waters of the Atlantic with the Gulf of Mexico, 10,400 dollars. In reply to a question from Mr Wickliffe. Mr McDuffie said that the Committee of Ways and Means had determined to make the appropriation this year, but there was a disposition in the Committee to discountenance any excess of expenditure on these objects. Mr Hall, remarking on the term National objects,' asked if there was not a national object to which the revenue could be properly and beneficially applied; he meant the payment of the national debt. That was the only national object in his view. Mr Hemphill stated that the present appropriation was partly required to complete surveys already commenced. He thought the appropriation of $30,000 insufficient and moved to add $5000. Mr Ingersoll expressed his regret that the gentleman from Pennsylvania had moved to increase the sum. He stated that it had been the practice, till this year, to pay the arrearages, as well as the current expenses out of this 30,000 dollars; but he understood that this year the Department had ordered only the current expenses out of the 30,000 dollars. Mr Hemphill withdrew his proposition to amend. Mr Wickliffe moved so to amend the bill as to confine the appropriation to surveys of national works which have been com menced and are not completed. Mr Clay opposed the amendment, the object of these surveys being to give that information on which Congress may found legislation. Mr Mercer also expressed his hope that no sudden impulse caused by the remarks of the gentleman from Kentucky, would induce the House to adopt the amendment. He adverted to charges which had been formerly made of improper expenditures in these surveys, charges which he said had never been, in any single instance supported by anything like a plausible argument. He instanced the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, to show that the Government was not subject to call after call for the same object. For that canal, which the Engineers estimated at eight millions, Congress had subscribed one million. No second application had been made and he would say further, that no second call would be made on Congress to aid the eastern section of the work, estimated at eight millions. He stated that these surveys are made for the purpose of obtaining knowledge; and without that knowledge we must legislate in the dark, and the public money would be wasted, in larger sums, in useless discussions as to the routes of roads and canals. Mr Lea suggested to Mr Wickliffe, to enlarge his proposition, so as to include all objects which may be recommended by either House of Congress. Mr Ellsworth thought the limitation unjust and unreasonable. If there are objects which are national, yet to be commenced, it would be unjust to postpone them because they had not been begun. Mr Wickliffe accepted the amendment of Mr Lea as a modification of his amedment. The question was then put on the amendment as modified, and decided in the negative-yeas 50, nays 66. The bill having been reported to the House was again taken up on the 31st of March, when Mr Wickliffe moved to amend the bill in the clause appropriating money for surveys, by adding a proviso, that the sum appropriated should be expended on works heretofore directed, or which may be directed by either House of Congress. Mr Ellsworth expressed a hope that the amendment would not be adopted. He reminded the House that it had been customary to pass an appropriation of this kind annually; and he desired that it be applied on the usual principle, that the same discretion, which had been hitherto given to the proper department in the disbursement of this money, should still be given to them. He argued against the proposed change as inexpedient, unjust and unreasonable. It seemed to contemplate that whenever a proposition for any appropriation for any particnlar work is made, the subject is to undergo a discussion in this House; and members are to be called on to decide, with the superficial knowledge they must be supposed to possess, on the preference of making a survey for a route here, over that for a route there. He hoped, therefore, that the amendment would not prevail. Mr McDuffie repeated, the objections he had urged against this limitation at the last session, when a similar proposition was negatived by a vote of four to one. If this limitation should be adopted, every member will have his own peculiar project carried through or no propositions will pass. Complaint had been made that the works begun were not national, yet it was proposed to compel the Government to complete them instead of taking up others which might be national. It was therefore an unreasonable proposition, and he hoped it would not be adopted. Mr Wickliffe defended his amendment on the ground generally of the abuse which the present mode led to, the unimportant nature of the works which it enabled members to procure to be undertaken, &c. Mr Martin stated that, although opposed to the system, he was still more opposed to the amendment, in its present form. If the system was to be continued, he was for leaving its exercise where it was now, to the Executive, and to keep this House as clear as possible of the contention, and the agitation which it was calculated to produce here. He then moved to amend the amendment by striking out, or such as may hereafter be directed by either House of Congress.' Mr Trezvant made some remarks against the commitment of a discretion to the Departments as to the direction of any surveys. He wished to confine the appropriation to such surveys as have been commenced, and that the House should afterwards decide on the propriety of new ones. He argued at some length in explanation of his views, and hoped the amendment of the gentleman from South Carolina would not be adopted. Mr Hall opposed the whole system, the amendment as well as Mr P. P. Barbour suggested a modification of the amendment so as to strike out the words House of,' so as to read be directed by Congress. Mr Wickliffe declined to accept the modification. Mr P. P. Barbour then moved his proposition as an amendment. Mr Drayton stated that his opinion had always been that the act of 1824, authorizing this expenditure for surveys, was unconstitutional. He consequently was opposed to all appropriations for these objects; but he was in favor of the amendment for reasons he stated the chief of which was that it would tend to prevent abuses in the execution of the act, and contending that works beginning and ending in the same State, could not be deemed national, but many such under the present system had been undertaken. Mr P. P. Barbour enforced the propriety of the amendment he had offered. The vote of this House is the vote of the representatives of the people, while that of the Senate is the vote of the representatives of the States; and he wished to unite both. He declared himself utterly opposed to the whole system, and every scheme, survey, and appropriation under it. Mr Mercer advocated the power of the Government to make these surveys, and the practice which had prevailed under that power, denying peremptorily that it had led to any abuses, although the allegation was so often repeated, and arguing that a work commencing and ending in a State might be, and often was strictly national; many cases of which he cited; among others, he maintained that if a line of canals from Maine to Georgia was a national work, any part of that line, however small, is national. The whole work cannot be completed at once; it must be constructed in detail and in parts. The Buffalo and New Orleans road, he considered as national, whether it was cut up in decimal parts, or viewed as a whole. He said he had carefully investigated the practice of the Department, and he believed it to be free from abuse. Even in a case which he had four years ago considered the most doubtful, he had subsequently satisfied himself that there was no ground for doubt. To objections on the score of local interests being too influential, he replied that in time of war it was as important a power which regulated the direction of an army, as that which gives the direction of a road. The western part of the State of New York had entirely sprung up under the fostering influence of the late war, as millions had been expended there, in consequence of the march of troops there. Yet no one contended that in that case the Government should be controlled lest the local interests of one section should be preferred to those of another. Mr Ambrose Spencer stated that the question as to the power of the Government to make these surveys, was settled by the act of 1824, and that it was useless now to make it a subject of discussion. He was opposed to imposing upon the present administration a limitation which had not been imposed on their predecessors. He declared himself adverse to the amendment to the amendment, as well as to the amendment. He expressed his concurrence in the views which had fallen from the last speaker, and controverted the idea that works confined entirely to particular States were necessarily not national, cases of which he cited. Mr Irwin of Penn. expressed his hope that both the amend ment of the gentleman from Kentucky and that of the gentleman from Va. would be rejected. Mr Mallary contended that it was due to the President, who is at the head of the military force, to give to him an entire command over those works which are connected with the military defence of the country. He could, in the exercise of that power, lead to more full and more satisfactory results, than we can ever be brought to by listening to the contending claims of conflicting inter ests in the House. There was no reason for imposing this limitation on the present Executive. The question was then taken on the amendment of Mr Wickliffe, and decided in the negative -75 yeas, 111 nays. The bill was then ordered to a third reading-121 yeas, 64 nays, and having been passed was sent to the Senate for concurrence. In the Senate, it was amended by two additional sections, appropriating $100,000 for opening the Cumberland road west of Zanesville; $60,000 for continuing it through the State of Indiana; $40,000 for continuing it through Illinois: and $32,400 for opening it from St Louis to Jefferson City in Missouri, and also providing for the appointment of superintendence of that road in those States, upon the same terms as those superintending the road in Ohio. These amendments were sanctioned by the Senate; yeas 26, nays 16. An appropriation of $15,000 was also made for arrearages on account of the Cumberland road. An amendment was also offered by Mr Dickerson, to strike out the appropriation for the survey of a canal between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. This was rejected, 15 yeas, 31 nays, and the bill was passed the next day (April 17th) 26 yeas, 17 nays. In the House the amendments were concurred in except those providing for the continuation of the Cumberland road from St Louis to Jefferson City. Those parts were stricken out in the House, on the 29th of May, and the Senate having concurred, the bill was sent to the President for his sanction. He had now taken his stand on the question of internal improvement (the message rejecting the bill for constructing the Maysville road, having been transmitted on the 27th of May,) and having there set up certain distinctions between national and local improvements, to justify his rejection of that bill, he undertook to approve of this bill with a qualification. This qualification consisted in a reference to a message sent to the House, together with the bill, wherein he declared that as the section appropriated $8000 for the road from Detroit to Chicago might be construed to authorize the application of the appropriation to continue the road beyond the territory of Michigan, he desired to be understood as having approved the bill with the understanding, that the road is not to be extended beyond the limits of the said territory.' This message exemplified in a striking manner the crude and unsettled notions of the President and of his constitutional advisers respecting the nature of the Government and of the duties of the Executive. The President by the Constitution is vested with the right of returning bills, that he does not choose to sanction, with his objections to the House where they originated. Here the bill is reconsidered and unless it is sanctioned by a vote of two thirds of both Houses, it does not become a law. This right of the President, however, is a mere naked right of approval or disapproval. He cannot annex any conditions or qualifications to his approval.' Still less can he undertake to give any particular construction to a law at the time of his approval. The President however seemed to think otherwise, and notwithstanding the section directed the application of this appropriation to a road extending from Detroit in Michigan, to Chicago in Illinois, he undertook to limit its application to such part of the road as was within Michigan, and to imagine that that declaration of his, that he would so apply it, rendered the appropriation constitutionally within the power of Congress. No declaration of his could make such an appropriation constitutional, unless Congress was originally authorized to make the appropriation as made in the bill. If not so authorized, the President should have returned the bill with his objections, and a declaration, that he would apply an unconstitutional appropriation upon a constitutional object, was superadding to a legislative violation of the Constitution, a breach of his own duty as the chief executive magistrate of the Union. This difficulty was occasioned by the views expressed in his Message rejecting the Maysville and Lexington road bill, which will be found in the second part of this volume, page 22. This bill, which originated in the House, where it was reported |