The Government’s Attitude Toward River Improvement.
—The individual states had been encouraging turnpikes, canals, and other interior improvements by subscribing and underwriting stock in private companies authorized to build and operate the improvements. Frequently monopolies were granted to operating companies.[78] States were jealous of each other and hesitated to appropriate money for improvements which would inure to the benefit of another state, and frequently an improvement in one state was worthless unless joining improvements could be made in neighboring states. Many men, believing in a large and unified nation rather than a confederation of several small nations advocated governmental action. Strict constitutionalists and states’ rights men objected. President Madison had vetoed Calhoun’s Bonus Bill for roads and canals upon the ground that the constitution did not vest Congress with power to undertake such improvements.[79] Calhoun had used all the power of his great eloquence based upon the “common defense and general welfare” clause of the constitution in favor of such improvements. He considered it the duty of Congress to “bind the republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals.” He exclaimed that the very extent of the country “exposes us to the greatest of all calamities,—next to the loss of liberty,—and even to that in its consequences—disunion. We are great, and rapidly—I was about to say fearfully growing. This is our pride and our danger; our weakness and our strength. We are under the most imperious obligation to counteract every tendency to disunion.... Whatever impedes the intercourse of the extremes with this, the center of the Republic, weakens the Union.”[80]
Monroe’s first message indicated that he followed Madison in the belief that Congress was not empowered by the constitution to establish internal improvements; and later he vetoed a measure to authorize the president to erect toll houses along the Cumberland Road, appoint toll gatherers and otherwise regulate its use, on the ground that it exceeded the power of congress. He favored internal improvements but thought a constitutional amendment necessary.[81]
The next year, however, some bills for internal improvements got through among them the first act for the improvement of harbors. In 1802, under the influence of Gallatin, Randolph and Jefferson, 5 per cent of the Ohio lands sold were appropriated for the building of roads.[82] In 1809 was passed the first act for river improvement.[83]
These were the beginnings of National aid for internal improvements in the United States. The “implied powers” adherents seem to have been in the ascendency for a report of the treasurer shows that up to 1830 the United States had appropriated for internal improvements—Cumberland Road, $2,443,420.20; subscriptions to canal stock and improvements of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, $1,263,315.65; for other items such as building of piers, preservation of ports and piers, making roads and removing river obstructions, $1,603,694.31. It was pointed out that only $234,955.92[84] had been expended in the territories where the question of constitutionality did not arise. Presidents had nearly always declared in favor of internal improvements but desired that constitutional provision be made for the same. Jackson, a strong state sovereignty man, suggested that the surplus funds of the Government be distributed among the several states in proportion to their representation in Congress; and in 1830 vetoed a bill for subscription to the stock of one canal and pocketed others, and closed his administration by pocketing a bill for the improvement of the Wabash River. While Jackson’s attitude checked federal appropriations, especially for roads and canals, those for rivers and harbors became almost a national scandal, and were with other public appropriation bills frequently referred to as “pork bills.” A congressional appropriation, whether for rivers and harbors, a federal building, or an irrigation project, brought considerable money into a state; it was considered a feather in the cap of a congressman and enhanced his chances for reelection. Consequently nearly every congressman introduced such an act for his district and “log-rolling” schemes were entered into by many to procure their passage. River and harbor appropriations continued to increase until 1882, when they amounted to the vast sum of $18,743,875 to be applied to some 500 different localities. President Arthur[85] vetoed the bill, but Congress passed it over the veto and the “barrel of pork” was divided up as usual. The publicity given the matter checked appropriations for a while but they soon climbed higher than ever. The appropriation for the fiscal year of 1920 was $33,378,364.[86]