Debates in the Several State Conventions/Volume 4/Internal Improvements (1825)
Internal Improvement.
Mr. CAMBRELENG said he had hitherto uniformly, but silently, opposed measures of this character, only from a doubt of the constitutional power of the federal government. He had, however, devoted much attention to the question; and, after mature deliberation, he had been led to the conclusion that, if a government, enjoying the entire post-road and military powers of this Union, could not constitutionally construct a road or a canal, then it had no incidental power whatever. He had, accordingly, for the first time, given his vote in favor of a subscription to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Mr. BERRIEN said, as to the general right, asserted for the Union, to make roads through all the Indian countries, against such a doctrine he should desire to protest. He would draw a distinction between those lands of Indians living within limits of the states which came into the confederation, with certain chartered limits, and those living within states who, at the time of the formation of the Constitution, had no limits, and whose limits were only defined by the laws regulating their admission into the Union.