University of Virginia Library

TO EDWARD LIVINGSTON.

Dear Sir I have been retarded in thanking you
for the copy of your speech on the subject of internal
improvement, by a necessary absence from home,
and by successive occurrences since my return. I
now beg you to accept that debt to your kindness.[64]

I have read your observations with a due perception
of the ability which pervades and the eloquence
which adorns them; and I must add, not
without the pleasure of noticing that you have
pruned from the doctrine of some of your fellow
labourers, its most luxuriant branches. I cannot

but think at the same time, that you have left the
root in too much vigour. This appears particularly
in the question of Canals. My impression with
respect to the authority to make them may be the
stronger perhaps, (as I had occasion to remark as to
the Bank on its original discussion,) from my recollection
that the authority had been repeatedly
proposed in the Convention, and negatived, either
as improper to be vested in Congress, or as a power
not likely to be yielded by the States. My impression
is also very decided, that if the construction
which brings Canals within the scope of
commercial regulations, had been advanced or admitted
by the advocates of the Constitution in
the State Conventions, it would have been impossible
to overcome the opposition to it. It is
remarkable that Mr. Hamilton himself, the strenuous
patron of an expansive meaning in the text of the
Constitution fresh in his memory, and in a Report
contending for the most liberal rules of interpretation,
was obliged by his candour, to admit that
they could not embrace the case of Canals.

In forbearing to exercise doubtful powers, especially
when not immediately and manifestly
necessary, I entirely agree with you. I view our
political system also, as you do, as a combination
and modification of powers without a model; as
emphatically sui generis, of which one remarkable
feature is, its annihilation of a power inherent in
some branch of all other governments, that of
taxing exports. I wish moreover that you might

be followed in the example of defining the terms
used in argument, the only effectual precaution
against fruitless and endless discussion. This logical
precept is peculiarly essential in debating Constitutional
questions, to which for want of more appropriate
words, such are often applied as lead to error
and confusion. Known words express known ideas;
and new ideas, such as are presented by our
novel and unique political system, must be expressed
either by new words, or by old words with
new definitions. Without attention to this circumstance,
volumes may be written which can only be
answered by a call for definitions; and which answer
themselves as soon as the call is complied with.

It cannot be denied without forgetting what
belongs to human nature, that in consulting the contemporary
writings, which vindicated and recommended
the Constitution, it is fair to keep in mind
that the authors might be sometimes influenced by
the zeal of advocates: But in expounding it now,
is the danger of bias less from the influence of local
interests, of popular currents, and even from an
estimate of national utility.

Having rambled thus far I venture on another
devious step, by alluding to your inference from a
passage in one of my messages, that in a subsequent
one, my objection was not to the power, but to the
details of the Bill in which it was exercised. If the
language was not more carefully guarded against
such an inference it must have been because I relied
on a presumed notoriety of my opinion on the

subject; and probably considered the terms, "existing
powers," as essentially satisfied by the uncontested
authority of Congress over the Territories.