| The bill in the interests of the West. |
If we review the analysis of the vote in the House of Representatives we shall see that the entire West—taking the Appalachian range as the dividing line, for that period, between the East and the West—was for the bill, while the whole East, with the exception of Maryland, which was specially interested in the road, was either against it or indifferent to it. The Eastern Commonwealths had made their roads with Commonwealth money, and did not wish to assist the Western Commonwealths to make theirs by giving them national money with which to do it. The West, on the other hand, was new and comparatively poor, and wanted the nation to help it out of the mud. This is unquestionably the plain statement of the situation from the point of view of interests. The interests of slavery played but little part, if any at all, in the distribution of the vote.
| President Monroe's veto, and communication of May 4th, 1822. |
President Monroe promptly vetoed the bill, on the ground that it was in excess of the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. He also sent a communication, of the same date as the veto, to the House of Representatives, explaining his views upon those principles of the Constitution generally, and upon those provisions specially, which could be regarded as vesting powers in the general Government concerning internal improvements. The paper is prolix, confused, and confusing, but, upon the specific question at issue, the propositions advanced are definite and intelligible. He held that the power of Congress in regard to internal improvements was to be found in the Constitution only by implication, by implication from the power to appropriate money, and that, therefore, its nature and limitations were to be drawn from the character of the power to appropriate money. He contended, on the one side, that the power of Congress to appropriate money was not limited to the objects enumerated in the Constitution, but was, on the other side, limited by the spirit of the Constitution to national purposes. He concluded, therefore, that Congress was empowered to appropriate money to internal improvements of a national character. But he asserted that Congress could not, under the power to appropriate money, establish jurisdiction over such improvements, or authorize the executive department of the Government to administer them. The bill in question did just that, and it was for this reason that the President returned it with his objections.
| President Monroe's argument, and the vote upon the veto. |
The President's views were apparently convincing to many who had voted for the bill. Upon its passage, the vote in the House of Representatives was eighty-seven for, and sixty-eight against, the measure. After the veto, it stood sixty-eight yeas and seventy-two nays.
It may be safely assumed that the view expressed by President Monroe in the paper accompanying the veto of this bill was the view which prevailed throughout the country in the year 1824. It may be also said that the power of Congress to authorize the President to expend the appropriation by causing the improvements to be planned and constructed was generally regarded, in 1824, as a necessary consequence of the power to appropriate money for the same. The acts of Congress appropriating money for the construction and repair of roads, canals, etc., after, as well as before, that date, seem to proceed upon this theory.