived, and should be clearly defined. Some of the objects of appropriation contained in this bill are local in their character, and lie within the limits of a single state; and though, in the language of the bill, they are called harbors, they are not connected with foreign commerce, nor are they places of refuge or shelter for our navy, or commercial marine, on the ocean or lake shores. To call the mouth of a creek, or a shallow inlet on our coast, a harbor, can not confer the authority to expend the public money in its improvement. Congress have exercised the power, coeval with the constitution, of establishing lighthouses, beacons, buoys, and piers, on our ocean and lake shores, for the purpose of rendering navigation safe and easy, and of affording protection and shelter for our navy and other shipping. These are safeguards placed in existing channels of navigation. After the long acquiescence of the government through all preceding administrations, I am not disposed to question or disturb the authority to make appropriations for such purposes.

When we advance a step beyond this point, and, in addition to the establishment and support, by appropriations from the treasury, of lighthouses, beacons, buoys, piers, and other improvements, within the bays, inlets, and harbors, on our ocean and lake coasts immediately connected with our foreign commerce, attempt to make improvements in the interior at points unconnected with foreign commerce, and where they are not needed for the protection and security of our navy and commercial marine, the difficulty arises in drawing a line beyond which appropriations may not be made by the federal government.

One of my predecessors, who saw the evil consequences of the system proposed to be revived by this bill, attempted to define this line by declaring that "expenditures of this character" should be "confined below the ports of entry or delivery established by law!" Acting on this restriction, he witheld his sanction from a bill which had passed Congress "to improve the navigation of the Wabash river." He was at the same time" sensible that this restriction was not as satisfactory as could be desired, and that much embarrassment may be caused to the executive department in its execution, by appropriations for remote and not well-understood objects." This restriction, it was soon found, was subject to be evaded, and rendered comparatively useless in checking the system of improvements which it was designed to arrest, in consequence of the facility with which ports of entry and delivery may be established by law upon the upper waters, and in some instances almost at the head springs of some of the most unimportant of our rivers, and at points on our coast possessing no commercial importance, and not used as places of refuge and safety by our navy, and other shipping. Many of the ports of entry and delivery now author ized by law, so far as foreign commerce is concerned, exist only in the statute-books. No entry of foreign goods is ever made, and no duties are ever collected at them. No exports of American products bound for foreign countries ever clear from them. To assume that their existence in the statute-book as ports of entry or delivery warrants expenditures on the waters leading to them, which would be otherwise unauthorized, would be to assert the proposition that the law-making power may engraft new provisions on the constitution. If the restriction is a sound one, it can only apply to the bays, inlets, and rivers, connected with or leading to such ports as actually have foreign commerce; ports at which foreign importations

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arrive in bulk, paying the duties, charged by law, and from which exports are made to foreign countries. It will be found, by applying the restriction thus understood to the bill under consideration, that it contains appropriations for more than twenty objects of internal improvement, called in the bill harbors, at places which have never been declared by law either ports of entry or delivery, and at which, as appears from the records of the treasury, there has never been an arrival of foreign merchandise, and from which there has never been a vessel cleared for a foreign country. It will be found that many of these works are new, and at places for the improvement of which appropriations are now for the first time proposed. It will be found, also, that the bill contains appropriations for rivers upon which there not only exists no foreign commerce, but upon which there has not been established even a paper port of entry, and for the mouths of creeks, denominated harbors, which if improved can benefit only the particular neighborhood in which they are situated. It will be found, too, to contain appropriations the expenditure of which will only have the effect of improving one place at the expense of the local, natural advantages of another in its vicinity. Should this bill become a law, the same principle which authorizes the appropriations which it proposes to make, would also authorize similar appropriations for the improvement of all the other bays, inlets, and creeks, which may with equal propriety be called harbors, and of all the rivers, important or unimportant, in every part of the Union. To sanction the bill with such provisions, would be to concede the principle that the federal government possesses the power to expend the public money in a general system of internal improvements, limited in its extent only by the ever-varying discretion of successive congresses and successive executives. It would be to efface and remove the limitations and restrictions of power which the constitution has wisely provided, to limit the authority and action of the federal government to a few well-defined and specified objects. Besides these objections, the practical evils which must flow from the exercise, on the part of the federal government, of the powers asserted in this bill, impress my mind with a grave sense of my duty to avert them from the country, as far as my constitutional action may enable me to do so.

It not only leads to a consolidation of power in the federal governmen at the expense of the rightful authority of the states, but its inevitable tendency is, to embrace objects for the expenditure of the public money which are local in their character, benefiting but few at the expense of the common treasury of the whole. It will engender sectional feelings and prejudices calculated to disturb the harmony of the Union. It will destroy the harmony which should prevail in our legislative counsels.

It will produce combinations of local and sectional interests, strong enough, when united, to carry propositions for appropriations of public money which could not of themselves, and standing alone, succeed, and can not fail to lead to wasteful and extravagant expenditures.

It must produce a disreputable scramble for the public money, by the conflict which is inseparable from such a system, between local and individual interests and the general interest of the whole. It is unjust to those states which have with their own means constructed their own internal improvements, to make from the common treasury appropriations for similar improvements in other states.

In its operation it will be oppressive and unjust toward those states whose representatives and people either deny or doubt the existence of the

power, or think its exercise inexpedient, and who, while they equally contribute to the treasury, can not, consistently with their opinions, engage in the general competition for a share of the public money. Thus a large portion of the Union in numbers and in geographical extent, contributing its equal proportion of taxes to the support of the government, would, under the operation of such a system, be compelled to see the national treasure-the common stock of all-unequally disbursed, and often improvidently wasted, for the advantage of small sections, instead of being applied to the great national purposes in which all have a common interest, and for which alone the power to collect the revenue was given. Should the system of internal improvements proposed prevail, all these evils will multiply and increase with the increase of the number of the states, and the extension of the geographical limits of the settled portions of our country. With the increase of our numbers and the extension of our settlements, the local objects demanding appropriations of the public money for their improvements will be proportionately increased. In each case the expenditure of the public money would confer benefits, direct or indirect, only on a section, while these sections would become daily less in comparison with the whole.

The wisdom of the framers of the constitution in withholding power over such objects from the federal government, and leaving them to the local government of the states, becomes more and more manifest with every year's experience of the operations of our system.

In a country of limited extent, with but few such objects of expenditure, (if the form of government permitted it), a common treasury might be used for their improvement with much less inequality and injustice than in one of the vast extent which ours now presents in population and territory. The treasure of the world would hardly be equal to the improvement of every bay, inlet, creek, and river, in our country, which might be supposed to promote the agricultural, manufacturing, or commercial interests of a neighborhood.

The federal constitution was wisely adapted in its provisions to any expansion of our limits and population; and with the advance of the confederacy of the states in the career of national greatness, it becomes the more apparent that the harmony of the Union, and the equal justice to which all its parts are entitled, reqnire that the federal government should confine its action within the limits prescribed by the constitution to its power and authority. Some of the provisions of this bill are not subject to the objections stated; and, did they stand alone, I should not feel it to be my duty to withhold my approval.

If no constitutional objections existed to the bill, there are others of a serious nature which deserve some consideration. It appropriates between one and two millions of dollars for objects which are of no pressing necessity; and this is proposed at a time when the country is engaged in a foreign war, and when Congress at its present session has authorized a loan or the issue of treasury-notes to defray the expenses of the war, to be resorted to if the "exigencies of the government shall require it." It would seem to be the dictate of wisdom, under such circumstances, to husband our means, and not to waste them on comparatively unimportant objects, so that we may reduce the loan or issue of treasury-notes which may become necessary to the smallest practicable sum. It would seem to be wise, too, to abstain from such expenditures with a view to avoid the accumulation of a large public debt, the existence of which would be op

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posed to the interests of our people, as well as to the genius of our free institutions.

Should this bill become a law, the principle which it establishes will inevitably lead to large and annually increasing appropriations and drains upon the treasury, for it is not to be doubted that numerous other localities not embraced in its provisions, but quite as much entitled to the favor of the government as those which are embraced, will demand through their representatives in Congress, to be placed on an equal footing with them. With such an incresse of expenditure must necessarily follow either an increased public debt, or increased burdens upon the people by taxation, to supply the treasury with the means of meeting the accumulated demands upon it.

With profound respect for the opinions of Congress, and ever anxious, as far as I can consistently with my responsibility to our common constituents, to co-operate with them in the discharge of our respective duties, it is with unfeigned regret that I find myself constrained, for the reasons which I have assigned, to withhold my approval from this bill.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

AUGUST 4, 1846.

To the Senate of the United States :

I HEREWITH Communicate to the senate the copy of a letter, under date of the 27th ultimo, from the secretary of state of the United States to the minister of foreign relations of the Mexican republic, again proposing to open negotiations and conclude a treaty of peace, which shall adjust all the questions in dispute between the two republics. Considering the relative power of the two countries, the glorious events which have already signalized our arms, and the distracted condition of Mexico, I did not conceive that any point of national honor could exist which ought to prevent me from making this overture. Equally anxious to terminate, by a peace honorable for both parties, as I was originally to avoid the existing war, I have deemed it my duty again to extend the olive-branch to Mexico. Should the government of that republic accept the offer in the same friendly spirit by which it was dictated, negotiations will speedily commence for the conclusion of a treaty.

The chief difficulty to be anticipated in the negotiation is the adjustment of the boundary between the parties, by a line which shall at once be satisfactory and convenient to both, and such as neither will hereafter be inclined to disturb. This is the best mode of securing perpetual peace and good neighborhood between the two republics. Should the Mexican government, in order to accomplish these objects, be willing to cede any portion of their territory to the United States, we ought to pay them a fair equivalent; a just and honorable peace, and not conquest, being our purpose in the prosecution of the war.

Under these circumstances, and considering the exhausted and distracted condition of the Mexican republic, it might become necessary, in order to restore peace, that I should have it in my power to advance a portion of the consideration money for any cession of territory which may be made. The Mexican government might not be willing to wait for the payment of

the whole until the treaty could be ratified by the senate, and an appropriation to carry it into effect be made by Congress; and the necessity for such a delay might defeat the object altogether. I would, therefore, suggest whether it might not be wise for Congress to appropriate a sum such as they might consider adequate for this purpose, to be paid, if necessary, immediately upon the ratification of the treaty by Mexico. This disbursement would of course be accounted for at the treasury, not as secret service money, but like other expenditures.

Two precedents for such a proceeding exist in our past history, during the administration of Mr. Jefferson, to which I would call your attention. On the 26th of February, 1803, Congress passed an act appropriating two millions of dollars" for the purpose of defraying any extraordinary expenses which may be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations," "to be applied under the direction of the president of the United States, who shall cause an account of the expenditure thereof to be laid before Congress as soon as may be ;" and, on the 13th of February, 1806, an appropriation was made of the same amount, and in the same terms. The object, in the first case, was to enable the president to obtain the cession of Louisiana; and, in the second, that of the Floridas. In neither case was the money actually drawn from the treasury; and I should hope that the result might be similar, in this respect, on the present occasion, though the appropriation is deemed expedient as a precautionary measure.

I refer the whole subject to the senate in executive session. If they should concur in opinion with me, then I recommend the passage of a law appropriating such a sum as Congress may deem adequate, to be used by the executive, if necessary, for the purpose which I have indicated.

In the two cases to which I have referred, the special purpose of the appropriation did not appear on the face of the law, as this might have defeated the object; neither, for the same reason, in my opinion, ought it now to be stated.

I also communicate to the senate the copy of a letter from the secretary of state to Commodore Conner of the 27th ultimo, which was transmitted to him on the day it bears date.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

AUGUST 5, 1846.

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To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States :I COMMUNICATE, herewith, a copy of a convention for the settlement and adjustment of the Oregon question, which was concluded in this city on the 15th day of June last, between the United States and her Britannic majesty. This convention has since been duly ratified by the respective parties, and the ratifications were exchanged at London on the 17th day of July, 1846.

It now becomes important that provision should be made by law, at the earliest practicable period, for the organization of a territorial government in Oregon.

It is also deemed proper that our laws regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes east of the Rocky mountains should be extended to