The President drew no distinction between the power to construct internal improvements and the power to appropriate money for their construction, nor between such powers and the power to administer them, or to exercise jurisdiction over them. He regarded all, or any of these things, as unwarranted by the Constitution. He furthermore declared that the consent of the several Commonwealths to the exercise of such powers by the general Government could not make the exercise of them constitutional, unless that consent should be given in the form of an amendment to the Constitution.
The vote upon the vetoed bill in the House of Representatives manifested the fact that a substantial majority of that body remained unconvinced by the President's argument. It is reasonably certain that Mr. Madison's views were not the views of the country at that moment. A large majority of the people felt that he had abandoned his earlier faith in regard to this subject. An analysis of the vote upon the vetoed bill shows that New England was almost unanimous in opposing the measure; that Virginia and North Carolina also opposed it, though less decidedly; that New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Northwest, together with South Carolina and Georgia, favored it; and that Kentucky and Tennessee inclined to favor it. Certainly, down to 1817, no influence of the slavery interest upon the question of internal improvements is discoverable. It was evident that the general opinion was, that the middle Atlantic section and the Northwest would receive the larger share of the benefits of a national system of internal improvements. It was also evident that New England viewed the matter purely in that light, and that Virginia was impelled wholly by her ancient principle of strict construction of the powers of the general Government. It was South Carolina and Georgia whose actions appeared at this juncture to spring from unselfish and patriotic motives.
| The bill of 1822 for internal improvements. |
The third stage in the development of constitutional interpretation in reference to this subject was attained in the year 1822. In May of that year Congress passed a bill appropriating money for the repair of the Cumberland road, and authorizing the President to cause the erection of toll-gates upon it, and to appoint toll-gatherers. The toll charges, and penalties for attempting to avoid paying them, and for not keeping to the left in passing, were fixed in the bill itself. That is, this bill assumed for the general Government not only the powers of appropriating and expending money for the construction of the road, but the power of operating the road and jurisdiction over it. The passage of such a bill is certainly very good evidence that President Madison's views, as expressed in his veto message of March 3rd, 1817, were not the views of the country in 1822 upon the subject of internal improvements.
| Passage of the bill, and analysis of the vote upon it. |
It is interesting and instructive to analyze the vote upon this bill. In the House of Representatives the members from the New England section were nearly evenly divided, pro and con. The majority of the New Yorkers voted against it. The Pennsylvanians were nearly balanced. The Marylanders voted for it. The Virginians were against it by a decided majority. The North Carolinians were indifferent. The South Carolinians and Georgians abandoned their high national ground of 1817, and voted unanimously against it. The Representatives from the Northwest went unanimously for it; and those from Kentucky now wheeled into line with them. Lastly, while the Tennesseeans still maintained their attitude of indifference, the members from the Commonwealths south of Tennessee, and west of Georgia, all voted for the bill.
In the Senate the majority in favor of the measure was very large. Only the Senators from the Carolinas and Alabama, and one Senator from Missouri, voted against it.
There is somewhat more of an appearance of slavery influence in the vote upon this bill than upon the bill of 1817, in that South Carolina showed herself practically a unit against this bill. Still it is probable that this opposition rested upon other grounds. Certainly when we read in the "Annals of Congress," that so stanch a friend of free labor, so eminent a lawyer, and so honorable a man as John W. Taylor, of New York, said of this bill that it was so important in its character, and proposed such a violation of the Constitution, that he felt obliged to call for the yeas and nays upon it, we must concede that other motives may have influenced the statesmen of South Carolina than such as might have sprung from subserviency to the interests of slavery.