ich ports of entry and delivery may be
established by law upon the upper waters, and in some instances almost
at the head springs of some of the most unimportant of our rivers, and
at points on our coast possessing no commercial importance and not used
as places of refuge and safety by our Navy and other shipping. Many of
the ports of entry and delivery now authorized by law, so far as foreign
commerce is concerned, exist only in the statute books. No entry of
foreign goods is ever made and no duties are ever collected at them. No
exports of American products bound for foreign countries ever clear from
them. To assume that their existence in the statute book as ports of
entry or delivery warrants expenditures on the waters leading to them,
which would be otherwise unauthorized, would be to assert the
proposition that the lawmaking power may ingraft new provisions on the
Constitution. If the restriction is a sound one, it can only apply to
the bays, inlets, and rivers connected with or leading to such, ports as
actually have foreign commerce--ports at which foreign importations
arrive in bulk, paying the duties charged by law, and from which exports
are made to foreign countries. It will be found by applying the
restriction thus understood to the bill under consideration that it
contains appropriations for more than twenty objects of internal
improvement, called in the bill _harbors_, at places which have never
been declared by law either ports of entry or delivery, and at which,
as appears from the records of the Treasury, there has never been an
arrival of foreign merchandise, and from which there has never been a
vessel cleared for a foreign country. It will be found that many of
these works are new, and at places for the improvement of which
appropriations are now for the first time proposed. It will be found
also that the bill contains appropriations for rivers upon which there
not only exists no foreign commerce, but upon which there has not been
established even a paper port of entry, and for the mouths of creeks,
denominated harbors, which if improved can benefit only the particular
neighborhood in which they are situated. It will be found, too, to
contain appropriations the expenditure of which will only have the
effect of improving one place at the expense of the local natural
advantages of another in its vicinity. Should this bill become a law,
the same _principle_ which authorizes the appropriations which it
p