University of Virginia Library

TO MARTIN VAN BUREN.

Dear Sir,—Your letter of June 9th. came duly
to hand. On the subject of the discrepancy between
the construction put by the message of the President
on the veto of 1817, and the intention of its author,
the President will of course consult his own view of
the case. For myself, I am aware that the document
must speak for itself, and that that intention
cannot be substituted for the established rules of
interpretation.

The several points on which you desire my ideas
are necessarily vague, and the observations on them
cannot well be otherwise. They are suggested by
a respect for your request, rather than by a hope
that they can assist the object of it.

"Point 1.

• The establishment of some rule which
  shall give the greatest practicable precision to the
  power of appropriating money to objects of general
  concern."

  The rule must refer, it is presumed, either to the
  objects of appropriation, or to the apportionment
  of the money.

  A specification of the objects of general concern
  in terms as definite as may be, seems to be the rule
  most applicable; thus Roads simply, if for all the
  uses of Roads; or Roads post and military, if limited
  to those uses; or post roads only, if so limited:
  thus, Canals, either generally, or for specified uses:
  so again Education, as limited to a university, or
  extended to seminaries of other denominations.

  As to the apportionment of the money, no rule can
  exclude Legislative discretion but that of distribution
  among the States according to their presumed
  contributions; that is, to their ratio of Representation
  in Congress. The advantages of this rule are its
  certainty, and its apparent equity. The objections
  to it may be that, on one hand, it would increase the
  comparative agency of the Federal Government, and,
  on the other that the money might not be expended
  on objects of general concern; the interests of particular
  States not happening to coincide with the general
  interest in relation to improvements within such
  States.

"2.

• A rule for the Government of Grants for
  Light-houses, and the improvement of Harbours
  and Rivers, which will avoid the objects which it is
  

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  desirable to exclude from the present action of the
  Government; and at the same time do what is imperiously
  required by a regard to the general commerce
  of the Country."

  National grants in these cases, seem to admit no
  possible rule of discrimination, but as the objects
  may be of national or local character. The difficulty
  lies here, as in all cases where the degree and not the
  nature of the case, is to govern the decision. In the
  extremes, the judgment is easily formed; as between
  removing obstructions in the Mississippi, the highway
  of commerce for half the nation, and a like operation,
  giving but little extension to the navigable use of a
  river, itself of confined use. In the intermediate
  cases, legislative discretion, and, consequently, legislative
  errors and partialities are unavoidable. Some
  controul is attainable in doubtful cases, from preliminary
  Investigations and Reports by disinterested
  and responsible agents.

  In defraying the expense of internal improvements,
  strict justice would require that a part only and not
  the whole should be borne by the nation. Take
  for examples the Harbours of New York and New
  Orleans. However important in a commercial view
  they may be to the other portions of the Union,
  the States to which they belong, must derive a
  peculiar as well as a common advantage from improvements
  made in them, and could afford therefore
  to combine with grants from the common
  treasury, proportional contributions from their own.
  On this principle it is that the practice has prevailed
  

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  in the States (as it has done with Congress) of
  dividing the expense of certain improvements, between
  the funds of the State, and the contributions
  of those locally interested in them.

  Extravagant and disproportionate expenditures
  on Harbours, Light-houses and other arrangements
  on the Seaboard ought certainly to be controuled
  as much as possible. But it seems not to be sufficiently
  recollected, that in relation to our foreign
  commerce, the burden and benefit of accomodating
  and protecting it, necessarily go together, and must
  do so as long and as far, as the public revenue continues
  to be drawn thro' the Custom-house. Whatever
  gives facility and security to navigation, cheapens
  imports; and all who consume them wherever residing
  are alike interested in what has that effect. If
  they consume they ought as they now do to pay. If
  they do not consume, they do not pay. The consumer
  in the most inland State derives the same
  advantage from the necessary and prudent expenditures
  for the security of our foreign navigation,
  as the consumer in a maritime State. Other local
  expenditures, have not of themselves a correspondent
  operation.

"3.

• The expediency of refusing all appropriations
  for internal improvements (other than those of the
  character last referred to, if they can be so called)
  until the national debt is paid; as well on account
  of the sufficiency of that motive, as to give time
  for the adoption of some constitutional or other
  arrangement by which the whole subject may be
  

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  placed on better grounds; an arrangement which will
  never be seriously attempted as long as scattering
  appropriations are made, and the scramble for them
  thereby encouraged."

  The expediency of refusing appropriations, with a
  view to the previous discharge of the public debt, involves
  considerations which can be best weighed and
  compared at the focus of lights on the subject. A
  distant view like mine, can only suggest the remark:
  too vague to be of value, that a material delay ought
  not to be incurred for objects not both important
  and urgent; nor such objects to be neglected in order
  to avoid an immaterial delay. This is, indeed,
  but the amount of the exception glanced at in your
  parenthesis.

  The mortifying scenes connected with a surplus
  revenue, are the natural offspring of a surplus; and
  cannot perhaps be entirely prevented by any plan
  of appropriation which allows a scope to Legislative
  discretion. The evil will have a powerful controul in
  the pervading dislike to taxes even the most indirect.
  The taxes lately repealed are an index of it. Were
  the whole revenue expended on internal improvements
  drawn from direct taxation, there would, be
  danger of too much parsimony rather than too much
  profusion at the Treasury.

"4.

• The strong objections which exist against
  subscriptions to the stock of private companies by
  the United States."

The objections are doubtless in many respects
strong. Yet cases might present themselves which

might not be favored by the State, whilst the concurring
agency of an Undertaking Company would
be desirable in a national view. There was a time
it is said when the State of Delaware, influenced
by the profits of a Portage, between the Delaware
and Chesapeake was unfriendly to the Canal, now
forming so important a link of internal communication
between the North and the South. Undertakings
by private companies carry with them a
presumptive evidence of utility, and the private
stakes in them, some security for economy in the
execution, the want of which is the bane of public
undertakings. Still the importunities of private
companies cannot be listened to with more caution
than prudence requires.

I have, as you know, never considered the powers
claimed for Congress over roads and canals, as within
the grants of the Constitution. But such improvements
being justly ranked among the greatest advantages
and best evidences of good Government;
and having moreover, with us, the peculiar recommendation
of binding the several parts of the Union
more firmly together, I have always thought the
power ought to be possessed by the common Government;
which commands the least unpopular and
most productive sources of revenue, and can alone
select improvements with an eye to the national
good. The States are restricted in their pecuniary
resources; and Roads and Canals most important in a
national view might not be important to the State
or States possessing the domain and the soil; or

might even be deemed disadvantageous; and on the
most favourable supposition might require a concert
of means and regulations among several States not
easily effected, nor unlikely to be altogether omitted.

These considerations have pleaded with me in favour
of the policy of vesting in Congress an authority
over internal improvements. I am sensible at the
same time of the magnitude of the trust, as well as of
the difficulty of executing it properly and the greater
difficulty of executing it satisfactorily.

On the supposition of a due establishment of the
power in Congress, one of the modes of using it
might be, to apportion a reasonable share of the
disposable revenue of the United States among the
States to be applied by them to cases of State
concern; with a reserved discretion in Congress to
effectuate improvements of general concern which
the States might not be able or not disposed to
provide for.

If Congress do not mean to throw away the rich
fund inherent in the public lands, would not the
sales of them, after their liberation from the original
pledge, be aptly appropriated to objects of internal
improvement. And why not also, with a supply of
competent authority, to the removal to better situations
the free black as well as red population, objects
confessedly of national importance and desirable to
all parties. But I am travelling out of the subject
before me.

The date of your letter reminds me of the delay
of the answer. The delay has been occasioned by

interruptions of my health; and the answer such
as it is, is offered in the same confidence in which
it was asked.