The Old Pike. Thomas B. Searight
if in my power, in the course of the day, or certainly on Monday next.
JAMES MONROE.
General Jackson, in his famous veto of the Maysville Road bill (May 27, 1830), refers to the Cumberland Road, and to the above message of President Monroe, in the following terms;
“In the administration of Mr. Jefferson we have two examples of the exercise of the right of appropriation, which, in the consideration that led to their adoption, and in their effects upon the public mind, have had a greater agency in marking the character of the power than any subsequent events. I allude to the payment of fifteen millions of dollars for the purchase of Louisiana, and to the ORIGINAL APPROPRIATION FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CUMBERLAND ROAD; the latter act deriving much weight from the acquiescence and approbation of three of the most powerful of the original members of the confederacy, expressed through their respective legislatures. Although the circumstances of the LATTER CASE may be such as to deprive so much of it as relates to the actual construction of the road of the force of an obligatory exposition of the Constitution, it must nevertheless be admitted that so far as the mere appropriation of money is concerned, they present the principle in its most imposing aspect. No less than twenty-three different laws have been passed through all the forms of the Constitution, appropriating upwards of two millions and a half of dollars out of the national treasury in support of that improvement, with the approbation of every president of the United States, including my predecessor, since its commencement. The views of Mr. Monroe upon this subject were not left to inference. During his administration, a bill was passed through both houses of Congress, conferring the jurisdiction and prescribing the mode by which the federal government should exercise it in the case of the Cumberland Road. He returned it with objections to its passage, and in assigning them, took occasion to say that in the early stages of the government he had inclined to the construction that it had no right to expend money except in the performance of acts authorized by the other specific grants of power, according to a strict construction of them; but that on further reflection and observation his mind had undergone a change; that his opinion then was: ‘that Congress had an unlimited power to raise money, and that in its appropriation they have a discretionary power, restricted only by the duty to appropriate it to purposes of common defence and of general, not local, National, not State benefit;’ and this was avowed to be the governing principle through the residue of his administration.”
HON. ANDREW STEWART.
On the 27th of January, 1829, the Hon. Andrew Stewart, of Pennsylvania, in a vigorous speech on the floor of Congress, repelled the proposition that the general government was lacking in power and authority to make and preserve the road, from which the following extracts are taken:
“Mr. Stewart expressed his regret that gentlemen had deemed this a fit occasion to draw into discussion all the topics connected with the general power over the subject of internal improvements. If repeated decisions, and the uniform practice of the government could settle any question, this, he thought, ought to be regarded as settled. The foundation of this road (the National or Cumberland) was laid by a report made by Mr. Giles, the present Governor of Virginia, in 1802, and was sanctioned the next session by a similar report, made by another distinguished Virginian (Mr. Randolph), now a member of this House—it was the offspring of Virginia, and he hoped she would not now abandon it as illegitimate. Commenced under the administration of Mr. Jefferson, it had been sanctioned and prosecuted by every president, and by almost every Congress, for more than a quarter of a century.* * * *
“Without roads and canals, of what avail was it to the people of the West to possess a country, abounding with all the essential elements of wealth and prosperity—of what avail was it to have a country abounding with inexhaustible mines of coal and ore; to possess a fruitful soil and abundant harvests, without the means of transporting them to the places where they were required for consumption? Without a market, the people of the West were left without a motive for industry. By denying to this portion of the Union the advantages of internal improvements, you not only deprive them of all the benefits of governmental expenditures, but you also deprive them of the advantages which nature’s God intended for them. Possessing the power, how, he asked, could any representative of the interior or western portions of this Union vote against a policy so essential to the prosperity of the people who sent him here to guard their rights, and advance their interests? * * * *
“The right of this government to construct such roads and canals as were necessary to carry into effect its mail, military, and commercial powers, was as clear and undoubted as the right to build a post office, construct a fort, or erect a lighthouse. In every point of view the cases were precisely similar, and were sustained and justified by the same power.” * * * *
The power, said Mr. S., “to establish post offices and post roads,” involves the power and duty of transporting the mail, and of employing all the means necessary for this purpose. The simple question, then, was this: Are roads necessary to carry the mail? If they were, Congress had expressly the right to make them, and there was an end to the question. Roads were, he contended, not only necessary to carry into effect this power, but they were absolutely and indispensably necessary; you cannot get along without them, and yet we are gravely told that Congress have no right to make a mail road, or repair it when made! That to do so would ruin the States and produce consolidation—ruin the States by constructing good roads for their use and benefit; produce consolidation by connecting the distant parts of the Union by cheap and rapid modes of inter-communication. If consolidation meant to confirm and perpetuate the Union, he would admit its application, but not otherwise. But we are told that the States will make roads to carry the mails. This was begging the question. If the States would make all the roads required to carry into effect our powers, very well; but if they did not, then we may undoubtedly make them ourselves. But it was never designed by the framers of the Constitution that this government should be dependent on the States for the means of executing its powers: “its means were adequate to its ends.” This principle was distinctly and unanimously laid down by the Supreme Court in the case already referred to: “No trace,” says the Chief Justice, “is to be found in the Constitution of an intention to create a dependence of the government of the Union on the States for the execution of the powers assigned to it—its means are adequate to its ends. To impose on it the necessity of resorting to means it cannot control, which another government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other governments, which might disappoint the most important designs, and is incompatible with the language of the Constitution.” And this was in perfect harmony with the constant and uniform practice of the government. * * *
Mr. S. begged gentlemen to turn their attention for a moment to the statute book, and see what the practice of the government had been; what had been already done by Congress in virtue of this power of “establishing post offices and post roads.” In 1825 an act had been passed, without a word of objection, which went infinitely further than the bill under consideration. His colleague (Mr. Buchanan) was then a member of this House, and, no doubt, voted for it. His eloquence was then mute—we heard nothing about States rights, spectres, and sedition laws. This bill, regulating the post office establishment, not only created some thirty or forty highly penal offences, extending not only over the Cumberland Road, but over every other road in the United States, punishing with severest sanctions, even to the taking away the liberty and the lives of the citizens of the States, and requiring the State courts to take cognizance of these offences and inflict these punishments. This was not all: this act not only extended over all the mail roads, but all other roads running parallel with them, on which all persons are prohibited, under a penalty of fifty dollars, from carrying letters in stages or other vehicles performing regular trips; and authorizing, too, the seizure and sale of any property found in them for the payment of the fines. The same regulations applied to boats and vessels passing from one town to another. Compare that bill with the one under debate. This bill had two or three trifling penalties of ten dollars, and was confined to one road of about one hundred and fifty miles in extent, made by the United States, while the other act, with all its fines and forfeitures, pains and penalties, extended not only to all the mail roads in