eral States. Precisely the same measure of power we claimed over objects of internal improve. which is granted in the one case is conferred in ment, an exclusive jurisdiction, the gentleman the other. And the uniform practical exposi- might urge, with much force, the clause in question of the constitution as to the regulation of tion. But the claim of concurrent jurisdiction foreign commerce, is equally applicable to that only is asserted. The gentleman professes himamong the several States. Suppose, instead of self unable to comprehend how concurrent judirecting the legislation of this government con- risdiction can be exercised by two different govstantly, as heretofore, to the object of foreign ernments at the same time, over the same percommerce, to the utter neglect of the interior sons and things. But is not this the fact with commerce among the several States, the fact had respect to the State and Federal governments? been reversed, and now for the first time we Does not every person and every thing within were about to legislate for our foreign trade. our limits sustain a twofold relation to the State Should we not in that case hear all the consti- and to the Federal authority? The power of tutional objections made to the erection of taxation, as exerted by both governments, that buoys, beacons, lighthouses, the surveys of coasts over the militia, besides many others, is concurand the other numerous facilities accorded to rent. No doubt embarrassing cases may be the foreign trade, which we now hear to the conceived and stated by gentlemen of acute and making of roads and canals? Two years ago a ingenious minds. One was put to me yesterday. sea-wall, or in other words a marine canal was Two canals are desired, one by the Federal and authorized by an act of Congress, in New Hamp- the other by a State government; and there is shire; and I doubt not that many of those voted not a supply of water but for the feeder of one for it who have now constitutional scruples on canal-which is to take it? The constitution, this bill. Yes, any thing, every thing may be which ordains the supremacy of the laws of the done for foreign commerce; any thing, every United States, answers the question. The good thing on the margin of the ocean; but nothing of the whole is paramount to the good of a part. for domestic trade; nothing for the great inte- The same difficulty might possibly arise in the rior of the country! Yet the equity and the exercise of the incontestable power of taxation. beneficence of the constitution equally compre- We know that the imposition of taxes has its hends both. The gentleman does indeed main-limits. There is a maximum which cannot be tain that there is a difference as to the charac- transcended. Suppose the citizen to be taxed ter of the facilities in the two cases. But I put by the general government to the utmost extent it to his own candor, whether the only differ- of his ability, or a thing as much as it can possience is not that which springs from the nature bly bear, and the State imposes a tax at the of the two elements on which the two species same time-which authority is to take it? Exof commerce are conducted-the difference be-treme cases of this sort may serve to amuse and tween land and water. The principle is the to puzzle; but they will hardly ever arise in same, whether you promote commerce by open-practice. And we may safely confide in the ing for it an artificial channel where now there moderation, good sense and mutual good dispois none, or by increasing the ease and safety sitions of the two governments, to guard against with which it may be conducted through a nat- the imagined conflicts. ural channel, which the bounty of Providence It is said by the President that the power to has bestowed. In the one case your object is regulate commerce merely authorizes the laying to facilitate arrival and departure from the ocean of imposts and duties. But Congress has no to the land. In the other it is to accomplish power to lay imposts and duties on the trade the same object from the land to the ocean. among the several States. The grant must mean, Physical obstacles may be greater in the one therefore, something else. What is it? The case than in the other, but the moral or consti- power to regulate commerce among the several tutional power equally includes both. The gen-States, if it has any meaning, implies authority tleman from Virginia has, to be sure, contended to foster it, to promote it, to bestow upon it fathat the power to make these commercial facil-cilities similar to those which have been conities was to be found in another clause of the constitution-that which enables Congress to obtain cessions of territory for specific objects, and grants to it an exclusive jurisdiction. These cessions may be obtained for the "erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, or other needful buildings." It is apparent that it relates altogether to military or naval affairs, and not to the regulation of commerce. How was the marine canal covered by this clause? Is it to be considered as a "needful building?" The object of this power is perfectly obvious. The convention saw that, in military or naval posts, such as are indicated, it was indispensably necessary, for their proper government, to vest in Congress the power of exclusive legislation. If

ceded to our foreign trade. It cannot mean only an empty authority to adopt regulations, without the capacity to give practical effect to them. All the powers of this government should be interpreted in reference to its first, its best, its greatest object, the union of these States. And is not that union best invigorated by an intimate social and commercial connexion between all the parts of the confederacy? Can that be accomplished, that is, can the federative objects of this government be attained but by the application of federative resources?

Of all the powers bestowed on this government, I think none are more clearly vested than that to regulate the distribution of the intelligence, private and official, of the country; to

be to draw the resources from one part of the Union, and to expand them in the improvements of another; and that the spirit, at least, of the constitutional equality, would be thus violated. From the nature of things, the constitution could not specify the theatre of the expenditure of the public treasure. That expenditure, guided by and looking to the public good, must be made, necessarily, where it will most subserve the interests of the whole Union. The argument is, that the locale of the collection of the public contributions, and the locale of their disbursement, should be the same. Now, sir, let us carry this argument out: and no man is more capable than the ingenious gentleman from Virginia, of tracing an argument to its utmost consequences. The locale of the collection of the public revenue is the pocket of the

regulate the distribution of its commerce; and | tion of a system of internal improvements would to regulate the distribution of the physical force of the Union. In the execution of the high and solemn trust which these beneficial powers imply, we must look to the great ends which the framers of our admirable constitution had in view. We must reject as wholly incompatible with their enlightened and beneficent intentions that construction of these powers which would resuscitate all the debility and inefficiency of the ancient confederacy. In the vicissitudes of human affairs who can foresee all the possible cases in which it may be necessary to apply the public force, within or without the Union? This government is charged with the use of it to repel invasions, to suppress insurrections, to enforce the laws of the Union; in short for all the unknown and undefinable purposes of war, foreign or intestine, wherever and however it may rage. During its existence may not gov-citizen; and, to abstain from the violation of ernment, for its effectual prosecution, order a the principle of equality adverted to by the road to be made, or a canal to be cut, to relieve gentleman, we should restore back to each man's for example, an exposed point of the Union? pocket precisely what was taken from it. If If, when the emergency comes, there is a power the principle contended for be true, we are to provide for it, that power must exist in the habitually violating it. We raise about twenty constitution, and not in the emergency. A millions of dollars, a very large revenue, conwise, precautionary, and parental policy, antici- sidering the actual distresses of the country. pating danger, will beforehand provide for the | And, sir, notwithstanding all the puffing, flourhour of need. Roads and canals are in the na- ishing statements of its prosperity, emanating ture of fortifications, since, if not the deposits from printers who are fed upon the pap of the of military resources, they enable you to bring public treasury, the whole country is in a coninto rapid action the military resources of the dition of very great distress. Where is this country, whatever they may be. They are vast revenue expended? Boston, New York, better than any fortifications, because they serve the great capitals of the north, are the theatres the double purposes of peace and war. They of its disbursement. There the interest upon dispense, in a great degree, with fortifications, the public debt is paid. There the expenditure since they have all the effect of that concentra- in the building, equipment, and repair of the tion at which fortifications aim. I appeal from national vessels takes place. There all the the precepts of the President to the practice of great expenditures of the government necesthe President. While he denies to Congress the sarily concentrate. This is no cause of just power in question, he does not scruple, upon complaint. It is inevitable, resulting from the his sole authority, as numerous instances in the accumulation of capital, the state of the arts, statute book will testify, to order at pleasure, and other circumstances belonging to our great the opening of roads by the military, and then cities. But, sir, if there be a section of this come here to ask us to pay for them. Nay, Union having more right than any other to more, sir; a subordinate, but highly respectable complain of this transfer of the circulating meofficer of the executive government, I believe, dium from one quarter of the Union to another, would not hesitate to provide a boat or cause a the west, the poor west-[Here Mr. Barbour bridge to be erected over an inconsiderable explained. He had meant that the constitution stream, to insure the regular transportation of limited Congress as to the proportions of revethe mail. And it happens to be within my per-nue to be drawn from the several States; but sonal knowledge that the head of the post office department, as a prompt and vigilant officer should do, has recently despatched an agent to ascertain the causes of the late frequent vexatious failures of the great northern mail, and to inquire if a provision of a boat or bridge over certain small streams in Maryland, which have produced them, would not prevent their recur-States, and their benefits, at least the largest

rence.

I was much surprised at one argument of the honorable gentleman. He told the House, that the constitution had carefully guarded against inequality, among the several States, in the public burdens, by certain restrictions upon the power of taxation; that the effect of the adop

the principle of this provision would be vacated by internal improvements of immense expense, and yet of a local character. Our public ships, to be sure, are built at the seaports, but they do not remain there. Their home is the mountain wave; but internal improvements are essentially local; they touch the soil of the

part of them, are confined to the States where they exist.] The explanation of the gentleman has not materially varied the argument. He says that the home of our ships is the mountain wave. Sir, if the ships go to sea, the money with which they were built, or refitted, remains on shore, and the cities where the equipment

takes place derive the benefit of the expendi- | mistakes of your policy, and you cannot drive ture. It requires no stretch of the imagination them from you. They do not complain of the to conceive the profitable industry-the axes, the hammers, the saws the mechanic arts, which are put in motion by this expenditure. And all these, and other collateral advantages, are enjoyed by the seaports. The navy is built for the interest of the whole. Internal im-petual transfer of the circulating medium from provements, of that general, federative character, for which we contend, would also be for the interest of the whole. And, I should think their abiding with us, and not going abroad on the vast deep, was rather cause of recommendation than objection.

expenditure of the public money, where the public exigencies require its disbursement. But, I put it to your candor, if you ought not, by a generous and national policy, to mitigate, if not prevent, the evils resulting from the perthe west to the east. One million and a half of dollars annually, is transferred for the public lands alone; and almost every dollar goes, like him who goes to death-to a bourne from which no traveller returns. In ten years it will amount to fifteen millions; in twenty tobut I will not pursue the appalling results of arithmetic. Gentlemen who believe that these vast sums are supplied by emigrants from the east, labor under great error. There was a time when the tide of emigration from the east bore along with it the means to effect the purchase of the public domain. But that tide has, in a advances farther and farther west, it will entirely cease. The greatest migrating States in the Union, at this time, are Kentucky first, Ohio next, and Tennessee. The emigrants from those States carry with them, to the States and territories lying beyond them, the circulating medium, which, being invested in the purchase of the public land, is transmitted to the points where the wants of government require it. If this debilitating and exhausting process were inevitable, it must be borne with manly fortitude. But we think that a fit exertion of the powers of this government would mitigate the evil. We believe that the government incontestably possesses the constitutional power to execute such internal improvements as are called for by the good of the whole. And we appeal to your equity, to your parental regard, to your enlightened policy, to perform the high and beneficial trust thus sacredly reposed. I am sensible of the delicacy of the topic to which I have reluctantly adverted, in consequence of the observations of the honorable gentleman from Virginia. And I hope there will be no misconception of my motives in dwelling upon it. A wise and considerate government should anticipate and prevent, rather than wait for the operation of causes of discontent.

But, Mr. Chairman, if there be any part of this Union more likely than all others to be benefited by the adoption of the gentleman's principle, regulating the public expenditure, it is the west. There is a perpetual drain from that embarrassed and highly distressed portion of our country, of its circulating medium to the east. There, but few and inconsiderable ex-great measure, now stopped. And as population penditures of the public money take place. There we have none of those public works, no magnificent edifices, forts, armories, arsenals, dockyards, &c., which more or less are to be found in every Atlantic State. In at least seven States beyond the Alleghany, not one solitary public work of this government is to be found. If, by one of those awful and terrible dispensations of Providence, which sometimes occur, this government should be unhappily annihilated, every where on the seaboard traces of its former existence would be found; whilst we should not have, in the west, a single monument remaining on which to pour out our affections and our regrets. Yet, sir, we do not complain. No portion of your population is more loyal to the Union, than the hardy freemen of the west. Nothing can weaken or eradicate their ardent desire for its lasting preservation. None are more prompt to vindicate the interests and rights of the nation from all foreign aggression. Need I remind you of the glorious scenes in which they participated, during the late war-a war in which they had no peculiar or direct interest, waged for no commerce, no seamen of theirs. But it was enough for them that it was a war demanded by the character and the honor of the nation. They did not stop to calculate its cost of blood, or of treasure. They flew to arms; they rushed down the valley of the Mississippi, with all the impetuosity of that noble river. They sought the enemy. They found him at the beach. They fought; they bled; they covered themselves and their country with immortal glory. They enthusiastically shared in all the transports occasioned by our victories, whether won on the ocean or on the land. They felt, with the keenest distress, whatever disaster befell us. No, sir, I repeat it, neglect, injury itself, cannot alienate the affections of the West from this government. They cling to it, as to their best, their greatest, their last hope. You may impoverish them, reduce them to ruin, by the

Let me ask, Mr. Chairman, what has this government done on the great subject of internal improvements, after so many years of its existence, and with such an inviting field before it? You have made the Cumberland road, only. Gentlemen appear to have considered that a western road. They ought to recollect that not one stone has yet been broken, not one spade of earth has been yet removed in any western State. The road begins in Maryland and it terminates at Wheeling. It passes through the States of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. All the direct benefit of the expenditure of the public money on that road, has accrued to those three States. Not one cent in any western State. And yet we have

had to beg, entreat, supplicate you, session after session, to grant the necessary appropriations to complete the road. I have myself toiled until my powers have been exhausted and prostrated, to prevail on you to make the grant. We were actuated to make these exertions for the sake of the collateral benefit only to the west; that we might have a way by which we should be able to continue and maintain an affectionate intercourse with our friends and brethren; that we might have a way to reach the capital of our country, and to bring our counsels, humble as they may be, to consult and mingle with yours in the advancement of the national prosperity.

Yes, sir, the Cumberland road has only reached the margin of a western State; and, from some indications which have been given during this session, I should apprehend it would there pause for ever, if my confidence in you

|

were not unbounded, if I had not before witnessed that appeals were never unsuccessful to your justice, to your magnanimity, to your fraternal affection.

But, sir, the bill on your table is no western bill. It is emphatically a national bill, comprehending all, looking to the interests of the whole. The people of the West never thought of, never desired, never asked, for a system exclusively for their benefit. The system contemplated by this bill looks to great national objects, and proposes the ultimate application to their accomplishment of the only means by which they can be effected, the means of the nation-means which, if they be withheld from such objects, the Union, I do most solemnly believe, of these now happy and promising States, may, at some distant (I trust a far, far distant) day, be endangered and shaken at its centre.

SPEECH ON THE TARIFF. *

This speech, on a bill proposing to increase the duties on various articles imported from foreign countries, was delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States, on the thirtieth and thirty-first days of March, 1824:

The gentlemen from Virginia, Mr. Barbour, has embraced the occasion produced by the proposition of the gentleman from Tennessee to strike out the minimum price in the bill on cotton fabrics, to express his sentiments at large on the policy of the pending measure; and it is scarcely necessary for me to say he has evinced his usual good temper, ability, and decorum. The parts of the bill are so intermingled and interwoven together, that there can be no doubt of the fitness of this occasion to exhibit its merits or its defects. It is my intention, with the permission of the committee, to avail myself also of this opportunity, to present to its consideration those general views, as they appear to me, of the true policy of this country, which imperiously demand the passage of this bill. I am deeply sensible, Mr. Chairman, of the high responsibility of my present situation. But that responsibility inspires me with no other apprehension than that I shall be unable to fulfil my duty; with no other solicitude than that I may, at least, in some small degree, contribute to recall my country from the pursuit of a fatal policy, which appears to me inevitably to lead to its impoverishment and ruin. I do feel most awfully this responsibility. And, if it were allowable for us, at the present day, to imitate

* See the Speech of John Randolph, on the same subject, at page 169-ante.

| ancient examples, I would invoke the aid of the Most High. I would anxiously and fervently implore His divine assistance; that He would be graciously pleased to shower on my country His richest blessings; and that He would sustain, on this interesting occasion, the humble individual who stands before Him, and lend him the power, moral and physical, to perform the solemn duties which now belong to his public station.

Two classes of politicians divide the people of the United States. According to the system of one, the produce of foreign industry should be subjected to no other impost than such as may be necessary to provide a public revenue; and the produce of American industry should be left to sustain itself, if it can, with no other than that incidental protection, in its competition, at home as well as abroad, with rival foreign articles. According to the system of the other class, while they agree that the imposts should be mainly, and may under any modification be safely relied on as a fit and convenient source of public revenue, they would so adjust and arrange the duties on foreign fabrics as to afford a gradual but adequate protection to American industry, and lessen our dependence on foreign nations, by securing a certain and ultimately a cheaper and better supply of our own wants from our own abundant resources. Both classes are equally sincere in their respective opinions, equally honest, equally patriotic, and desirous of advancing the prosperity of the country. In the discussion and consideration of these opposite opinions, for the purpose of ascertaining which has the support of truth and reason, we shor d, therefore, exercise every indulgence, and the greatest spirit of mutual moderation and