MEMORIAL 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 (tonoention IjclD at Chicago, 
 
 JULY 5, 1847. 
 
 Willi an Abstract of Hie Proceedings of the Convention, on the Improvement of 
 
 Rivers and Harbors. 
 
 Presented to Congress, June, 1§4§. 
 
 ALBANY: 
 
 C. VAN BENTHUYSEN, PRINTER, 
 
 1848. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
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 Class Book Volume 
 
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 MEMORIAL 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 €ontJcntion l)el& at Chicago, 
 
 JULY 5, 1847. 
 
 With an Abstract of the Proceedings of the Convention, on the Improvement of 
 
 Rivers and Harbors. 
 
 Presented to Congress, June, l§i§. 
 
 ALBANY: 
 
 C. VAN BENTHUYSEN. PRINTER. 
 
 1848.
 
 3 27
 
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 To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
 States of America, in Congress assembled : 
 
 The memorial of the subscribers, members of a committee appoint- 
 ed at a meeting of delegates from different parts of the Union, 
 assembled at Chicago in the State of Illinois on the fifth day of 
 July last, in the most numerous delegated convention ever held in 
 this country, 
 Respectfully Shows : 
 
 That your memorialists were instructed by the said Convention to 
 transmit its proceedings to the President of the United States, and 
 to both Houses of Congress, and to communicate such information 
 as the said committee might be able to collect, to guide intelligent 
 and just legislation. 
 
 In obedience to these instructions, your memorialists now trans- 
 mit herewith the "Declaration of Sentiments " adopted by that 
 Convention with entire unanimity, excepting the last clause of the 
 fifth proposition, and expressing, as your memorialists believe, the 
 universal opinions of the vast constituencies represented in that 
 meeting. These circumstances, together with the calmness and de- 
 liberation which marked the discussions and proceedings of the 
 Convention, and the enthusiastic approbation which the principles it 
 avowed, have received from all quarters of the country, must entitle 
 them to the respectful consideration of the Representatives of the 
 People and of the States in Congress assembled. 
 
 In discharge of the duty assigned them, your memorialists have 
 collected various and extensive statistics of the greatest interest in 
 relation to the commerce of the country, and particularly of the in- 
 land lakes and rivers. 
 
 So far as the returns received by us extend, they not only corrobo- 
 rate the results contained in a report made to the Senate at its pre- 
 sent session, by the very able and enlightened Chief of the topogra- 
 phical corps of Engineers, (number four of Executive Documents,) 
 but exhibit a prodigious increase during the year 1847 of the imports 
 
 r 
 
 2* 

 
 and exports of different ports. To avoid encumbering this communi- 
 cation with details, we annex an abstract of the reports received. The 
 facts are taken from the books of the custom houses, where they fur- 
 nished the materials, and in other cases from reliable sources of infor- 
 mation, the respective authorities being given in the detailed reports, 
 which are also herewith communicated. They exhibit the actual 
 amount of exports from ports and places on Lake Erie and the lakes 
 West of it, and connected with it, during the last year, of more than 
 sixty-four millions of dollars. This, which is believed to be under 
 rather than above the true result, is sufficient to satisfy you that it is 
 an interest even now worthy of attention. But when it is recollect- 
 ed that it is but the childhood, the infancy of a trade, which is but 
 of yesterday's growth, and that a boundless extent of the best land 
 on the continent is yet to be opened to cultivation, to swell the 
 mighty torrent of trade which is to empty itself into the Atlantic, — 
 it will be difficult to fix limits to the vastness of the commerce 
 which will call upon you for protection and aid. 
 
 The accounts of the losses of lives and of property caused by 
 shipwrecks and other disasters, and which in all human probability 
 would have been avoided had there been adequate harbors on the 
 lakes, we lament to say, are very deficient. There is an intrinsic 
 difficulty in obtaining authentic accounts of such events, which rest 
 in the memory of so many individuals. In two reports which have 
 been furnished us, we find the names of ninety vessels which have 
 been lost since 1833 on the great lakes, besides four on Lake Supe- 
 rior, the value of which and that of their cargoes, where known, 
 exceeds 680,000 dollars ; and we find also by one of those reports, 
 that 367 lives are known to have been lost. A return from Oswego 
 shows a loss of ten vessels within the present year on Lake Ontario, 
 causing damage to the amount $26,250, besides injuries to cargoes 
 to the amount of $9,375. To the above should be added the vessels 
 that have gone ashore almost every week at different places on the 
 lake coast. It is impossible to estimate the amount of damage the 
 vessels themselves have received, the expense of getting them afloat 
 and repairing them, the injury to cargoes, and the loss of time and 
 wages. 
 
 Some faint idea of the extent of suffering, arising from the causes 
 mentioned may be formed from a chronological account of disasters 
 on the lakes during the year 1846, published in a newspaper of 
 great credit, and which has not been questioned. We beg leave to
 
 annex it to this memorial, as furnishing a graphic account of the 
 storms on the lower lakes, and the frequency of their occurrence. 
 
 We know not that any language of ours could add to the impres- 
 sion which a simple statement of the facts ought to make upon every 
 human heart. It is a tale of woe and distress that must excite the 
 strongest sympathy, and prompt to the most energetic efforts to re- 
 move the causes of such unnecessary suffering. We say unneces- 
 sary, because official reports from competent and disinterested offi- 
 cers of the United States, have, for years, been laid before Con- 
 gress demonstrating the facility and moderate expense with which 
 the most important harbors on the lakes can be rendered accessible, 
 and afford that shelter which is now denied to the persons and pro- 
 perty engaged in that navigation. These reports also show the ob- 
 structions in the navigation of the lakes and rivers emptying into 
 them, and with what great ease and little expense they can be re- 
 moved. 
 
 The same remarks are applicable to the navigation of the Missis- 
 sippi, and of the great rivers leading to it. The authentic report of 
 the committee appointed at St. Louis, which is communicated here- 
 with, exhibits the vast amount of tonnage engaged in the trade on 
 those rivers, the almost incredible value of the cargoes transported, 
 and the great number of persons employed in it. The difficulties 
 and obstructions in that commerce are too well known to need des- 
 cription here, and the facility with which they can be removed has 
 been demonstrated so clearly by the success which has attended the 
 few efforts heretofore made for the purpose, that no doubt can remain 
 with the most obtuse. 
 
 An abstract of the reports received from the ports on the Atlantic 
 coast, and the original returns which it condenses, are also annexed, 
 containing much valuable local information, particularly in reference 
 to obstructions in rivers and harbors on the seaboard. 
 
 In the further discharge of their duties, your memorialists would 
 most respectfully submit their views in elucidation and defence of 
 the propositions embodied in the "Declaration of sentiments" here- 
 with transmitted. That document was necessarily brief and con- 
 densed ; its very nature forbidding any amplification of the funda- 
 mental truths it was designed to proclaim. 
 
 The subject requires the consideration, 
 
 First, Of the constitutional power of Congress to make appro- 
 priations for the improvements contemplated by the Convention 
 within the limitations declared by it ; and
 
 Second, The duty and expediency of exercising that power. 
 
 And while considering the latter it will be proper to discuss the 
 question whether there are other means of effecting the proposed 
 improvements, which are just in themselves, and adequate to the 
 purpose, and which can be adopted without producing interminable 
 difficulties between the States, and threatening the most disastrous 
 consequences to the whole Union. 
 
 1. In discussing the constitutional power, we abjure at once all 
 considerations of danger in its exercise. If there be any, of the 
 frightful character which has been supposed, they address them- 
 selves to the sound discretion of Congress, when called upon to 
 make any specific appropriation ; but they have no bearing what- 
 ever upon the enquiry, wh'ether the power itself exists. And we 
 cannot but lament the perversity which seeks to intimidate from a 
 frank, deliberate and thorough investigation of the constitutional 
 provisions on this or any other subject, by exaggerated appeals to 
 the fears or prejudices of our citizens. It betrays a consciousness 
 of weakness, thus to block up the very portals of truth. We are 
 bound to presume that the illustrious men who devoted so much 
 time and anxious deliberation to the embodying the elements of a 
 free government for themselves and their posterity, were not so 
 incompetent to their task, as to have adopted any provision which 
 would produce the frauds, national demoralization and bank- 
 ruptcy which have been so freely predicted. Our enquiry now 
 is, what is the law and the testimony — what provision does 
 the Constitution in fact make ? not what it ought to make. 
 And we utterly deny that the liability to abuse of any supposed 
 power in a government, is any argument whatever to prove that 
 such power does not exist. For the undeniable truth is, that no 
 government ever has been or can be created, without possessing pow- 
 ers which may be used to the injury, and even ruin of its subjects, 
 and to its own destruction. It is very true, that on the threshold of 
 the enquiry, it will occur to every mind to ask, whether the power 
 claimed is one which civilized governments usually possess ; and if 
 it be utterly unknown in the history of the world, such as never 
 has been hitherto required by the wants of any community ; then 
 indeed the keenest vigilance may well be aroused to insist upon 
 the clearest proofs of the most express and unequivocal grant of the 
 power, and to watch most closely for any defect in the chain of ar- 

 
 gument to prove its existence. But if, on the contrary, it be a 
 power which every other government in Christendom is admitted to 
 possess — which has always been exercised by every government 
 hitherto existing — a power essential to the progress of civilization, 
 without which agriculture must languish and labor be unrewarded, 
 commerce and trade must be impeded and intercourse obstructed ; 
 then the enquirer will approach the investigation in a different spirit. 
 While he will still require satisfactory evidence, he will be prepared 
 to give a favorable ear to what may be adduced to establish the fact 
 of such a power having been granted. 
 
 It certainly cannot be necessary for your memorialists to do more 
 than ask any intelligent mind, to which of these classes belongs the 
 power of opening intercourse between the various sections of our 
 vast country — the power of finishing what the God of nature began 
 when he established the mighty rivers and the still more mighty 
 lakes which mark this continent 1 
 
 Before advancing further in this enquiry, let us endeavor to un- 
 derstand exactly the extent of the power over this subject, claimed 
 for Congress by the Convention, whose declaration of sentiments is 
 now before you, — and it is the more necessary in consequence of the 
 exaggerations and misrepresentations with which the public ear has 
 been abused. 
 
 Its advocates have been described, as seeking to establish a sys- 
 tem of rapacity, by which unscrupulous men would enhance the va- 
 lue of petty localities in which they are interested, at the public ex- 
 pense ; and in respect to which the people themselves are repre- 
 sented as so profligate, as to form extensive and dangerous combi- 
 nations to render such schemes successful. What then does the 
 Convention really claim 1 Their first proposition asserts that 
 the Constitution was framed and mainly designed " to create 
 a government whose functions should and w T ould be adequate 
 to the protection of the common interests of all the States, or 
 of two or more of them, which interests could not be maintain- 
 ed by the action of the separated States." The second propo- 
 sition applies this undeniable principle to internal trade and 
 navigation," wherever the concurrence of two or more States is ne- 
 cessary to its preservation, or where the expense of its maintenance
 
 should equitably be borne by two or more States, and where of 
 course those States must necessarily have a voice in its regulation." 
 Such trade and navigation could not be maintained by the action of 
 the separated States, and therefore if any provision was to be made 
 for its protection and assistance, it must necessarily be by the gene- 
 ral government. 
 
 Such then are the clear and well defined limitations of the power 
 in question, set forth by the Chicago Convention, and they afford in 
 themselves the best answer to the idle declamation wich represents 
 the friends of internal improvement as seeking to establish a system 
 which has no other limits than the "discretion of Congress." The 
 mind which is really incapable of perceiving any intermediate 
 grounds between the power to improve the great channels of inter- 
 course common to two or more States, and the authority to make 
 \\ turnpikes and canals within States, must be beyond the reach of ar- 
 gument. That even within the limits thus defined, there will neces- 
 sarily be room for discretion in the selection of objects of improve- 
 ment, we would not deny. And when it is shown that there is any 
 one power of human governments that is not equally and unavoida- 
 bly open to a like discretion, but not till then, we will admit that 
 the fact, that choice and selection may be exercised in reference to 
 the subjects of a power, is sufficient in itself to show that the power 
 cannot exist ! in other words, that a legislative body is not to 
 be permitted to exercise judgment and caution, and to regard utility 
 or economy in its enactments. When a constitution shall be framed 
 upon such principles as to deny all discretion to the legislative body, 
 there will be little occasion for such a cumbrous and expensive ma- 
 chinery. 
 
 Your memorialists regret that it should be necessary to offer an 
 extended argument to prove the accuracy of the position assumed 
 by the declaration of sentiments accompanying this memorial, in 
 respect to the power of Congress to make appropriations for improve- 
 ments of the character already indicated. That power is deduced 
 from the express grant u to regulate commerce with foreign nations 
 and among the States," and the concurrent and continuous exercise 
 of the power from the commencement of the government, with the 
 sanction of the people, as declaratory of the sense in w r hich the grant 
 was understood by all parties.
 
 The fact of such a practical construction having been given, is 
 so clearly and summarily stated by the late President Jackson, 
 that we prefer to use his own words in one of his messages to Con- 
 gress : "The practice," he says, " of defraying out of the Treasury 
 of the United States, the expenses incurred by the establishment 
 and support of light houses, beacons, buoys and public piers, with- 
 in the bays, inlets, and harbors and ports of the United States, to 
 render the navigation thereof safe and easy, is coeval with the adop- 
 tion ot the Constitution and has been continued without interrup- 
 tion or dispute." 
 
 We may add, that one of the first acts passed at the first ses- 
 sion of the very first Congress under the Constitution, was for the 
 establishment of light-houses, buoys, beacons and public piers. 
 Many of those who had been conspicuous in the debates of the Con- 
 vention were members of that Congress ; there is no evidence of any 
 opposition to the act ; and it was approved and signed by Washing- 
 ton. At the last session of Congress, an act was passed making 
 large appropriations for the erection of light-houses, buoys and bea- 
 cons, and establishing of light boats, at various points on the At- 
 lantic and upon the lakes, and upon the rivers emptying into them. 
 
 It has been contended however, that the power of the govern- 
 ment thus uninterruptedly exereised from its foundation, to erect light- 
 houses, &c, is derived not from their authority " to regulate com- 
 merce," but from that clause in the Constitution, which authorises 
 Congress to exercise exclusive legislation over the territory which 
 should become the seat of the Federal Government, " and to exer- 
 cise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the 
 legislaiure of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection 
 of forts, magazine, s arsenals, dockyards and other needful build- 
 ings ;" then by further contending that the consent of the State 
 was, by this clause, required " to the erection of forts, magazines," 
 etc.; it has been argued that this is inconsistent with the idea, that 
 Congress possessed this power under other grants in the Constitu- 
 tion. The mistake in this argument is evident in not adverting to 
 the real object of the clause in question, which was not to confer 
 any new power to erect these buildings, cr to purchase the lands re- 
 quired for the purpose, but simply to give Congress exclusive juris, 
 diction over such places as should be purchased with the consent of 
 the States so that there should not be a divided empire between the 
 General and State Governments.
 
 10 
 
 In accordance with this view the highest jaclicial federal authority 
 has decided, (3 Wheaton, 388,) that Congress may purchase land 
 for a fort or light-house, and erect such buildings, without the con- 
 sent of the State, but in such cases the jurisdiction remains in the 
 State, aud cannot be acquired by the United States otherwise than 
 by a cession, which is to be the free act of the State. 
 
 This was actually the case in respect to Fort Niagara, which was 
 held for many years by the United States, without any cession by 
 the State ; and it was held by the courts of New-York, that the 
 State not having ceded its jurisdiction by consenting to the purchase 
 or otherwise, it remained unimpaired. But when the State consents 
 to the purchase, the jurisdiction at once passes to the Federal Gov- 
 ernment. (17 Johnson, 225.) 
 
 The clause referred to, it will be perceived therefore, does not 
 give the authority to Congress to erect forts, magazines, or other 
 needful buildings, but gives jurisdiction over the land upon which 
 they are erected, when the purchase of such land has been made 
 with the assent of the State. And the fact that it does not give the 
 authority to purchase land for those purposes, or to erect the build- 
 ings specified, but provides for the contingency of its being purchas- 
 ed, and confers jurisdiction when such purchase has been made, 
 with the consent of the State, is in itself the strongest evidence that 
 the framers of the Constitution believed such authority had already 
 been given. 
 
 And yet, there is certainly no part of the Constitution, which can 
 be cited to justify such purchases or the erection of such buildings 
 and public piers and beacons, or the establishing of light boats, but 
 that to which we have so often referred, the power to regulate com- 
 merce. And thus the clause of the Constitution which was suppos- 
 ed to invalidate this power, in fact becomes the strongest evidence 
 of its existence, and taken in connexion with the practice of the 
 Government, becomes conclusive and irresistable. It surely needs 
 no argument to show that the buoys and boats, and piers and light- 
 houses, thus erected by the Government, are not, in themselves, 
 commerce. They are only facilities for its enjoyment. But the 
 moment the principle is admitted, that Congress may rightfully ap- 
 propriate money to promote any such facility, there is no limit 
 to it but the sound discretion of the representatives of the People and 
 , of the States, and other constitutional provisions, as to the mode of 
 its exercise. And hence we invoke the high authority not only of
 
 11 
 
 all preceding administrations, but also of the present President of 
 the United States, in approving the act passed at the last session 
 of Congress before mentioned, as an unequivocal sanction of the 
 powers of that body to regulate commerce, by furnishing facilities 
 for its enjoyment. 
 
 Of the same character are the appropriations for the survey of 
 the coast of the United States. In 1807, an act was passed by 
 which the President was authorised to cause a survey of the coast 
 of the United States to be taken, "in which shall be designated the 
 islands and shoals, with the roads or places of anchorage within, 
 twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States," and 
 also u to cause such examinations and observations to be made, 
 with respect to St. George's bank, and any other bank or shoal, and 
 the soundings and currents beyond the distance aloresaid to the gulf 
 stream, as in his opinion may be specially subservient to the com- 
 mercial interests of the United States." These surveys were warm- 
 ly recommended by committees of Congress, for the express pur- 
 pose of rendering facilities to commerce ; and the act, above quoted 
 shows that such was the object of Congress. They were begun under 
 Mr. Jefferson, the acknowledged author and founder of the system. 
 It has been continued, with temporary suspensions, caused by war 
 or the preparations for hostilities, from 1S07 to this day, the regular 
 annual appropriations continuing through the administrations of 
 General Jackson and of all his successors, to and including the last 
 session of Congress, when one hundred and forty-six thousand dol- 
 lars were appropriated, with the approbation of the present Presi- 
 dent of the United States. 
 
 Utterly vain must be any attempt to deduce the power to make 
 these appropriations from any other grant in the Constitution but that 
 " to regulate commerce." Their character and purpose is declared, 
 not only by the avowed object stated in the first act on the subject 
 and by the cotemporaneous documentary history, but by the fact that 
 the military and naval departments have no control whatever over 
 the subject, and that it is placed, as a commercial measure, under 
 the supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury. The amounts 
 appropriated have been so large, exceeding probably two millions 
 of dollars, that it is impossible they should have been made without 
 deliberation. 
 
 In reference to this power to regulate commerce, we have the au- 
 thority of the Supreme Court of the United States for saying, that
 
 12 
 
 under its sanction Congress may suspend and prohibit commerce, 
 and may not only authorise importations, but may authorise the 
 importer to sell, (12 Wheaton 447) ; and that commerce is not 
 merely traffic, but is intercourse, and includes navigation. (9 Whea- 
 ton 189.) 
 
 Having thus seen in what sense the framers of the Constitution, 
 the Legislature and the courts have hitherto understood the power 
 "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the States," 
 the subject will appear in a still clearer light when we find that the 
 same construction has been given to the same power when applied 
 to the remaining subject of the same clause, " and with the Indian 
 tribes." 
 
 From the earliest periods of our government, there has been one 
 uniform course of legislation under this power, without impediment 
 and without question, which has assumed the absolute right of pro- 
 viding for the health, the morals, the instruction and the subsistence 
 of these people. Agents are to be provided with vaccine matter, at 
 the public expense, to prevent the spread of the small-pox among them; 
 they are to be furnished with useful domestic animals and implements 
 of husbandry, and they are to be instructed in agriculture ; their chil- 
 dren are to be taught the common branches of education ; and ap- 
 propriations have been made for geological and mineralogical re- 
 searches in their country. It will not be pretended that Congress 
 has any authority to pass such laws in relation to white citizens or 
 the territory of the States ; and the only possible ground on which 
 they have been or can be maintained, is the authority " to regulate 
 commerce with the Indian tribes." 
 
 But further and very satisfactory evidence of the meaning of the 
 terms in discussion, may be derived from the use of similar lan- 
 guage in other parts of the Constitution. The second clause of 
 section 3, article 2, contains expressions identical with those we 
 have been discussing. It is thus : " the Congress shall have power 
 to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting 
 the territory and other property belonging to the United States." 
 No difference can be stated between the authority "to regulate com- 
 merce," and that now quoted, " to make needful rules and regula- 
 tions respecting the territory." 
 
 Under this latter power, for there is confessedly none other that 
 can reach the subject, the Federal Government has, from its earli- 
 est date to this day, legislated for the territories as fully and exten-
 
 13 
 
 sively as any State for its inhabitants. Governments have been 
 organised, the salaries of the officers paid, public buildings for their 
 accommodation erected, schools and seminaries of learning provided, 
 and systems of municipal law established for them by Congress. 
 And, that nothing may be wanting to complete the parallel which 
 we have instituted between the power "to legulate " in one case 
 and the power " to make regulations " in the other, in its applica- 
 tion to the very subject under consideration, viz : the authority to 
 make internal improvements in order to facilitate commerce and in- 
 tercourse, we find the Federal Government, from the year 1806 
 down to and including the last Congress, constantly and annually 
 making appropriations of money and land, to lay out and construct 
 roads in the different territories, and to improve the navigation of 
 their rivers. 
 
 We mean no offensive crimination by the remark, that during the 
 many years when the present incumbent of the Executive chair 
 served as a member of Congress, we do not find any exceptions 
 taken by him, or by any one else, to this continued exercise of the 
 power to make regulations for the territories, by the appropria- 
 tions referred to ; but we state the fact for the purpose of quoting 
 his high authority in favor of the construction, which we claim 
 should be given to that and the similar power to regulate com 
 merce. 
 
 This construction of the power in relation to territories, is noticed 
 by the late chief justice Marshall, in 4 Wheaton 422, in delivering 
 the opinion of the Supreme Court, as having been universally ad- 
 mitted. 
 
 The sense in which human language is to be understood, is that 
 which the speaker or writer intends to convey, and which is at the 
 time conveyed to him who is addressed, as evinced by the acts of 
 both. The exact meaning of words may be doubtful, but they are 
 rendered precise and certain by accompanying and continuous acts. 
 This is the basis of all interpretation. Guided by a rule so simple 
 and plain, and of such constant use, we are not to apply the micro- 
 scope to the mere shell which contains the spirit of our constitu- 
 tional provisions, as if we were examining a special pleading, but 
 we are to look at the whole scope and design, as developed by a 
 comparison of the different parts, and by the uniform, uninterrupted 
 and unquestioned construction given by legislators, executives and 
 judges, upon the responsibility of their oaths, and sanctioned by the
 
 14 
 
 acquiescence of the whole people. And we cannot sum up the 
 whole argument on this point in a more condensed form than that 
 given by the late President Jackson, that "the public good and the 
 nature of our political institutions, require that individual differences 
 should yield to a well settled acquiescence of the people, and con- 
 federated authorities on particular constructions of the Constitution 
 on doubtful points." 
 
 An attempt has been made to limit the application of the phrase 
 " regulate commerce," to such commerce as already existed, upon 
 the assumption that it implied the pre-existence of the thing to be re- 
 gulated. We submit, however, that the assumption is false in fact and 
 in theory. The power to regulate is a power to rule, with which it is 
 synonimous, and expresses the most unlimited authority of govern- 
 ment over the whole subject matter, and all its incidents, and so far 
 from being exclusively applied to subjects in existence, it ordinarily in 
 practice precedes and anticipates the action to be regulated. And to 
 exhibit the absurdity of the criticism we are examining, we have only 
 to state its results almost in the language of its authors. Thus, if a 
 river be already navigable, and a commerce is carried on from its 
 mouth to the port of another state, it may be u regulated j" but if a 
 sandbar at its mouth should prevent vessels within it from launching 
 into the ocean or the lakes, to reach another State, it would be be- 
 yond the reach of the regulating power of Congress, because a com- 
 merce would thus be created ! And such refinements, worthy of 
 the ancient polemics, are gravely attributed to the practical men 
 who framed our Constitution. It so happens, however, that even 
 this subtlety is wholly inapplicable to any appropriation that has hi- 
 therto passed either House of Congress, for none has proposed the 
 improvement of any harbor or river that had not already some com- 
 merce. 
 
 But there is another source of the power to improve rivers, har- 
 bors, and roadsteads, and which contains authority, if necessary, 
 even to create harbors and channels of communication. We refer 
 to the power ll to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and ex- 
 cises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and 
 general welfare of the United States." Taxes and imposts may 
 be levied to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence 
 of the Union. It follows, that the proceeds of such taxes and 
 imposts may be appropriated to those objects; and accordingly un-
 
 15 
 
 tier this power of appropriations for the common defence, coupled 
 with those of declaring war, of raising armies, and maintaining a 
 navy — forts, magazines, arsenals, manufactories of arms and military 
 roads, navy yards and dry and other docks, have been established 
 and maintained from the day the Constitution was adopted to this 
 moment; and appropriations for them or some of them have been 
 passed at every session of Congress, without exception from any 
 quarter. Let it be observed, that here is no latitudinarian expansion 
 of the phrase, " general welfare," so obnoxious to certain casuists, 
 but a plain and downright application, in good faith, of a power 
 given for definite and precise objects — the common defence and the 
 employment of armies and of a navy. This " common " defence 
 of the whole, necessarily includes the parts, and the power must be 
 exercised in detail or not at all. 
 
 Can it be doubted that the removal of shoals, bars and snags in 
 rivers, in order to facilitate the transmission of the munitions of war 
 to the frontier and every exposed part of our country, would be as 
 legitimate an exercise of the power to provide for the common de- 
 fence, as the establishment of magazines, or manufactories of arms, 
 or the casting of cannon 1 The munitions of war provided, and the 
 weapons manufactured, would be of little use without the means of 
 conveying them to the points needing the supply. 
 
 And with respect to harbors, the eleventh of the propositions con- 
 tained in the declaration of sentiments herewith transmitted, states 
 so clearly the right of" the citizens inhabiting the country bordering 
 on the interior lakes and rivers, to such safe and convenient harbors 
 as may afford shelter to a navy," and the duty of the government to 
 afford them such protection, that the undersigned can add very little 
 to enforce the right, or to render the duty more obvious. The im- 
 partial and disinterested officers of your own appointment have cer- 
 tified to you, that along the whole chain of lakes, extending four- 
 teen hundred miles between our territories and those of a foreign 
 power, there is such a deficiency of safe harbors of easy entrance, 
 that the military and commercial marine upon these lakes is abso- 
 lutely at the mercy of the winds and the waves. And they have shown 
 you, that, from the peculiar dangers of the navigation and the want 
 of sea room, capacious harbors are more vitally important there, 
 than on the Atlantic coast. It may happen too, that disadvantageous 
 circumstances may render a convenient harbor the only security 
 against the capture of your ships by an enemy. It is not necessary
 
 16 
 
 to compare the relative importance of accessible harbors to the 
 maintenance of a fleet, with navy yards and docks ; it is sufficient 
 that they are of the same character, and are equally il necessary and 
 proper." It would be far more difficult, in the view of your memo- 
 rialists, to deduce the authority to build an executive mansion for 
 the President of the United States, or to purchase, repair and main- 
 tain a Congressional burying ground, from any specific grant of 
 power in the Constitution, than to show that the power of improv- 
 ing the channels of trade and intercourse between the States, may 
 be inferred from this power to provide for the common defence. 
 
 It is not improbable that other sources of the power in question 
 may appear to different minds, adequate to the purpose. But the 
 undersigned are content to rest the claim which they prefer in be- 
 half of their constituents, upon the grants of power stated in the 
 " Declaration of Sentiments," and herein considered. It was well 
 remarked by distinguished judges of the Supreme Court in 9th 
 Wheaton, that " the same measures may be arranged with different 
 classes of powers," and that ll the same measures may flow from 
 distinct powers," under our Constitution. And he must be little ac- 
 quainted with the history of governments, who would urge as an 
 objection to any specific power, that its friends claimed that it might 
 be exercised under different and harmonious provisions. 
 
 But we hear it said that the Constitution does not confer on Con- 
 gress, the power to regulate commerce by commencing and carrying 
 on a " general system of internal improvement ;" as if the objec- 
 tion was not to any particular work, but to a general system. We 
 confess our inability to perceive the force or the reason of this dis- 
 tinction. If any particular work can be justified by the importance 
 of the commercial exigency which demands it, is not the power of 
 Congress to facilitate commerce by any other similar work admitted 1 
 And if any work, in the judgment of Congress, possesses the requi- 
 sites to bring it within the constitutional provision, does it cease to 
 possess them because the commercial facilities it affords, may be 
 augmented by its connexion with other kindred works 1 Thus, the 
 immense commercial cargoes which now descend from Lake Michi- 
 gan to the Ocean, in their passage meet successively the obstruc- 
 tions on the flats of Lake St. Clair, — in the harbor of Buffalo, — 
 and in the Overslaugh of the Hudson. The works needed to re- 
 move these three separate impediments, each highly necessary in it- 
 self, will be still more useful when all are completed — and when 
 constructed will naturally and necessarily group themselves togeth-
 
 17 
 
 er, and become portions of a system. But does this afford any rea- 
 son why each particular work should not be constructed 1 On the 
 contrary does it not gradually strengthen the inducement for build- 
 in o- them all, — and that too on a harmonious plan; so that each por- 
 tion may add to the value of the whole % As well might we object 
 to the general system of fortifications on the seaboard, that although 
 each separate work of the series might be requisite for the common 
 defence, yet that no power existed to unite them in a uniform plan. 
 
 Under the general and comprehensive power to regulate commerce 
 between the States, we claim then, that the facilities which Congress 
 may constitutionally afford, are co-extensive with that commerce, 
 and necessarily extend to and embrace every portion of the Union. 
 That it would be alike unwise, unjust and repugnant to the spirit of 
 the Constitution, to lavish the public funds upon favorite objects in 
 a few States, and exclude from just participation other and equally 
 meritorious and necessary objects in other States, — and so far from 
 questioning the power of Congress to combine these proper objects 
 of national improvement in a general plan or system, we maintain 
 it to be their peculiar duty, as far as practicable to construct each 
 work in reference^ its harmonious connexion with thewhole. And 
 in taking this view of the subject, our quotation of the vague ex- 
 pression " internal improvements," must not be misunderstood. 
 We refer to works of national importance which will essentially fa- 
 cilitate " commerce among the States," and not to " improvements" 
 purely local. 
 
 With respect to the objection which has sometimes been urged 
 of want of jurisdiction in the United States, to enter upon and oc- 
 cupy lands and waters to construct and maintain the required im- 
 provements, it may be remarked, that if the power to regulate com- 
 merce includes, as we maintain, the authority to facilitate its ope- 
 rations, then all the means and incidents " necessary and proper," 
 are by the terms of the Constitution given also ; and these must ne- 
 cessarily include jurisdiction for the purpose. And this has been 
 exemplified by the laws of Congress authorising the erection of 
 light-houses on the shores of the lakes and interior rivers, and re- 
 gulating steam vessels navigating those waters. So far from ques- 
 tioning the full authority of tl e General Government, it would be 
 much more easy to doubt the power of any State to exercise juris- 
 diction over navigable waters common to two or more States, and 
 which were necessary to "commerce among the States." 
 
 3
 
 13 
 
 And even if it were admitted that the separate States might ex- 
 ercise such jurisdiction, a serious if not insuperable obstacle is inter- 
 posed by the Constitution to any permanent or efficient co-operation 
 by States having navigable waters in common, for the purpose of 
 improving the navigation of such waters. This could be accom- 
 plished only by prospective arrangements to assess the proportions 
 of expense, to preserve and repair the works constructed, and to 
 provide the necessary supervision for their maintainance. These 
 objects would require the adoption of mutual stipulations, which 
 should reach far into the future. These, however, would constitute 
 " a treaty", and that is absolutely prohibited by the 10th section 
 of the first article of the Constitution, which declares that "no State 
 shall enter into any treaty, alliance or confederation." 
 
 And these considerations in themselves furnish a strong argument 
 in favor of the power of Congress, for they prove that it can exist no 
 where else. 
 
 Having thus shown what were the avowed objects of the Con- 
 vention that appointed the undersigned, in relation to internal im- 
 provements, and rescued it from the misrepresentations which per- 
 verted those objects ; and having, as we trust, vindicated the power 
 of Congress to appropriate money for those objects, we will now 
 proceed to discuss the expediency of the exercise of that power. 
 
 Before doing so, permit us to remark that there are duties and obli- 
 gations of governments and of those who administer them, which 
 cannot be extinguished by any considerations of expediency. As 
 an instance, provisions for the common defence of the country, ac- 
 cording to its means, may not be neglected. All vaticinations of 
 the dangers that may arise from the performance of the duty, can 
 have no influence upon those who have accepted office under an en- 
 gagement to obey the injunctions of the Constitution. If, like some 
 of the religious denominations among us, they are conscientiously, 
 from any cause, opposed to the execution of the power, their plain 
 duty as honest men, is to give place to those whose constitutional 
 phantasies or conscientious scruples are not in conflict with their 
 vows. 
 
 And viewing the federal government in its relations to the States, 
 there is a source of honorable obligation, more sacred if possible, 
 than the plain injunctions of the Constitution. This arises from the 
 fact, that by that instrument, the revenues derived from commerce 
 were surrendered by the States to the General Government, for the 
 purpose and with the sole object of having them applied to the com-
 
 19 
 
 mon interests which it was the design of the confederacy to protect 
 and maintain. And they were thus surrendered under the pledge 
 given in the preamble of the Constitution, that it was framed to 
 provide for the common defence and promote the general welfare. 
 The States were thus deprived of the appropricte sources of revenue 
 to improve and increase the facilities of the business which produced 
 that revenue ; and they were, as has been shown, effectually denied 
 all power over it. Can it be supposed that the sagacious advocates 
 of state rights and interests of that day, intended to deliver up to the 
 care of the Federal Government their respective States, thus stripped 
 of the means of securing the first elements of their prosperity, and 
 thus manacled and fettered, without an equivalent 1 And what was 
 that equivalent? The only one which the case admitted — namely, 
 the substitution of the Federal Government for the exercise of those 
 powers and the performance of those co-relative duties, which the 
 exigencies of the confederacy forbade to the States. In the very 
 nature ot things the Federal Government took the place, and re- 
 ceived the powers, and thereby assumed those duties of the States 
 respectively, which they could not separately exercise, consistent 
 with the peace and prosperity of the whole. This was the great 
 compromise of the Constitution. And an obligation results from it, 
 upon the Federal Government, which it is not at liberty to evade by 
 suggestions real or pretended, of the difficulties and hazards of per- 
 forming its duty. 
 
 But what are these difficulties and dangers that are so frequently 
 paraded with all the aggravations that may render them tragic, to 
 '* frighten us from our propriety 1 " Let us speak to them, and see 
 whether, like other apparitions of the imagination, they will not 
 dissolve in the light of day. 
 
 By classing them, we will better understand their exact dimen- 
 sions. 
 
 It is urged, First, That combinations of individual and local in- 
 terests to obtain appropriations for interned improvements, will be 
 found strong enough to control legislation, absorb the revenues, and 
 plunge the country into hopeless indebtedness. 
 
 Second, That the subject is liable to be perverted to the worst of 
 political purposes. 
 
 Third, That it is impossible, in the nature of the subject, as con- 
 nected with local representation, that objects of internal improve- 
 ment should be weighed according to their respective merits, and
 
 20 
 
 appropriations confined to those whose importance would justify the 
 employment of the revenue of the whole community. 
 
 And Fourth, It is emphatically asked, where shall the exercise of 
 the power stop 1 
 
 A general reply to all these forebodings of evil, is, that they are 
 precisely such as have always been proclaimed by the adversaries 
 of free government and of popular institutions, in Europe and in this 
 country. Our plan of a representative democracy, in which popu- 
 lar sentiment should be felt, was always regarded by them as preg- 
 nant with dangers. Combinations of powerful individuals, of great 
 States and local interests, have been freely predicted as the inevita- 
 ble result of the wide scope given for their operation, by our insti- 
 tutions. In vain have we urged the system of checks interposed 
 against hasty and improvident legislation. In vain have we pointed 
 to the diversified interests of the various sections of our country, as 
 affording counteracting influences upon each other, which must for- 
 ever prevent the predominance of any one ; to the lono- term of 
 service of the Senate, and to the Executive veto, and finally to 
 the judicial power to arrest unconstitutional enactments. We have 
 been answered by references to the ancient republics and their ina- 
 bility to restrain combinations, and more particularly to the disas- 
 trous results of the French revolution of 1794, as having been pro- 
 duced mainly by the dictation of combined clubs. As our argu- 
 ments seemed to make no impression, we quietly wailed for the 
 proof of the sufficiency of our government to maintain liberty con- 
 sistently with public order and public interests, to be developed by 
 our history. Nearly sixty years of uninterrupted prosperity, with 
 continual concessions to popular liberty, have furnished the expect- 
 ed proof. And in the mean while, what has become of those go- 
 vernments in which it was supposed the dangers to be apprehended 
 from these combinations, were most effectually obviated by monar- 
 chical or aristocratic power? They have passed away and evapo- 
 rated, like flax at the touch of flame. And this is our answer to 
 all such forebodings ; our fathers surveyed the ground calmly and 
 deliberately, they were fully apprised of all the hazards attending 
 the experiment, and yet they decided that the happiness of them- 
 selves and their posterity, demanded that they should be encoun- 
 tered. 
 
 Similar predictions of evil were made by those who opposed the 
 adoption of the Constitution. The powers of Congress were repre-
 
 21 
 
 sented as overshadowing the States ; the danger of combinations 
 was dwelt upon, and State sovereignty and individual liberty were 
 to be absorbed by the monster of their imaginations. The patriotic 
 Patrick Henry, as their chief exponent, objected particularly to the 
 power of taxation given to Congress, and maintained that ' c it was 
 impossible to select any subject of general taxation which would not 
 operate unequally on the different sections of the Union, produce 
 discontent and heart-burnings among the people, and most probably 
 terminate in open resistance to the laws." He objected also to the 
 power of raising armies and building navies, and to the control of 
 the General Government over the militia, which, with the power of 
 taxation, he represented, gave to Congress the sword in one hand 
 and the purse in the other, and declared, "unless a miracle in human 
 affairs shall interpose, no nation ever did, or can ever retain its liberty, 
 after the loss of the sword and the purse." The treaty making power 
 was arraigned as a most dangerous feature, "inasmuch as it put it in 
 the power of the President and any ten Senators who might represent 
 the five smallest States, to enter into the most ruinous foreign en- 
 gagements, and even to cede away the territory of the larger 
 States." That the pay of the members of Congress was to be fixed 
 by themselves, was also considered a very dangerous power. 
 The anticipations of evil then indulged, might be multiplied almost 
 indefinitely. But these are sufficient for the purpose for which they 
 are adduced, which is to show that the conceded and uncontro- 
 verted powers of Congres, are exposed to the same charges of lia- 
 bility to perversion, abuse and corruption, which have been so free- 
 ly made against the power in question, and to show also the utter 
 fallacy of all such prophecies. 
 
 Indeed, it is inseparable from any power to do good, that it may 
 be perverted to evil. And the history of all governments establish- 
 es one melancholy fact, that human ingenuity has not yet devised 
 any perfect remedy for human infirmity. The theories of other 
 governments have placed the check on this liability to abuse, in the 
 hands of a few, supposed to be the most intelligent and virtuous of 
 the community. Our theory is directly the reverse ; it places the 
 restraining and remedial power in the hands of the many — of the 
 great mass who are interested in preserving liberty, restraining fac- 
 tious combinations, and sustaining law and order. To say then, 
 that the people themselves are or will become so corrupt and selfish 
 that they cannot be trusted in the choice of representatives to le-
 
 22 
 
 gislate on this or any other subject — that it will be impossible to 
 have just and rational legislation on any matter, in consequence of 
 combinations of individual and local interests, and that these combi- 
 nations are liable to be perverted to the worst of political purposes, 
 is in effect assailing democracy and representive governments in 
 their very citadel. It is in open conflict with the first principle of 
 our institutions — the moral and political capacity of the people to 
 govern themselves, and with the American doctrine, which teaches 
 that there is more safety in large numbers — in the masses, than in any 
 individual, whether he be a President or a King. 
 
 Having ourselves a firm faith in this doctrine — a faith strength- 
 ened and confirmed by our own history and by what is passing at 
 this moment on the European continent — a faith delivered to us by 
 our fathers, and consecrated by their blood, we cannot surrender it. 
 Nor do we believe that the representatives of the people and of the 
 States in Congress will be the first to renounce and repudiate it, by 
 declaring themselves to be unworthy and incapable, by reason of 
 individual and local interests, to legislate upon any subject commit- 
 ted to their care by the Constitution. 
 
 But we deny that there is more selfishness, more local and private 
 interests to influence legislation on the subject of internal improve- 
 ments, than upon many other subjects within the acknowledged 
 competency of Congress. Take, for instance, the power to lay and 
 collect imposts ; in other words, the establishment of a tariff of du- 
 ties on importations. Where is there a greater opportunity for the 
 combination of local and individual interests, to promote selfish pur- 
 poses at the expense of the country'? What subject is more liable 
 to be perverted to political purposes'? What presents greater diffi- 
 culty as connected with local representation, in adjusting the proper 
 subjects for revenue, and the proper amounts to be charged on 
 them? And yet, has not this very question been repeatedly agita- 
 ted in Congress and disposed of, without producing any of those 
 direful consequences? We therefore dismiss these fears to the same 
 tomb that contains the evil prophecies of the monarchists of Eu- 
 rope. We have outlived and falsified them. We have proved 
 thnt our people are not so selfish and unprincipled, and their repre- 
 sentatives are not so corrupt and profligate, as to be unworthy of a 
 power to legislate upon a subject of the deepest interest to them- 
 selves.
 
 23 
 
 But we are asked, where is this system to stop] We answer, 
 where the necessities of foreign commerce and commerce among the 
 States stop — when the country has adequate harbors for the shelter 
 of its navy and its commercial marine on our sea-coast and on our 
 lakes — when the means of communication from the centre to every 
 assailable point of our frontier, and from supporting distances along 
 that frontier to each other, shall have been established and rendered 
 as commodious as modern skill and industry can make them — then 
 the system of appropriation for the common defence and for facili- 
 tating commerce among the States will stop, and Heaven forbid that 
 it should stop any sooner. When, and where, we may ask in re- 
 turn, is the business of legislation for this vast country to stop? If 
 the indefinite duration of the exercise of any power forms an objec- 
 tion to its being exercised at all, then your honorable bodies should 
 adjourn, and leave the country without any regulation. 
 
 We are told that the policy of embarking the General Govern- 
 ment in appropriations for internal improvements, had its origin but 
 little more than twenty years ago, and that it became so alarming as 
 to require the strong and stern interposition of President Jackson to 
 arrest its progress. General Jackson himself states, that the prac- 
 tice of appropriating money from the Treasury of the United States 
 for the establishment and support of light-houses, beacons, buoys 
 and public piers, to render navigation safe and easy, "is coeval with 
 the adoption of the Constitution, and has been continued without 
 interruption or dispute." 
 
 If any corroboration of his testimony be required, it will be found by 
 referring to an official report made under a call of the Senate, by the 
 distinguished head of the Topographical Engineers, on the 7th of 
 Jan., 1847, and transmitted to the Senate by the present Secretary 
 of War, being number 44 of the Executive documents of the sec- 
 ond session of the 29th Congress. Annexed to this report is a re- 
 capitulation of the appropriations made in each year " for the con- 
 struction and repair of roads, and the improvement of harbors," 
 reaching back to the administration of Mr. Jefferson, which being 
 condensed, shows those made during the different administrations, 
 as follows : 
 
 Under Mr. Jefferson, $48,400 
 
 " Mr. Madison, 250,800 
 
 " Mr. Monroe, 707,621 
 
 " Mr. J. Q. Adams, 2,310,475
 
 24 
 
 " Gen. Jackson, 10,582,SS2 
 
 " Mr. Van Buren, 2,222,544 
 
 " Mr. Tyler, 1,076,500 
 
 This topic has, however, been so fully and ably discussed recent- 
 ly, by a member of the present House of Representatives from Con- 
 necticut, and the fallacy of the statement we have quoted, so tho- 
 roughly and triumphantly exposed, as to render quite unnecessary 
 any further comment from us. 
 
 But to provide some remedy for the admitted wants of the country, 
 a suggestion has been brought out, which, if not original, has all the 
 freshness of novelty. It is, that there is no occasion for th? 
 exercise of this power by Congress, because " the Constitu- 
 tion itself indicates a process by which harbors and rivers within 
 the States may be improved — >a process not susceptible of the abu- 
 ses necessarily (supposed) to flow from the assumption of the pow- 
 er to impose them by the General Government, just in its operation, 
 and actually practised upon during more than thirty years from the 
 organization of the present government." And we are told that 
 this process is indicated by a passage in the last clause of the 10th 
 section of the first article of the Constitution, by which it is provi- 
 ded that "no State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any 
 duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace," 
 &c. And the laying of a tonnage duty by the States with the con- 
 sent of Congress, is recommended as a safe provision to accomplish 
 all the desired objects ; and among its safeguards it is specified that 
 the funds raised "are to be in every instance levied upon the com- 
 merce of those ports which are to profit by the proposed improvement." 
 And it is stated, that it appears in Mr. Madison's report of the pro- 
 ceedings of the Convention, "that one object of the reservation 
 was, that the States should not be restrained from laying duties of 
 tonnage for the purpose of clearing harbors." 
 
 It is deemed necessary, to a full understanding of the clause, that 
 ■what was actually said should be known. The report referred to says : 
 " Mr. McHenry and Mr. Carroll moved that 'no State shall be re- 
 strained from laying duties of tonnage for the purpose of clearing har- 
 bors and erecting light-houses.' Colonel Mason, in support of this, 
 explained and urged the situation of the Chesapeake, which peculiar- 
 ly required expenses of this sort. Mr. Madison observed that there 
 were other objects for tonnage duties, as the support of seamen, &c. 
 He was more and more convinced that the regulation of commerce 
 
 "D ■
 
 25 
 
 was in its nature indivisible, and ought to be wholly under one au- 
 thority." (Madison papers, 3d, p. 1587.) 
 
 It appears, then, that the establishment of light houses was as 
 much an object of the reservation to the States as the clearing of har- 
 bors. If then, the argument derived from the debates proves any 
 thing, it proves that the maintenance of light houses by the General 
 Government is not a power granted by the Constitution, and that 
 they should be sustained by tonnage duties imposed by the States. 
 And light boats, buoys and beacons, must stand upon the same foot- 
 ing, 'lhe practice of the Government, as already shown, has given 
 a very different interpretation. The Congress has assumed these 
 duties without State legislation, and no one has yet been so hardy or 
 so reckless as to deny its power and its duty to do so. 
 
 The writers of the essays collected under the title of " The Fede- 
 ralist," no where speak of this reserved power of laying a tonnage 
 duty, and the quotation from No. 44 of that work, which has been 
 cited as applicable to this subject, has no reference whatever to it, 
 but relates wholly to the reserved power of laying duties on imports 
 and exports. 
 
 It seems to your memorialists quite evident that under this re- 
 servation to the States of the right to lay a " duty on tonnage," it 
 must be confined to the vessels of the State imposing it, and to fo- 
 reign vessels, for by the fifth clause of the ninth section of the first 
 article of the Constitution, it is provided as follows : " No preference 
 shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the 
 ports of one State over those of another ; nor shall vessels bound to 
 or from one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another." 
 We are unable to comprehend how, under this prohibition, vessels 
 navigating from one State to another, can, by any act of a State, 
 with or without the consent of Congress, be obliged to pay a tonnage 
 duty in such other State. The provision operates to make common 
 highways of all the navigable waters of the States, to vessels bound 
 to or from one State, and by its terms, precludes what might other- 
 wise be claimed, a reasonable toll or compensation for making or 
 keeping such highways in proper condition for use. 
 
 The history of the times and of the debates in the Convention 
 furnishes abundant evidence, that among the evils of the Confedera- 
 tion no one was deemed so intolerable and so destructive of the har- 
 mony and peace of the States or so ruinous to their commerce, as 
 the local duties imposed by several States upon cargoes and tonnage; 
 and it seems to have been a primary object, utterly and forever to 
 
 4
 
 26 
 
 abolish and prohibit them. And to this feeling do we attribute the 
 clause in question. 
 
 And we find that the qualification we have intimated, has been 
 recognised in several of the acts of the States imposing tonnage du- 
 ties, which have received the sanction of Congress ; and which have 
 been specially communicated to your honorable Houses. Thus, the 
 act of May 6, 1796, gives the consent of Congress to an act of Mary- 
 land, " so far as to enable the State aforesaid to collect one cent per 
 ton upon all vessels coming into the district of Baltimore from a 
 foreign voyage." And the act of February 28, 1806, gives the 
 like consent that the State of Pennsylvania " may collect a duty of 
 four cents per ton upon all vessels clearing out of Philadelphia for 
 any foreign port or place." By the act of March 28, 1806, consent 
 is given to an act of South Carolina, authorising '* the city of 
 Charleston to levy a duty not exceeding six cents per ton upon ves- 
 sels entering the port of Charleston from any foreign port or place 
 whatever." And by the act of April 29, 1816, the like consent is 
 given to an act of the same State, for collecting a duty often cents 
 per ton upon vessels from a foreign port. 
 
 Having no purpose to mislead, we state also, that we find several 
 of the acts of Congress referred to, assenting to laws of the States 
 levying tonnage duties on ships and vessels, in some cases generally 
 and without discrimination, and in others, expressly including coast- 
 ing vessels. We find but eleven distinct ports or rivers in the whole 
 United States, which have been the subject of these acts. In re- 
 spect to three of them, as above stated, the duty is confined to for- 
 eign vessels. In some of the others, the improvements are entirely 
 local, and of a character which does not come within the facilities 
 for " commerce among the States," as defined by the Chicago Con- 
 vention. Of the acts referred to, three of them assenting to laws 
 of Alabama, do not impose tonnage duties upon vessels, but tolls 
 upon specific articles for passing artificial structures — of most ques- 
 tionable validity. Another, consenting to an act of North Carolina, 
 to provide funds for a hospital, levies a tax upon seamen not upon 
 vessels. Another sanctions an act of Georgia, by which the harbor- 
 master and health officer of Savannah and St. Mary, are authorised 
 to collect tonnage duties in full of their demands for official duties ! 
 A rigid examination of others of these acts would show that they 
 are entitled to very little weight, as constructive of the Constitution. 
 States are employed as agencies in establishing marine hospitals, 
 and officers of the United States are made subject to local authori-
 
 27 
 
 ties, and other provisions are sanctioned, which at this day would 
 find no support from any quarter. 
 
 But whatever may be the weight of these precedents, in the esti- 
 mation of those who regard the continuous acts of Congress, acqui- 
 esced in by the people, as just expositions of constitutional power — 
 yet, if they are urged as being in conflict with the authority of Con- 
 gress which we claim, we submit that the number, variety and ex- 
 tent of the acts which have asserted the power of the Federal Go- 
 vernment to make appropriations for internal improvements, within 
 the limits and for the purposes indicated by our constituents, greatly 
 outweigh in point of authority the laws assenting to State duties on 
 tonnage. But we confess our inability to appreciate the consistency 
 of those who quote these acts as establishing the sense otthe found- 
 ers of our republic, and at the same time deny to other and more 
 numerous acts of the same persons, the least respect as constitutional 
 expositions. 
 
 But, in truth, these acts are not in conflict — they do not assert 
 any antagonist principles. With the exceptions hereafter mention- 
 ed, a State may be authorised by Congress to levy duties of tonnage 
 for local improvements, and for creating facilities for foreign com- 
 merce, and for commerce among the States, and yet Congress may 
 make appropriations for the same objects. And such in fact has 
 been the practice of the government. In aid of the State duties to 
 improve the navigation of the Delaware bay, Congress has appro- 
 priated more than two millions of dollars. For improving the har- 
 bor of Baltimore, for which State tonnage duties have been levied, 
 there have been appropriations by Congress to the amonnt of more 
 than fifty thousand dollars. And in like manner, more than one 
 hundred thousand dollars have been appropriated for improving the 
 navigation of the Savannah river, notwithstanding the duties on ton- 
 nage levied by the State of Georgia, with the assent of Congress for 
 that purpose. Conceding, for the purpose of further consideration, 
 that both powers are possessed by Congress, is it not evidently one 
 of those cases of sound judgment and discretion, which our Consti- 
 tution intended to leave to the decision of those more immediately 
 and practically acquainted with all the circumstances — the repre- 
 sentatives of the people, to adopt the mode which should be most 
 effectual 1 
 
 And here we would remark what significant proof do these appro- 
 priations by the Federal Government furnish of the utter and total 
 inadequacy, under the most favorable circumstances, as in the cases
 
 28 
 
 of Baltimore and Savannah, of these State tonnage duties, to accom- 
 plish the objects intended. 
 
 But, it seems to have been strangely forgotten, that an insuperable 
 objection exists to the exercise of this power by the States, of levying 
 tonnage duties upon vessels navigating the navigable waters leading 
 into the Mississpipi and the St. Lawrence rivers. It arises trom the 
 terms of the fourth article of "the articles of compact between the ori- 
 ginal States and the people and states " in the territory which in 1787 
 constituted the territory of the United States northwest of the river 
 Ohio. Those articles are, perhaps, the most sacred among the "en- 
 gagements" entered intobefore the adoption otthe Constitution, whose 
 validity and perpetual obligation are asserted and secured by the sixth 
 article of that instrument. The fourth article of that compact provides 
 thus : " The navigable waters leading into the Mississipi and St. 
 Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be com- 
 mon highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the 
 said territory, as to the citizens of the Uuited States, and those of 
 any other States that may be admitted into the confederacy, without 
 any tax, impost or duty therefor." This last word in the passage 
 quoted " therefor," is exceedingly emphatic and comprehensive. 
 These waters are declared " common highways," — the characteristic 
 quality of which is, that they may be used without any charge ; but 
 as if this were not sufficient to preclude all cavil, it is further decla- 
 red that there shall be no " tax, impost or duty therefor" — for using 
 them as common highways. By the comprehensive term " naviga- 
 ble waters," are included not only the lakes leading into the St. Law- 
 rence, but the rivers flowing into them, as well as the great rivers 
 like the Ohio, leading into the Mississippi and the navigable waters 
 flowing into those rivers. These are " forever free " from any tax 
 or duty, for using them. It is, therefore, manifestly impossible for 
 any States, with or without the consent of Congress, to levy any 
 " duty of tonnage " upon vessels navigating those waters and streams, 
 for using them as common highways. Thus, it will be seen, that 
 some of the most essential facilities to navigation, such as clearing 
 the shoals or flats in Lake St. Clair, and removing obstructions in 
 rivers leading into the St. Lawrence or the Mississippi, can never be 
 accomplished by the levying of tonnage duties upon vessels navigat- 
 ing them. 
 
 In the view of the undersigned, the clause in the compact of 1787 
 which has been quoted, strikingly exhibits the common feeling and
 
 29 
 
 understanding of our forefathers in relation to commercial intercourse 
 between the states. 
 
 A still more important inference may be drawn from this provis- 
 ion in the compact. The ordinance in which it is contained, pro- 
 vides for the erection of many states out of the territory to which it 
 relates. The framers of that ordinance had witnessed the annoy- 
 ances and collisions to which trade and navigation in the con- 
 federated states had been subjected by the local impositions of the 
 different states ; they saw in prospect what our eyes behold — a chain 
 of states bounded or intersected by the great lakes, the Mississippi 
 and the rivers flowing into them and the St. Lawrence, having these 
 common watercourses to conduct them to a market. And they were 
 admonished by the examples of the old world, that interest, ambition 
 and rivalry would stimulate those states to efforts to enrich them- 
 selves, if not to depress their neighbors, by endless exactions upon 
 the vessels that should pass through their respective territories. 
 And the wonderful forecast which distinguishes that whole instru- 
 ment, in nothing exhibited itself so pre-eminently, as by this 
 single provision which closed forever this fountain of bitterness and 
 strife. 
 
 Insuperable obstacles of a similar character, to any imposition of 
 tonnage duties upon vessels navigating the Mississippi, are present- 
 ed by the compacts made by the federal government with several 
 states bordering on that river, upon their admission into the Union. 
 Thus by the act for the admission of the state of Louisiana, April 
 8, 1812, it is provided as a condition of its admission that " the 
 river Mississippi and the navigable rivers and waters leading into 
 the same, and into the Gulf of Mexico, shall be common highways, 
 and forever free as well to the inhabitants of the said state as to in- 
 habitants of other states, without any tax, duty, impost or toll there- 
 for, imposed by the said State ;" a similar provision in all respects 
 is inserted in the act for the formation of the state of Mississippi, 
 March 1, 1817; a condition of the same kind is incorporated in the 
 act authorising a state government for Missouri, March 6, 1820. 
 The act for the admission of Arkansas, (June 15, 1836,) imposes 
 the same conditions and restrictions in relation to the Mississippi and 
 its tributaries. The act of March 3, 1845, for the admission of 
 Iowa, has the same provision declaring the Mississippi and the navi- 
 gable waters leading into the same, forever free to all citizens of 
 the United States without any tax, duty, impost or toll therefor im- 
 posed by the said state. The act authorising the people of Wiscon-
 
 30 
 
 sin to form a state government, August 6, 1846, provides that the 
 river Mississippi and all other rivers and waters bordering on Wis- 
 consin, " and the navigable waters leading into the same, shall be 
 common highways and for ever free, as well to the inhabitants of the 
 said state, as to all other citizens of the United States, without any 
 tax, duty, impost or toll therefor." And thus we see the noble 
 Mississippi, from its mouth to its extremest source, by compact after 
 compact, and at every step and stage of the organization of the 
 vast communities on its borders, guarded and protected from the 
 impositions now sought to be fastened upon it. 
 
 What then becomes of the proposed expedient of State tonnage 
 duties, as a mode of furnishing means for improving the rivers and 
 harbors of our wide-spread country 1 Is it not utterly inadequate, 
 baseless and fallacious? We see that our navigable waters in the 
 vast valley of the Mississippi and in the great basin of the Lakes, 
 by the most solemn compacts, are forever exonerated from the im- 
 position of any such burthen, and this grand division of our national 
 improvements, embracing the largest geographical portion of our ter- 
 ritory, — a portion already all but predominant in political and com- 
 mercial importance, — can be accomplished only by the authority 
 and at the expense of the general government. But would it be 
 either just or expedient, that the navigation of these great interior 
 waters, thus shielded from the pow r er of the States, should be im- 
 proved and maintained at the common expensef while the residue of 
 our rivers and harbors on the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, 
 similarly situated in all respects excepting as to the prohibition 
 against duties, should receive no aid from the same source. Equal 
 and exact justice requires that the common funds should be equally 
 and fairly distributed for the common purposes in all parts of the 
 Union. The undersigned would utterly misrepresent the feelings 
 and sentiments of those who appointed them, were they to claim 
 for the inhabitants of any of the eighteen States represented in the 
 Chicago Convention, any peculiar or local protection or benefit not 
 conceded to all their fellow-citizens. 
 
 And here we might close our objections to the proposed expedient 
 of state tonnsge duties, having shown that in respect to the greatest 
 portion of our navigable waters, its adoption is legally impossible, 
 and that w T ith regard to the others, it would be partial, inequitable 
 and unjust. But there are other points of view in w T hich this pro- 
 posed expedient of tonnage duties may be examined, of such prac- 
 tical importance, and of such disastrous consequences to the whole
 
 31 
 
 country, that we deem it a duty to present them, in the hope that 
 it may never again meet the favor of any statesman. 
 
 The principle itself of local duties for any such purpose, is un- 
 sound and delusive. Higher duties, of any kind, at one port than 
 at others, must necessarily drive irom it every ship thstis not com- 
 pelled by circumstances, or induced by some preponderating benefit 
 to enter it. And consequently, if a harbor is avoided on account of 
 the natural obstructions to its entrance, it will be still more avoided 
 if artificial difficulties and impositions are superadded, so that the 
 resources of such a port would be diminished instead of being in- 
 creased, and the policy would defeat itself. It is believed that some 
 ports of the United States have already furnished instances of such 
 results. 
 
 The system is utterly inapplicable for the removal of obstructions 
 in navigable waters which are common to several states, and are 
 navigated by vessels which do not enter any harbor adjacent to such 
 obstructions. Take as an instance, the shoals or flats in Lake St. 
 Clair, which impede the navigation of all vessels passing from Lake 
 Michigan into Lake Erie, or from the latter into the former. These 
 vessels are under no necessity to enter any port within hundreds of 
 miles of these obstructions. Where shall the tonnage duty be col- 
 lected 1 At the port of departure, or at that of arrival 1 In this 
 case how many states will be the collectors of the duty 1 And un- 
 der whose direction is the amount to be concentrated and expended 1 
 And what are the responsibilities for its application by the collecting 
 states 1 But supposing a collector's office established on the shore 
 near the obstructions, reinforced by a battery sufficient to compel 
 the vessels to come to and pay their duties, are these to be collected 
 by the agents of the state of Michigan, and to be expended by them 
 or other agents under the regulations of the state 1 How long, is 
 it probable such a system of exactions would be submitted to by the 
 states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New-York, 
 whose citizens and vessels would be the subjects of this operation 1 
 
 The same question may be put in relation to duties levied by any 
 State bordering on the Mississippi, to remove the snags and other 
 obstructions in that river, opposite their respective territories. The 
 several States of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Ten- 
 nessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, have jurisdiction over 
 portions of that river, and it is presumed that in each of those portions 
 there are obstructions of some kind requiring removal. Are tonnage 
 duties for these purposes to be levied by each of those States? As
 
 32 
 
 their jurisdictions extend to the thread of the river, would there not 
 be some difficulty in adjusting the work to be performed, among the 
 States opposite to the obstructions to be removed'? For fear of 
 overcharging the picture, we will say nothing of the interminable 
 discussions likely to arise respecting the faithful and judicious ap- 
 plication, by the agents of the individual States, of the duties col- 
 lected, to the destined purpose. If the wit of man were taxed to 
 devise a scheme utterly destructive of all trade, commerce and na- 
 vigation upon these waters, a better one for the purpose than this, 
 of artificially obstructing them by hosts of collectors of tonnage 
 duties imposed by local legislation, could not be framed. 
 
 Allow us to refresh the memories of those who have forgotten the 
 consequences of such a system, which prevailed under the articles 
 of confederation and before the adoption of the Constitution, by a 
 few quotations from Mr. Madison's introduction to the debates of 
 the Convention. " The same want of a general power over com- 
 merce, (he observes,) led to an exercise of the power separately by 
 the States, which not only proved abortive, but engendered rival, 
 conflicting and angry regulations. Besides the vain attempts to 
 supply their respective treasuries by imposts, which turned their com- 
 merce into the neighboring ports, * * "* the States having ports 
 for foreign commerce, taxed and irritated the adjoining States tra- 
 ding through them." " In sundry instances, the navigation laws 
 treated the citizens of other States as aliens." "New Jersey, 
 placed between Philadelphia and New-York, was likened to a cask 
 tapped at both ends ; and North Carolina, between Virginia and 
 South Carolina, to a patient bleeding at both arms. 5 ' 
 
 What could be more disastrous, or more lamentable, than a re- 
 turn to these interfering, unneighborly and intolerable exactiens of 
 the States'? The Union itself was formed, and the Constitution 
 was adopted, for the express purpose of closing up forever these 
 sources of animosity and discord, and these injurious impediments 
 to intercourse between different parts of our country, as the cotem- 
 poraneovs history abundantly shows. 
 
 Nor are we without the experience of other countries upon this 
 same subject of local duties. In the 22d number of the " Federal- 
 ist," an account of that system was given, for the purpose of exci- 
 ting the attention of the American people to its dangers and its 
 evils, and thus disposing them to adopt the new Constitution, then 
 under discussion. It is as follows : " The commerce of the German
 
 33 
 
 Empire is in continual trammels, from the multiplicity of the duties 
 which the several princes and States exact upon the merchandise 
 passing through their territories, by means of which the fine streams 
 and navigable rivers with which Germany is so happily watered, are 
 rendered almost useless." The absurdity of the system has since in- 
 duced several German States to attempt a remedy ; and they have es- 
 tablished a Zoll Verein or commercial union, now consisting of eigh- 
 teen States, who, by a delegated council, impose one set of duties upon 
 the intercourse and trade of the combined States, by land, with other 
 countries, which are collected on the frontiers and distributed among 
 these States, in a prescribed proportion. Still suffering, however, 
 under the numerous and vexatious duties which impede the com- 
 merce carried on upon their rivers, they have been striving for years 
 to apply the American principle of union to their navigable 
 waters also, and nationalise them by one tariff of duties, for the be- 
 nefit of the whole. And the opportunity which has recently been 
 presented of accomplishing an object of such deep interest and 
 warm desire among the intelligent men of the country, will unques- 
 tionably be improved to the utmost. What a singular, and may we 
 not say humiliating spectacle, would our Republic present to the 
 world, if we were now to retrograde to a system of local duties 
 similar to those established in barbarous ages, by petty despots, and 
 maintained by feudal violence and oppression 1 
 
 It is no answer to say, that these evils are obviated by the control 
 given to Congres, by which injustice would be prevented. The 
 system itself contemplates multitudinous duties of tonnage, by all 
 the States having navigable waters requiring improvement ; a posi- 
 tive and intolerable burden, by whatever authority imposed or sanc- 
 tioned. Besides, the efforts to obtain the sanction of Congress to 
 the various projects of the States, wouM at once introduce a new 
 progeny of incalculable evils. The halls of legislation would become 
 the theatres of conflict, by States contending for their peculiar inte- 
 rests ; and the system of combinations, so much dreaded in reference 
 to appropriations by Congress, would be the only system by which 
 the tonnage duties of States would be established. In order to 
 prevent the inequalities which would induce preferences between 
 the ports of the large States holding the keys of communication to 
 the interior, the duties at such ports must be regulated by those 
 States with a view to equality, and this would be the first step to 
 
 5
 
 34 
 
 an inevitable organised combination between them, by which they 
 would tax for their own benefit the products and the industry of 
 their neighbors, under the pretext of improving navigation, by ex- 
 penditures over which those neighbors, from the very nature of the 
 case, could have no control. In this conflict, what are the proba- 
 bilities of the success of any efforts that might be made by the 
 small and interior States, to resist oppression 1 It is unnecessary 
 to follow out the consequences of such a system. The worst pre- 
 dictions of Patrick Henry and his associate opponents of the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution, would be more than realised. In the view of 
 these disastrous results, it is difficult to give too broad a construction 
 to that provision of the Constitution already quoted, which declares, 
 that vessels bound from or to one State, shall never be compelled 
 to pay duties in another. 
 
 An idea seems to be entertained that these tonnage duties would 
 be paid only by the owners of the shipping on which they were 
 levied. Nothing can be more fallacious ; every cent of duty or toll 
 levied upon the means of transportation, enhances the price of 
 the produce transported, and is paid by its owners or consumers. 
 If the competition in the particular article is such that its price can 
 not exceed a certain maximum, then every new imposition is a tax 
 upon the producer, who cannot be repaid for the additional charge ; 
 but if the state of the market allows the producer to fix his own 
 price, then the consumer pays every item of the cost of bringing 
 the article to his hands. So that in the present state of our trade, 
 by the system of local tonnage duties, the agricultural and mechani- 
 cal interests of the interior, forming, as they do, the great mass of 
 producers and consumers, would pay the duties levied for the im- 
 provement of any navigable waters or of any harbors. And thus, 
 it will be seen, how unsound is the theory which has been ad- 
 vanced, that these local tonnage duties would be collected M from 
 the commerce of the ports which are to profit by the improvements." 
 Although in the first instance paid by that commerce, yet, as has 
 been shown, they are ultimately taken out of the pockets of the 
 people at large. And as the appropriations for such improve- 
 ments, made by Congress, must come from the same source, the 
 question at last comes to this point, — shall the means for making 
 them be obtained under the local legislation of the States, sanc- 
 tioned by Congress, and expended by those States through their own 
 agents and without responsibility to the whole; or shall they be ob-
 
 35 
 
 tained by the direct consent of the representatives of all who are to 
 pay them, be applied in the mode best calculated to promote the 
 common and general interests of the whole, instead of the local in- 
 terests of one or a few, and be expended and controlled under the au- 
 thority of the government that represents all the States, with the as- 
 sistance of the skill, experience and independence of agents which 
 that government only can supply 1 
 
 It is emphatically remarked in No. 40 of the Federalist, that "the 
 rights to the fisheries, to the navigation of the lakes and to that of 
 the Msssissippi, are rights of the Union," as contradistinguished 
 from the rights of particular States. They are indeed national rights, 
 they belong to the whole Union, to each and every State, and to 
 every citizen. This right, in relation to the lakes and the Missis- 
 sippi, has been consecrated by the compacts and acts to which we 
 have already referred ; — national in its very nature, it would be a 
 gross dereliction of duty in the Federal Government, to subject it 
 in any form, immediately or remotely, to the action of any State. 
 
 It is a grievous mistake to suppose that this glorious Union was 
 formed only to produce a unity of political interests. Almost every 
 page of the Debates in the Convention and the writings of those 
 w T ho defended the Constitution, proclaims that a unity of commercial 
 interests was equally the object of its formation. Indeed, the dangers 
 to be apprehended from commercial conflicts, were far greater than 
 those which could arise from any other source ; and the political 
 organization was in itself chiefly desirable, because it combined, 
 regulated and controlled the conflicting commercial interests of the 
 different States. 
 
 No man can cast his eye over the map of the United States, with- 
 out being struck by the wonderful physical adaptation of its surface 
 to the Union under one government of the people inhabiting it; a 
 union that should rest not so much upon constitutions and compacts 
 as upon social and commercial interests and feelings, as expansive 
 as the wants and affections of man, and as durable as time. Reach- 
 ing from ocean to ocean, extending through the temperate into the 
 torrid zone, it presents such a variety of climate and soil, such ad- 
 mirable proportions of land and water, as afford an infinite diver- 
 sity of employment for labor and enterprise, and must forever pre- 
 vent their undue absorption by any one or by a few objects of 
 culture, while they insure the production of the various elements 
 of subsistence, clothing, and even ot luxurious indulgence, without
 
 36 
 
 resort to any other country. And no country on the face of the 
 globe presents greater capacities for the interchange of these produc- 
 tions. Not to dwell on the widespread expanse fed and watered by 
 the Mississippi and its navigable confluents, where can be found a 
 commercial parallel for its own gigantic course, reaching from the 
 Gulf of Mexico 2300 miles to the northwest, where we behold 
 one of its branches within thirty miles of the river Iroquois, 
 which empties into Lake Superior ; passing down the most extra- 
 ordinary chain of lakes in the known world, 1500 miles to the St. 
 Lawrence, and through that noble river 1000 miles we reach the 
 ocean, through a circuit of 5000 miles. These great conduits 
 — the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence — are supplied by innume- 
 rable streams intersecting the whole country in every direction, 
 which may be connected at various points with each other, or with 
 other navigable waters leading to the Atlantic, forming new circuits 
 and channels, and affording water communication to every portion 
 of the Union, capable of bearing freights more conducive to the 
 prosperity of our people than rivers of gold. Immense as this view 
 is, it is but a foretaste of what may be anticipated, when the bound- 
 less regions now opening to our view in the West and the South 
 shall be thronged with the myriads destined to occupy them. 
 
 As the true and sure foundation of our government, is in the in- 
 terests and affections of the people, what more noble and holy duty 
 remains to the statesman, than that of completing and perfecting 
 what nature has begun, and giving to our navigable waters their full 
 political power in binding together one brotherhood of freemen? By 
 intercourse the most cheap and unrestrained, and by that alone, can 
 the intelligence and sentiment of the country be brought into con- 
 tact — interests and affections commingled — mountains of prejudice 
 removed, and one genial spirit of common sympathy be diffused 
 throughout the land. 
 
 And shall this vast movement of commerce and intercourse be 
 checked and obstructed by shoals, bars, snags and driftwood, that are 
 mere pigmy obstacles, when compared with the resources of the United 
 States, or with the immense amount of trade which they clog and im- 
 pede 1 
 
 The whole amount of the appropriations hitherto made by Con- 
 gress, during nearly sixty years, for works calculated to facilitate 
 internal trade, is less than eighteen millions of dollars — but little 
 more than half of your annual revenue, and probably not equal to 
 three months expenditures in waging a foreign war ! And is this
 
 37 
 
 the fulfilment of the mission of civilization, liberty, peace, and pros- 
 perity to all, which our Fathers undertook under the smiles of hea- 
 ven 1 Was our government made only to furnish place, office and 
 honors to a few, and to afford subjects for political metaphysics ? 
 or was it created for the mighty mass of minds and souls that up- 
 hold it — to afford them protection not only in the enjoyment of po- 
 litical rights, but in the enjoyment and improvement of the bounties 
 of Nature % Every obstruction in a navigable river, every impedi- 
 ment to the entrance of an harbor, enhances the cost of transporta- 
 tion, and to that extent becomes a burden upon the products of labor, 
 and diminishes their value ; and thus causes a dead loss to the whole 
 community. And while the nation suffers by this diminution of its 
 capital, the loss falls most heavily on those very classes who com- 
 pose three-fourths of our population, whose industry and enterprise 
 constitute our wealth in peace and our defence in war. 
 
 In no one subject, therefore, are the masses more deeply interest- 
 ed than that which relates to their safe and easy intercourse ; and 
 none embraces more persons or greater interests. It is the most 
 essential element in all the calculations of business and in all the 
 arrangments of life. Would it not be most extraordinary, if it were 
 true, that such a subject should be wholly unprovided for in the or- 
 ganization of our governments ; and still more, that those govern- 
 ments should be absolutely interdicted from providing in any way 
 for this first want of civilized man ? And yet, such is the inevitable 
 result, if the theories which we have combatted are sound. It is 
 certain, that by the operation of the Constitution, and of compacts 
 which cannot be infringed, all jurisdiction over foreign commerce, 
 and also over commerce among the States, so far as the principal 
 navigable waters are concerned, is denied to the States severally or 
 to two or more of them united by an alliance for that purpose. The 
 means and funds arising from commerce, and rightfully applicable 
 to its protection and assistance, have been surrendered by the States 
 to the Federal Government, and they have neither the power 
 nor the means to meet the exigency. And yet, it is contended, that 
 the Federal Government is stripped of all authority to supply the 
 funds thus surrendered, even for the purpose of augmenting its re- 
 venues by facilitating and enlarging the commerce that produces 
 them ! For you need not be told that your foreign and domestic com- 
 merce are one and indissoluble ; that without exports you can have 
 no importations, and of course no revenues from imposts. And yet 
 it is gravely maintained that the national arm is paralyzed, so that
 
 38 
 
 it cannot raise a ringer to remove a sandbar or dig a trench, which 
 would release annually millions upon millions of the products of 
 your soil, and float them to every market of the world to purchase 
 these exchanges. 
 
 The objection that the grant of power " to regulate commerce " 
 does not authorise appropriations merely to facilitate it, — to render 
 it more safe and convenient, — it is obvious, applies to all kinds of 
 commerce equally; to that with foreign nations, to that among the 
 states, and to that with the Indian tribes. And it applies also, to 
 every species and degree of facility. If you may build a' public 
 pier, you may build two and clear the entrance of a harbor ; if you 
 may survey your coasts to ascertain the sunken rocks or other hidden 
 dangers to navigation, and may erect a buoy or a light-house, or 
 station a light boat, to warn the mariner of those dangers, surely 
 you may remove the rocks themselves, or deepen the shoals that 
 cause the danger. No subtlety can distinguish them in principle. 
 And the true issue is, whether you will repudiate the construction 
 so universally given in this and all other cases, to the power " to re- 
 gulate," and abandon the system for the improvement of the Indian 
 tribes, — renounce the authority to constitute territorial governments 
 and provide for the wants of the citizens subjected to them, — and 
 give up your coast surveys, your buoys, light-houses and public 
 piers, as subjects altogether beyond your competency; or whether you 
 will faithfully and fairly apply the principles coeval with our gov- 
 ernment, which have been sanctioned by the most severe of the 
 strict-construction school, and by the whole people in repeated in- 
 stances, to objects and cases clearly and palpably within the range 
 of those principles 1 The question upon this issue can meet but one 
 response ; it never has met but one response, when public senti- 
 ment has been permitted to speak through its representatives ; and 
 that response has been and ever will be, that the general govern- 
 ment not only has the right, but is bound by every principle of good 
 faith, to apply the common funds of the nation to those improvements 
 of the means of intercourse which are beyond the power or the 
 means of the states. The expression of that sentiment may have 
 been temporarily stifled by false alarms or by combinations of party 
 interests, deemed at the time paramount to other considerations. 
 But when these transient clouds have passed away, it has burst forth 
 over and over again in all its effulgence and strength. The conven- 
 tion whose proceedings we transmit, furnishes a memorable proof, 
 which no hardihood can question, of the universality and strength of
 
 39 
 
 that sentiment. It was sufficient to absorb all party impulses, to 
 defy all political organizations, and to unite on one common platform 
 of faith and of action, multitudes from a large majority of the states 
 of this Union who probably never before agreed upon any subject. 
 
 And we cannot forbear calling your attention to the stern lan- 
 guage in which that Convention rebuked and disavowed every at- 
 tempt to connect the cause of internal trade and " commerce among 
 the States," with the fortunes of any political party. It was the lan- 
 guage of truth and of manly firmness and sincerty. But the same 
 resolution displays the fixed determination of our constituents to 
 press on and persevere in their efforts, regardless of party ties and 
 associations, until the principles which they proclaimed, shall be re- 
 established and recognised by all parties as the great elements of 
 the political and social vitality of these confederated States. 
 
 We appeal to you, representatives of the people and of the states, 
 to represent and reflect faithfully those deep seated sentiments of that 
 people, to satisfy their just and reasonable wants, to consult their 
 vital interests, to perform a plain duty under the constitution, to re- 
 deem the faith plighted at its adoption, and to pursue firmly and 
 steadily the path marked out by our wise and patriotic fathers. We 
 and those whom we represent, ask not a reckless course of extrava- 
 gant appropriations for internal improvements. We deprecate it, 
 not only for its folly and wickedness, but because it would be most 
 fatal to the continuance of just and reasonable expenditures. We 
 are aware that the objects which will be presented to your attention 
 are numerous and various, but this only proves how great and press- 
 ing is the necessity of your action. Many of these objects are equal- 
 ly worthy, but there are some which on account of the magnitude of 
 the commerce concerned, the difficulties and expenses of the under- 
 taking, or other peculiar causes, may justly challenge priority of 
 consideration. Plans for the gradual accomplishment of the most 
 important objects in just and regular succession, by moderate appro- 
 priations, have been laid before Congress. Let these plans be pur- 
 sued, while promiscuous and desultory expenditures are carefully 
 avoided. Let the sanction of the disinterested, able and scientific 
 corps of Topographical Engineers, already provided for the purpose, 
 be required to every plan of improvement after thorough investiga- 
 tion of its merits, and let rigid estimates of its expenses be submit- 
 ted, before it be undertaken, that all may judge of the proportion 
 between its cost and its value.
 
 40 
 
 And having thus provided the sure means of detecting useless of 
 frivolous projects or those requiring inordinate expenditures, there 
 can be no danger of combinations to execute them, which will not 
 be met and overcome by the honesty, disinterestedness and intelli- 
 gence of the American Congress. The people are willing to trust 
 their Representatives — let not those Representatives exhibit to the 
 world the spectacle of refusing to trust themselves. 
 
 Signed^ by and in behalf of the members of the Executive 
 Committee of the Chicago Convention, 
 May, 1848. 
 
 ABBOT LAWRENCE, 
 JOHN MILLS, 
 JOHN C. SPENCER, 
 SAMUEL B. RUGGLES, 
 JAMES T. MOREHEAD, 
 JACOB G. SLEIGHT, 
 ZEBULON BAIRD, 
 THOMAS ALLEN, 
 JOSEPH M. CONVERSE, 
 ALEXANDER DUNCAN, 
 ZACHARIAH ALLEN, 
 GEORGE C. STONE, 
 WM. B. EWING, 
 JAMES HALL, 
 JOSEPH L. WEATHERLY, 
 THOMAS W. WILLIAMS, 
 PHILIP RIPLEY,- 
 T. I. BIG HAM, 
 JOHN B. JOHNSON, 
 RUFUS KING, 
 CYRUS WOODMAN, 
 T.HOS. BUTLER KING, 
 WM. B. HODGSON, 
 J. G. CAMP, 
 JOSEPH R. WILLIAMS, 
 DAVID A. NOBLE, 
 CHARLES JARVIS, 
 GEORGE EVANS, 
 DAVID J. BAKER, 
 JESSE B. THOMAS, 
 CHARLES KING, 
 L. KIRKPATRICK, 
 JAMES WILSON, 
 JOHN PAGE, 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 New- York. 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Connecticut. 
 
 Pennsylvania, 
 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 Georgia. 
 Florida. 
 Michigan. 
 
 Maine. 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 New Jersey. 
 
 New Hampshire.
 
 41 
 
 At a meeting of the delegates from different parts of the Union, in 
 Convention, held at Chicago, in the State of Illinois, pursuant to 
 public notice, on the fifth day of July, 1847. 
 
 President, 
 EDWARD BATES, of Missouri, 
 
 Vice Presidents, 
 
 John H. Brockway, Connecticut. 
 John G. Camp, Florida^ 
 T. Butler King, Georgia. 
 E. W. H. Ellis, Indiana. 
 Charles S. Hempstead, Illinois. 
 G. H. Williams, Iowa. 
 M. A. Chandler, Maine. 
 Wm. T. Eustis, Massachusetts. 
 Wm. Woodbridge, Michigan. 
 N. W. Watkins, Missouri. 
 Erastus Corning, New-York. 
 Littleton Kirkpatrick, New Jersey * 
 Francis S. Fiske, New Hampshire. 
 William Bebb, Ohio, 
 Andrew M. Loomis, Pennsylvania. 
 Hamilton Hopper, Rhode Island. 
 John H. Tweedy, Wisconsin. 
 
 Secretaries, 
 
 Schuyler Colfax, Indiana. 
 Aaron Hobart, Massachusetts. 
 Francis U. Fenno, New-York. 
 William J. Otis, Ohio. 
 Henry W. Starr, Iowa. 
 Neilson G. Edwards, Illinois. 
 t>avid A. Noble, Michigan. 
 Peter McMartin, New Jersey. 
 Frederick S. Lovell, Wisconsin. 
 A. B. Chambers, Missouri. 
 
 The following resolution was proposed and adopted : 
 Resolved, That a committee of two from each State and Territory 
 represented in this Convention, be appointed by the President, to 
 
 6
 
 42 
 
 prepare and report such resolutions as they may recommend to be 
 adopted by this Convention. 
 
 July 6, 1847. 
 The President announced the following as the committee on reso- 
 lutions, appointed under the resolution of yesterday : 
 
 John C. Wright and J. W. Gray, of Ohio. 
 George A. Kuhn and Artemus Lee, Massachusetts. 
 Wm. Woodbridge and Calvin Britain, Michigan. 
 Daniel Mace and Andrew I. Osborn, Indiana. 
 John C. Spencer and Alvin Bronson, New-York. 
 John D. Cook and Fletcher M. Haight, Missouri. 
 T. J. Bigham and J. C. Marshall, Pennsylvania. 
 Jesse B. Thomas and David J. Baker, Illinois. 
 N. P. Talmadge and J. D. Kingsland, Wisconsin. 
 N. O. Kellogg and Joel W. Wnite, Connecticut. 
 M. A. Chandler and F. B. Stockbridge, Maine. 
 John G. Camp, Florida. 
 
 T. Butler King and Wm. B. Hodgson, Georgia. 
 George H. Williams and N. L. Stout, Iowa. 
 H. C. Blackbourne and T. H. Crawford, Kentucky. 
 Edward Seagrave and Hamilton Hopper, Rhode Island. 
 Roswell L. Colt and Charles King, Xew Jersey. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day, Mr. John C. Wright, of Ohio, 
 from the committee on resolutions, presented the following for the 
 consideration of the Convention, and on moving its adoption, in- 
 formed the Convention that the committee had been unanimous in 
 recommending the propositions presented by him in their behalf. 
 
 W'hereupon the question having been stated on each proposition 
 distinctly, and the same having been debated and amended, they 
 were adopted as follows, all of them unanimously, with the excep- 
 tion of the last clause of the fifth proposition ; and an executive 
 committee of two from each State and Territory was appointed, to 
 transmit the proceedings of the Convention to the President of the 
 of the United States and to both houses oi Congress, and to com- 
 municate to them such information as the committee may collect, to 
 grade intelligent and just legislation :
 
 43 
 
 Declaration of Sentiments. 
 
 The convention submit to their fellow citizens and to the federal 
 government the following propositions, as expressing their own sen- 
 timents and those of their constituents : 
 
 First. That the Constitution of the United States was framed by 
 practical men, for practical purposes, declared in its preamble, "To 
 provide for the common defence, to promote the general welfare, 
 and to secure the blessings of Liberty," and was mainly designed to 
 create a government whose functions should and would be adequate 
 to the protection of the common interests of all the States, or of 
 two or more of them, which could not be maintained by the action 
 of the separated States. That in strict accordance with this object, 
 the revenues derived from commerce were surrendered to the Gen- 
 eral Government, with the express understanding that they should 
 be applied to the promotion of those common interests. 
 
 Second. That among these common interests and objects were : 
 1st. Foreign .Commerce, to the regulation of which the powers of 
 the States severally were confessedly inadequate, and 2nd, internal 
 trade and navigation, wherever the concurrence of two or more states 
 was necessary to its preservation, or where the expense of its main- 
 tenance should be equitably borne by two or more States, and where 
 of course, those States must necessarily have a voice in its regula- 
 tion ; and hence resulted the constitutional grant of power to Con- 
 gress, " to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the 
 States." 
 
 Third. That being thus possessed both of the means and of the 
 power which were denied to the States respectively, Congress be- 
 came obligated by every consideration of good faith and common 
 justice, to cherish and increase, both the kinds of commerce thus 
 committed to its care, by expanding and extending the means of 
 conducting them, and of affording them all those facilities and all 
 that protection which the States ivdividually would have afforded, 
 had the revenue and the authority been left to them. 
 
 Fourth. That this obligation has ever been recognized from the 
 foundation of the government, and has been fulfilled partially, by 
 erecting light-houses, building piers for harbors, break-waters and 
 sea-walls, removing obstructions in rivers, and providing other facili- 
 ties for the commerce carried on from the ports of the Atlantic coast :
 
 44 
 
 and the same obligations have been fulfilled to a much less extent 
 in providing similar facilities for "commerce among the States," and 
 that the principle has been most emphatically acknowledged to em- 
 brace the Western Lakes and Rivers, by appropriations for numer- 
 ous light-houses upon them, which appropriations have never been 
 questioned in Congress as wanting constitutional authority. 
 
 Fifth. That thus by a series of acts which have received the sanc- 
 tion of the people of the United States, and of every department of 
 the Federal Government, under all administrations, the common un- 
 derstanding of the intent and objects of the framers of the Consti- 
 tution, in granting to Congress the power to regulate commerce, has 
 been munifested and has been confirmed by the People, and this 
 understanding has become as much a part of that instrument as any 
 one of its most explicit provisions. 
 
 Sixth. That the power " to regulate commerce with foreign na- 
 tions, and among the States, and with the Indian tribes," is on its 
 face so palpably applicable in its whole extent to each of the sub- 
 jects enumerated, equally and in the same manner, as to render any 
 attempts to make it more explicit, idle and futile; and that those who 
 admit the rightful application of the power to Foreign Commerce in 
 facilitating and protecting its operations, by improving harbors and 
 clearing out navigable rivers, cannot consistently deny that it equal- 
 ly authorizes similar facilities to ' Commerce among the States.' 
 
 Seventh. That " Foreign Commerce" is dependent upon internal 
 trade for the distribution of its freights, and for the means of paying 
 for them, so that whatever improves the one advances the other, and 
 they are so inseparable that they should be regarded as one. That 
 an export from the American shore to a British port in Canada, is as 
 much foreign commerce as if it had been directly to Liverpool. And 
 that an exportation to Liverpool neither gains or loses any of the 
 characteristics of foreign commerce by the directness or circuity of 
 the route, whether it passes through a custom house on the British 
 side of the St. Lawrence, or descends through that river and its con- 
 necting canals to the ocean; or whether it passes along the artificial 
 communications and natural streams of any of the States to the At- 
 lantic. 
 
 Eighth. That the General Government, by extending its jurisdic- 
 tion over Lakes and navigable Rivers, subjecting them to the same 
 laws which prevail on the ocean, and on its bays and ports, not only 
 for purposes of revenue, but to give security to life and property, by 
 the regulation of steamboats, has precluded itself from denying that
 
 45 
 
 jurisdiction for any other legitimate regulation of commerce. If it 
 has power to control and restrain, it must have the same power to 
 protect, assist and facilitate 5 and if it denies the jurisdiction in the 
 one mode of action, it should renounce it in the other. 
 
 Ninth. That in consequence of the peculiar dangers of the navi- 
 gation of the Lakes, arising from the want of harhors for shelter, 
 and of the Western Rivers, from snags and other obstructions, there 
 are no parts of the United States more emphatically demanding the 
 prompt and continued care of the Government to diminish those 
 dangers, and to protect the life and property exposed to them ; and 
 that any one who can regard provisions for those purposes as sec- 
 tional or local, and not national, must be wanting in information of 
 the extent of the commerce carried on upon those lakes and rivers, 
 and of the amount of teeming population occupied or interested in 
 that navigation. 
 
 Tenth. That having regard to the relative population or to the ex- 
 tent of commerce, the appropriations heretofore made for the interior 
 rivers and lakes, and the streams connecting them with the ocean, 
 have not been in a just and fair proportion to those made for the 
 benefit of the Atlantic coast ; and that the time has arrived when 
 this injustice should be corrected, in the only mode in which it can 
 be done — by the united, determined and presevering efforts of those 
 whose rights have been overlooked. 
 
 Eleventh. That independent of this right to protection of " Com- 
 merce among the States", the right of "common defence", guar- 
 anteed by the Constitution, entitles those citizens inhabiting the 
 country bordering upon the interior lakes and rivers to such safe and 
 convenient harbors as may afford shelter to a navy, whenever it 
 shall be rendered necessary by hostilities with our neighbors ; and 
 that the construction of such harbors cannot safely be delayed to the 
 time which will demand their immediate use. 
 
 Twelfth. That the argument most commonly urged against ap- 
 propriations to protect "Commerce among the States," and to de- 
 fend the inhabitants of the frontiers, that they invite sectional com- 
 binations to insure success to many unworthy objects, is founded on 
 a practical distrust of the Republican principles of our government, 
 and of the capacity of the people to select competent and honest 
 representatives. That it may be urged with equal force against le- 
 gislation upon any other subject, involving various and extensive 
 interests. That a just appreciation of the rights and interests of all 
 our fellow citizens, in every quarter of the Union, disclaiming selfish
 
 46 
 
 and local purposes, will lead intelligent representatives to such a 
 distribution of the means in the Treasury, upon a system of mode- 
 ration and ultimate equality, as will in time meet the most urgent 
 wants of all, and prevent those jealousies and suspicions which 
 threaten the most serious danger to our confederacy. 
 
 Thirteenth. That we are utterly incapable of perceiving the diffe- 
 rence between a harbor for shelter and a harbor for commerce, and 
 suppose that a mole or pier which will afford safe anchorage and 
 protection to a vessel against a storm, must necessarily improve 
 such harbor, and adapt it to commercial purposes. 
 
 Fourteenth. That the imposts on foreign goods and the public 
 lands being the common heritage of all our citizens, so long as these 
 resources continue, the imposition of any special burden on any 
 portion of the people, to obtain the means of accomplishing objects 
 equally within the duty and the competency of the General Govern- 
 ment, would be unjust and oppressive. 
 
 Fifteenth. That we disavow all and every attempt to connect 
 the cause of internal trade and "Commerce among the States," with 
 the fortunes of any political party j but that we mean to place that 
 cause upon such immutable principles of truth, justice and consti- 
 tutional duty, as shall command the respect of all parties, and the 
 deference of all candidates for public favor.