 | University of Virginia record October 1, 1915 |  |
Supreme Court Decision.
Without authority in Congress to establish and maintain such
highways and bridges, it would be without authority to regulate one
of the most important adjuncts of commerce. This power in former
times was exerted to a very limited extent, the Cumberland or National
Road being the most notable instance. Its extension was but
little called for, as commerce was then mostly conducted by water,
and many of our statesmen entertained doubts as to the existence of
in consequence of the expansion of the country, the multiplication of
its products, and the invention of railroads and locomotion by steam,
land transportation has so vastly increased, a sounder consideration
of the subject has prevailed and led to the conclusion that Congress
has plenary power over the whole subject. (California v. Pacific
Railroad Co., 127 U. S. 1, le. 39.)
Also:
Congress has likewise the power, exercised early in this century by
successive acts in the Cumberland or National Road, from the Potomac
across the Alleghanies to the Ohio, to authorize the construction
of a public highway connecting several States. (Lucton v. North
River Bridge Co., 153 U. S. 525-529; Indiana v. U. S., 148 U. S.
148.)
That the Federal Government has the right to extend aid in the
construction of roads was recognized by Jefferson when he said:
During peace we may chequer our whole country with canals, roads,
and so forth. This is the object to which all of our endeavors should
be directed.
Again, he said:
The fondest wish of my heart ever was that the surplus portion
of these taxes should be applied in time of peace to the improvement
of our country by canals, roads and useful institutions.
Henry Clay was always an advocate of internal improvements, and
was in his day the ablest and most persistent advocate of the building
of national roads. He said:
Of all the modes in which a Government can employ its surplus
revenue, none is more permanently beneficial than that of internal
improvements. Fixed to the soil, it becomes a durable part of the
land itself, diffusing comfort and activity and animation on all sides.
The first direct effect is on the agricultural community, into whose
pockets comes the difference in the expense for transportation between
good and bad ways.
Some have argued that this is a subject over which the States
have absolute control, and raise the question of State rights. One
of the greatest advocates of the State rights doctrine was John C.
Calhoun. He saw no encroachment upon the doctrine by Federal
aid to roads. While Secretary of War, in a report to the House on
the roads and canals, he said:
No object of the kind is more important, and there is none to
which State or individual capacity is more inadequate. It must be
perfected by the General Government or not be perfected at all, at
least for many years.
| University of Virginia record October 1, 1915 | |