Society in America, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Harriet Martineau

President Jackson's course on the subject has not been very consistent. Before his election, he always voted for internal improvements, going so far as to advocate subscriptions by government to the stock of private canal companies, and the formation of roads beginning and ending within the limits of particular States. In his message at the opening of the first Congress after his accession, he proposed the division of the surplus revenue among the States, as a substitute for the promotion of internal improvements by the general government. He attempted a limitation and distinction too difficult and important to be settled and acted upon on the judgment and knowledge of one man;—a distinction between general and local objects. It is manifestly impossible to draw the line with any precision. The whole Union is benefited by the Erie canal, though it lies wholly within the limits of the State of New York; and a thousand positions of circumstances may be imagined by which local advantages may become general, and general local, so as to confound the limitation altogether. At any rate, the judgment and knowledge of any individual, or any cabinet, are obviously unequal to the maintenance of such a distinction.

In 1829 and 1830, the President advocated such an amendment of the constitution as would authorise Congress to apply the surplus revenue to certain specified objects, involving the general good; and he strongly objected to the general government exercising a power, considered by him unconstitutional, merely because there was a quantity of money in the treasury which must be disposed of. He has since changed his opinion, and believes that less evil would be incurred by even suddenly reducing the revenue to the amount of the wants of the government, than by conferring on the general government immense means of patronage, and opportunity for corrupt and wasteful expenditure.

These changes of opinion in President Jackson prove nothing so clearly as the great difficulty of the subject. It is, however, so pressing and so important that, notwithstanding its difficulty, it must be settled before long.

The opposing arguments seem to me to be these.

The advocates of a concession to Congress of the power of conducting internal improvements plead, with regard to the constitutionality of the power, that it is conferred by the clauses which authorise Congress to make post-roads: to regulate commerce between the States: to make and carry on war; (and therefore to have roads by which to transport troops;) to lay taxes, to pay the debts, and provide for the general welfare of the United States: and to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect its constitutional powers.

The answer is, that to derive from these clauses any countenance of the practice of spending without limit the public funds, for objects which any present government may declare to be for the general welfare, is an obvious straining of the instrument: that, by such methods, the constitution may be made to authorise the spending of any amount whatever, for any purpose whatever: that it is the characteristic of the constitution to specify the powers given to Congress with a nicety which is wholly inconsistent with such a boundless conveyance of power as is here presumed: and that, accordingly, the permission to lay taxes, to pay the debts, and provide for the general welfare of the United States, is limited as to its objects by the preceding specifications: and that, finally, the powers allotted to the State governments exclude the supposition that Congress is authorised to assume such territorial jurisdiction as it has been allowed to practise within the limits of the several States.

This last set of opinions appears to disinterested observers so obviously reasonable, that the wonder is how so weak a stand on the provisions of the constitution can have been maintained for any length of time. The reason is, that the pleas of expediency are so strong as to counterbalance the weakness of the constitutional argument. But, this being the case, the truly honest and patriotic mode of proceeding would be to add to the constitution by the means therein provided; instead of straining the instrument to accomplish an object which was not present to the minds of its framers.

The pleas of the advocates of Internal Improvements are these: that very extensive public works, designed for the benefit of the whole Union, and carried through vast portions of its area, must be accomplished: that an object so essential ought not to be left at the mercy of such an accident as the cordial agreement of the requisite number of States, to carry such works forward to their completion; that the surplus funds accruing from the whole nation cannot be so well employed as in promoting works by which the whole nation will be benefited: and that, as the interests of the majority have hitherto upheld Congress in the use of this power, it may be assumed to be the will of the majority that Congress should continue to exercise it.

The answer is, that it is inexpedient to put a vast and increasing patronage into the hands of the general government: that only a very superficial knowledge can be looked for in members of Congress as to the necessity or value of works proposed to be instituted in any parts of the States but those in which they are respectively interested: that endless jealousies would arise between the various States,[3] from the impossibility or undesirableness of equalising the amount of appropriation made to each: that useless works would be proposed from the spirit of competition, or individual interest:[4] and that corruption, co-extensive with the increase of power, would deprave the functions of the general government.