internal improvement, of our country. I trust that no one will be afraid of the name-internal improvement. It is a name, it is a thing, which ought to rally to its support every real friend of the Republic. In every view which can be taken of the true interest of the Republic, this bill, and bills like this, must be regarded as of no other than first-rate importance. To our commerce, to our agriculture, to our manufactures, (if, indeed, this nation is henceforth, under the ruthless policy of the present administration, to have any manufactures of its own,) — to all our material and to all our moral interests, to our prosperity in peace and to our protection in war, to the preservation of our political union, and to the promotion of that more substantial union, whose best and most binding cement must be derived from mutual intercourse and reciprocal interchanges, to all, alike and equally, the policy of which this measure is a practical illustration, will lend the most effective encouragement and aid.

Sir, it would be a waste of words to enter upon any detailed amplification of these ideas. Nobody denies their abstract justness. Every one will readily concur with me in the position, that nothing is calculated to conduce more to the general prosperity and welfare of our country, than the improvement of its landcourses and watercourses, and the increased facilitation of all its ways and means of personal and commercial intercommunication.

Yet this bill meets with opposition; with the sternest and most strenuous opposition from some quarters of the House. It is branded with all sorts of reproachful and ignominious epithets. It is styled a measure of profligacy and plunder. It is denounced as anti-Republican and unconstitutional. Its friends are reproached with resorting to a disgraceful system of logrolling; and a special rule, even, has been summarily adopted, under the lead of the enemies of the bill, for the purpose of defeating it in detail, and of breaking up what has been stigmatized as the corrupt combination of its friends.

I desire to vindicate the bill from some of these aspersions. I desire to take issue on one or two of the most plausible grounds on which it has been thus rudely and bitterly assailed,

and upon one or two of the artful suggestions which are likely to prove the causes of its failure, if fail it ultimately shall.

I begin with the alleged unconstitutionality of the measure. I have no purpose, however, of entering upon this part of the subject at any great length, or with any particular elaborateness. I decline doing so for two reasons. One, that I could have no hope of adding any thing new to the constitutional views of the subject which have been presented to the House and to the country a thousand times before. The other, that after the experience we have recently had, of the manner in which constitutional impediments, the plainest and most palpable, may be overlooked or overleaped at will, constitutional arguments seem to have lost their whole title to respect. So far as the Constitution goes in establishing a frame of government, and in making specific provisions for the tenure of office or the distribution of duties, so far it may still be cited as an instrument of precise import and established authority. But so far as it leaves any thing for interpretation and construction, any thing for argument, implication, or inference, it has become "a charter wide withal as the wind," and one as to whose meaning the weathercocks of the hour are the only trustworthy guides. In the proceedings which have attended the final consummation of the Texan policy, we have seen the doctrine established beyond revocation, that the immediate will of the people, as understood and expressed by the Representatives, Senators, and President for the time being-nay, Sir, that the immediate will of a dominant party, as proclaimed at the eleventh hour of some Baltimore Convention -is de facto the Constitution. In other words, a view of the Constitution has been adopted and practised upon, in these latter days, far more latitudinarian, and longitudinarian, too, than was ever dreamed of before; and that, under the immediate auspices, at the direct instigation, and for the peculiar interests, of those, who have been accustomed to plume themselves on being strict constructionists of the straitest sect.

But though the day for elaborate constitutional argument seems thus to have been brought to a close, I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of reminding some of these gentlemen, who, having effected their own darling design by an unmatched out

stretching of power, would now shrink back again within the shell of strict construction, -that the bill under consideration may appeal, for a sanction to its constitutionality, to authority and to example, which even they will hardly venture to dispute.

Mr. Chairman, there has been not a little discussion, for some days past, as to the precise provision of the Constitution under which this bill may be justified. For myself let me say, that whenever I have been able to find a uniform current of example, running through a long series of years, in favor of the exercise of any particular power, I have never thought it important to perplex myself too deeply as to the exact clause from which the power was derived. Yet I could not but listen with more than ordinary pleasure to the able argument of the honorable member from Maryland, (Mr. Constable,) who addressed the committee a few moments since, and who derived the authority of Congress to pass this bill from the power given us expressly by the Constitution "to regulate commerce." It was fit, Sir, that the vindication of this particular power should come from such a quarter. It was in the capital of the State which the honorable member in part represents, that the first concerted movement was made to confer this power upon the General Government. It was at Annapolis, that the incipient measures were taken, which resulted in the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States. It was there, in the month of September of the year 1786, that a meeting of commissioners from some of the principal States was held, " to take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States; to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial intercourse and regulations might be necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony; and to report to the several States such an act relative to this great object as, when unanimously ratified by them, would enable the United States in Congress assembled effectually to provide for the same."

At this meeting only six of the States were represented the States of Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. The meeting was therefore dissolved without having attempted any definite action; but not, however, without having adopted an address to the States recommending a future

and upon one or two of the artful suggestions which are likely to prove the causes of its failure, if fail it ultimately shall.

I begin with the alleged unconstitutionality of the measure. I have no purpose, however, of entering upon this part of the subject at any great length, or with any particular elaborateness. I decline doing so for two reasons. One, that I could have no hope of adding any thing new to the constitutional views of the subject which have been presented to the House and to the country a thousand times before. The other, that after the experience we have recently had, of the manner in which constitutional impediments, the plainest and most palpable, may be overlooked or overleaped at will, constitutional arguments seem to have lost their whole title to respect. So far as the Constitution goes in establishing a frame of government, and in making specific provisions for the tenure of office or the distribution of duties, so far it may still be cited as an instrument of precise import and established authority. But so far as it leaves any thing for interpretation and construction, any thing for argument, implication, or inference, it has become "a charter wide withal as the wind," and one as to whose meaning the weathercocks of the hour are the only trustworthy guides. In the proceedings which have attended the final consummation of the Texan policy, we have seen the doctrine established beyond revocation, that the immediate will of the people, as understood and expressed by the Representatives, Senators, and President for the time being-nay, Sir, that the immediate will of a dominant party, as proclaimed at the eleventh hour of some Baltimore Convention

is de facto the Constitution. In other words, a view of the Constitution has been adopted and practised upon, in these latter days, far more latitudinarian, and longitudinarian, too, than was ever dreamed of before; and that, under the immediate auspices, at the direct instigation, and for the peculiar interests, of those, who have been accustomed to plume themselves on being strict constructionists of the straitest sect.

But though the day for elaborate constitutional argument seems thus to have been brought to a close, I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of reminding some of these gentlemen, who, having effected their own darling design by an unmatched out

stretching of power, would now shrink back again within the shell of strict construction, that the bill under consideration may appeal, for a sanction to its constitutionality, to authority and to example, which even they will hardly venture to dispute.

Mr. Chairman, there has been not a little discussion, for some days past, as to the precise provision of the Constitution under which this bill may be justified. For myself let me say, that whenever I have been able to find a uniform current of example, running through a long series of years, in favor of the exercise of any particular power, I have never thought it important to perplex myself too deeply as to the exact clause from which the power was derived. Yet I could not but listen with more than ordinary pleasure to the able argument of the honorable member from Maryland, (Mr. Constable,) who addressed the committee a few moments since, and who derived the authority of Congress to pass this bill from the power given us expressly by the Constitution "to regulate commerce." It was fit, Sir, that the vindication of this particular power should come from such a quarter. It was in the capital of the State which the honorable member in part represents, that the first concerted movement was made to confer this power upon the General Government. It was at Annapolis, that the incipient measures were taken, which resulted in the adoption of the present Constitution of the United States. It was there, in the month of September of the year 1786, that a meeting of commissioners from some of the principal States was held, " to take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States; to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial intercourse and regulations might be necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony; and to report to the several States such an act relative to this great object as, when unanimously ratified by them, would enable the United States in Congress assembled effectually to provide for the same."

At this meeting only six of the States were represented: the States of Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. The meeting was therefore dissolved without having attempted any definite action; but not, however, without having adopted an address to the States recommending a future