Debates in the Several State Conventions/Volume 4/Jackson's Turnpike Veto
OBJECTIONS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
ON RETURNING TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES THE ENROLLED BILL, ENTITLED
"AN ACT AUTHORIZING A SUBSCRIPTION OF STOCK IN THE MAYSVILLE, WASHINGTON, PARIS, AND LEXINGTON TURNPIKE ROAD COMPANY."
The constitutional power of the federal government to construct or promote works of internal improvement presents itself in two points of view—the first, as bearing upon the sovereignty of the states within whose limits their execution is contemplated, if jurisdiction of the territory which they may occupy be claimed as necessary to then preservation and use; the second, as asserting the simple right to appropriate money from the national treasury in aid of such works when undertaken by state authority surrendering the claim of jurisdiction. In the first view, the question of power is an open one, and can be decided without the embarrassment attending the other, arising from the practice of the government.
Although frequently and strenuously attempted, the power, to this extent, has never been exercised by the government in a single instance. It does not, in my opinion, possess it, and no bill, therefore, which admits it, can receive my official sanction.
But, in the other view of the power, the question is differently situated. The ground taken at an early period of the government was, "that, whenever money has been raised by the general authority, and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises whether the particular measure be within the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money requisite for it may be applied to it; if not, no such application can be made." The document in which this principle was first advanced is of deservedly high authority, and should be held in grateful remembrance for its immediate agency in rescuing the country from much existing abuse, and for its conservative effect upon some of the most valuable principles of the Constitution. The symmetry and purity of the government would, doubtless, have been better preserved, if this restriction of the power of appropriation could have been maintained without weakening its ability to fulfil the general objects of its institution—an effect so likely to attend its admission, notwithstanding its apparent fitness, that every subsequent administration of the government, embracing a period of thirty out of the forty-two years of its existence, has adopted a more enlarged construction of the power.
In the administration of Mr. Jefferson, we have two examples of the exercise of the right of appropriation, which, in the consideration that led to their adoption, and in their effects upon the public mind, have had a greater agency in marking the character of the power, than any subsequent events. I allude to the payment of fifteen millions of dollars for the purchase of Louisiana, and to the original appropriation for the construction of the Cumberland Road; the latter act deriving much weight from the acquiescence and approbation of three of the most powerful of the original members of the confederacy, expressed through their respective legislatures. Although the circumstances of the latter case may be such as to deprive so much of it as relates to the actual construction of the road of the force of an obligatory exposition of the Constitution, it must, nevertheless, be admitted that, so far as the mere appropriation of money is concerned, they present the principle in its most imposing aspect. No less than twenty-three different laws have been passed through all the forms of the Constitution, appropriating upwards of two millions of dollars out of the national treasury in support of that improvement, with the approbation of every President of the United States, including my predecessor, since its commencement.
Independently of the sanction given to appropriations for the Cumberland and other roads and objects, under this power, the administration of Mr. Madison was characterized by an act which furnishes the strongest evidence of his opinion extant. A bill was passed through both houses of Congress, and presented for his approval, "setting apart and pledging certain funds for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of watercourses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several states; and to render more easy, and less expensive, the means and provision for the common defence." Regarding the bill as asserting a power in the federal government to construct roads and canals within the limits of the states in which they were made, he objected to its passage, on the ground of its unconstitutionality, declaring that the assent of the respective states, in the mode provided by the bill, could not confer the powers in question; that the only cases in which the consent and cession of particular states can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution; and superadding to this avowal his opinion, that "a restriction of the power 'to provide for the common defence and general welfare,' to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money, would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution." I have not been able to consider these declarations in any other point of view than as a concession that the right of appropriation is not limited by the power to carry into effect the measure for which the money is asked, as was formerly contended.
The views of Mr. Monroe upon this subject were not left to inference. Durirg his administration, a bill was passed through both houses of Congress, conferring the jurisdiction, and prescribing the mode by which the federal government should exercise it in the case of the Cumberland road. He returned it, with objections to its passage, and, in assigning them, took occasion to say that, in the early stages of the government, he had inclined to the construction that it had no right to expend money, except in the performance of acts authorized by the other specific grants of power, according to a strict construction of them; but that, on further reflection and observation, his mind had undergone a change; that his opinion then was, "that Congress have unlimited power to raise money, and that, in its appropriation, they have a discretionary power, restricted only by the duty to appropriate it to purposes of common defence, and of general, national, not local, or state, benefit;" and this was avowed to be the governing principle through the residue of his administration. The views of the last administration are of such recent date as to render a particular reference to them unnecessary. It is well known that the appropriating power, to the utmost extent which had been claimed for it, in relation to internal improvements, was fully recognized and exercised by it.
This brief reference to known facts will be sufficient to show the difficulty, if not impracticability, of bringing back the operation of the government to the construction of the Constitution set up in 1798, assuming that to be its true reading, in relation to the power under consideration; thus giving an admonitory proof of the force of implication, and the necessity of guarding the Constitution, with sleepless vigilance, against the authority of precedents which have not the sanction of its most plainly-defined powers; for, although it is the duty of all to look to that sacred instrument, instead of the statute-book,—to repudiate, at all times, encroachments upon its spirit, which are too apt to be effected by the conjuncture of peculiar and facilitating circumstances,—it is not less true 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 confederated authorities, in particular constructions of the Constitution, on doubtful points. Not to concede this much to the spirit of our institutions would impair their stability, and defeat the objects of the Constitution itself.
The only remaining view which it is my intention to present at this time, involves the expediency of embarking in a system of internal improvement, without a previous amendment of the Constitution, explaining and defining the precise powers of the federal government over it. Assuming the right to appropriate money, to aid in the construction of national works, to be warranted by the contemporaneous and continued exposition of the Constitution, its insufficiency for the successful prosecution of them must be admitted by all candid minds. If we look to usage to define the extent of the right, that will be found so variant, and embracing so much that has been overruled, as to involve the whole subject in great uncertainty, and to render the execution of our respective duties in relation to it replete with difficulty and embarrassment. It is in regard to such works, and the acquisition of additional territory, that the practice obtained its first footing. In most, if not all, other disputed questions of appropriation, the construction of the Constitution may be regarded as unsettled, if the right to apply money, in the enumerated cases, is placed on the ground of usage.
If it be the desire of the people that the agency of the federal government should be confined to the appropriation of money, in aid of such undertakings, in virtue of the state authorities, then the occasion, the manner, and the extent of the appropriations, should be made the subject of constitutional regulation. This is the more necessary, in order that they may be equitable among the several states; promote harmony between sections of the Union and their representatives; preserve other parts of the Constitution from being undermined by the exercise of doubtful powers, or the too great extension of those which are not so; and protect the whole subject against the deleterious influence of combinations to carry, by concert, measures which, considered by themselves, might meet but little countenance.
That a constitutional adjustment of this power, upon equitable principles, is, in the highest degree, desirable, can scarcely be doubted; nor can it fail to be promoted by every sincere friend to the success of our political institutions. In no government are appeals to the source of power, in cases of real doubt, more suitable than in ours. No good motive can be assigned for the exercise of power by the constituted authorities; while those, for whose benefit it is to be exercised, have not conferred it, and may not De willing to confer it. It would seem to me that an honest application of the conceded powers of the general government to the advancement of the common weal presents a sufficient scope to satisfy a reasonable ambition. The difficulty and supposed impracticability of obtaining an amendment of the Constitution, in this respect, is, I firmly believe, in a great degree, unfounded.
In presenting these opinions, I have spoken with the freedom and candor which I thought the occasion for their expression called for; and now respectfully return the bill which has been under consideration, for your further deliberation and judgment.
[General Jackson, in addition to the above, has exercised the veto power on several bills.—See Appendix.]