of the tariff and a reduction of the duties, which had been, with great difficulty, settled, at the preceeding session of Congress. In this, he violated the most important principle which he had himself laid down, in relation to the subject, and which, in the following words, condemned his course. "Frequent legislation in regard to any branch of industry, affecting its value, and by which its capital may be transferred to new channels, must always be productive of hazardous speculation and loss."

Still, the same policy was urged in the Message of December, 1830; where, admitting the question of constitutionality to be settled, he observed, "the present tariff taxes some of the comforts of life unnecessarily high; it undertakes to protect interests too local and minute to justify a general exaction, and it also attempts to enforce some kind of manufactures, for which the country is not ripe." This denunciation was followed by a recommendation of review, which had for its object, the destruction of the tariff system, by detail. The Committee of Manufactures of the House of Representatives reported, that any change in the provisions of the Tariff at this time, would spread alarm among the great interests of our country, shake confidence in the plighted faith of government, destroy the supposed well founded hopes of millions of our fellow citizens, reduce them to penury, and expose the whole country to the dangers of a most selfish policy, which might be adopted by foreign nations.

205. IV. The power to appropriate the funds levied by the nation, as we have seen, is limited only, by the measures for common defence and promoting the general welfare. The constitutionality of this power, though violently contested by a portion of the Southern population, was more generally admitted, than the power over domestic industry by the tariff. But, there was some diversity of opinion in the majority, as to the proper manner of its exercise. It had been applied, however, in every form. Millions had been appropriated for the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, thousands to canals and roads, and hundreds to the repair of piers and clearing creeks. In the Message of 1829, the President does not question the right of the General Government to make appropriations for internal improvements, nor does he deny the expediency of their exercise. "Every member of the Union," he says, "in peace and in war, will be benefited by the improvement of inland navigation, and the construction of high wavs in the several States." But in recommending its employment so as

to produce harmony in the legislative councils, he proposes the distribution of the surplus revenue among the States in proportion to their representation-a mode, deemed by many, very many, the most offensive to public morals, and dangerous to State sovereignty.

206. Several bills for internal improvement, passed Congress towards the close of the session of 1829-1830. Among which, were those authorizing subscriptions to the stocks, respectively, of the Maysville road, the Fredericktown and Washington road, and the Louisville canal, and a fourth, providing for various improvements in rivers, harbours, &c. The first passed the House of Representatives, by a vote of 102 to 95; the second, by a vote of 74 to 39; the third, by a vote of 80 to 37; and the last, by a vote of 95 to 44. Upon the two first, the President put his veto. His objections are given in his message on the bill relating to the Maysville road. The two last he retained, for further consideration, alleging as a reason the adjournment of Congress; but disapproving, he returned them, with his objections, at the next session. We must not fail to remark, that the last bills had passed by a majority of more than two-thirds of the House, and would have become laws, had they been returned, in season.

The Maysville road message chides Congress, for not having regarded the opinions of the President relative to Internal Improvements, as expressed in the December message, and finds an apology for the rejection of the bill, in the fact, that it was passed with a knowledge of his views on the question. We cannot see, that Congress was, in truth, obnoxious to this reproof, supposing the President, authorized to give it; for though he told them, that the "method hitherto adopted had been deprecated as an infraction of the Constitution, by many of our citizens, while by others it had been viewed as inexpedient, and that all felt that it had been employed at the expense of harmony in the legislative councils," they were not bound to change their course, after twentyfive years of practice, nor to resort to a mode, which had been condemned in the Senate. Had the President frankly declared, that he had constitutional doubts as to the power of appropriation for internal improvements, he might, with some show of justice, have reprehended the pertinacity of the majority of Congress, the subordinates of the party, which imposed upon him the necessity of rejection.

He now, for the first time, took distinct and separate

ground upon this subject; and we gather that the following are his views in relation to it.

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1. The General Government has not constitutional power, to construct or promote internal improvements, without the assent of the States, if jurisdiction over the soil be necessary for their preservation and use:

2. Congress may appropriate money for internal improvements, authorized by a State, if the object be promotive of the general welfare:

3. The power so to appropriate money, originally doubtful, has been confirmed by the practice of every administration, and the continued acquiescence of the people:

4. This restriction on the power to construct, diminishes its efficiency, because of the difficulty to obtain the co-operation of the States:

5. For this reason, and that the national debt might be more promptly paid, that was an inauspicious time for internal improvement: And, to render a doubtful power more clear, as well as to provide for its more equitable execution, the Constitution should be amended, so as to regulate the object, the manner and the amount, of the appropriation.

207. The corollary of these positions is, that, until controlled by constitutional rule, the President, becomes the judge of the nationality of every proposed improvement;if he choose to consider it as tending to the general welfare, (which choice the political quality of the applicants would greatly incline) he would sanction it. The power which this construction creates for the President and the subserviency which it may produce among petitioners for the favour of the Government to their projects, was no doubt seen and duly appreciated.

208. The message on the Maysville road had, however, another aspect. To assure the re-election of the President and the domination of the party, the concurrence of the South was necessary. To preserve this, it was also necessary, that a disposition to overthrow or contract the American System should be exhibited. The encouragement, therefore, of domestic manufactures was also placed upon their "direction to national ends;" giving the South to understand, that, this power, whose existence is controlled by the President, might be modified, and the friends of national industry cause to believe, that their best hope for protection lay in propitiating him. We are fully warranted in this statement of the design of the veto, by the following extract from the Globe of

the 23d of February, 1831, when commenting upon the efforts of Mr. Calhoun's friends in opposition to the re-election of General Jackson.

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But, anon, came the nominations in Pennsylvania and New York. These were thunderbolts to the intriguers. The veto followed, which prostrated all hopes from the South."

209. Had the veto power been applied, upon principles connected with the public weal-upon almost any other principle, than the nursing of party, it would have been used more consistently; and several bills which received the President's sanction, would have been rejected. He approved bills for removing obstructions from the mouths of rivers-making roads-clearing harbours-erecting fortifications and lighthouses-appropriating to these purposes the vast sum of $2,235,963. To render his inconsistency the more striking, he sanctioned an.appropriation for improving the Conneaut, a petty creek of Lake Erie, in the N. E. angle of the State of Ohio, which is navigable only for about seven miles; holding this for a national object, whilst he rejected the improvement of a great thoroughfare, on which the mail is carried, for eight or ten States and territories, as local and unimportant. And, be it also observed, that, he had, during his last short service in the United States Senate, in 1285, voted, affirmatively, on resolutions involving the whole power of internal improvement, in all its objectionable modes. Thus, he had voted in favour of the bill "to procure the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates, on the subject of roads and canals;"-for the bill " to improve the navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers;"—and for the bill "authorizing a subscription of stock to the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal.” This last vote, however, he has since repented; alleging in his message of December 1830, "that positive experience, and a more thorough consideration of the subject, had convinced him of the impropriety or inexpediency of such investments."

Thus, the veto message is wholly irreconcilable with the previous votes and opinions of General Jackson; and we might conclude, were it not the offspring of his lust for power, that, it expressed not his, but the, opinions of his advisers of his cabinet-especially of Mr. Van Buren, his designated successor; whose favourite bat-policy of non-committal and false professions of friendliness, were more fatal to public improvements, than the avowed enmity of other members.

210. The following passage, from the speech of an eminent defender of the American System, is alike descriptive of the message and the man; not of the President, but of him who holds in his hands the strings which move the puppets of the administration.

"I have read that paper, again and again, and I never can peruse it, without thinking of diplomacy, and the name of Talleyrand, Talleyrand, Talleyrand, perpetually, recurring to my mind. It seems to have been written in the spirit of an accommodating soul, who being determined to have fair weather, in any contingency, was equally ready to cry out, Good Lord, good Devil. Are you for Internal Improvements? You may extract from the message texts enough to support your opinion. Are you against them? The message supplies you with abundant authority to support your views. Do you think that a long and uninterrupted current of concurring decisions ought to settle the question of a controverted power? So the authors of the message affect to believe. But, ought any precedents, however numerous, to be allowed to establish a doubtful power? The message agrees with him who

thinks not."

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211. The views, however, of the administration are more fully developed in the message of the President to Congress, of the 7th December, 1830, when he returned the retained bills; namely, "An act for making appropriations for building light houses, light boats, beacons, and monuments, placing buoys, and for improving harbours, and directing surveys,' and "An act to authorize a subscription for stock in the Louisville and Portland Canal Company." In relation to the former, he admits the constitutionality of the appropriations, but denies the expediency of some provisions contained in the bill, and assumes to put his judgment, on this subject, against that of the representatives of the people, and to control it. In relation to our foreign commerce," he says, "the burden and benefit. of protecting and accommodating it, necessarily go together, and must do so as long as the public revenue is drawn from the people, through the custom house. But local expenditures have not, of themselves, a correspondent operation. From a bill making direct appropriations for such objects, (that is, protecting and accommodating foreign commerce) I should not have withheld my assent. The one now returned, does so in several particulars; but it also contains appropriations for surveys of a local character, which I cannot approve." Hence it follows, that on all subjects of internal improvement,