ver them. For the moment the drift toward a larger
participation of the National Government in internal improvements was
stayed. Two years later, however, Congress authorized the President to
institute surveys for such roads and canals as he believed to be needed
for commerce and military defense. The vote on this bill shows that the
source of opposition to internal improvements was chiefly in the
Northeast, in Virginia, and in the Carolinas. The West and Southwest,
with Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey, were a unit in support of
the general survey.

No one pleaded more eloquently for a larger conception of the functions
of the National Government than Clay. No one voiced the aspirations of
his section more faithfully. He called the attention of his hearers to
provisions made for coast surveys and lighthouses on the Atlantic
seaboard and deplored the neglect of the great interior of the country.
"A new world has come into being since the Constitution was adopted," he
exclaimed. "Are the narrow, limited necessities of the old thirteen
States, of, indeed, parts only of the old thirteen States as they
existed at the formation of the present Constitution, forever to remain
the rule of its interpretation?" Of the other presidential candidates,
Jackson voted in the Senate for the general survey bill; and Adams left
no doubt in the public mind that he did not reflect the narrow views of
his section on this issue. Crawford felt the constitutional scruples
which were everywhere being voiced in the South, and followed the old
expedient of advocating a constitutional amendment to sanction national
internal improvements.

The Tariff Act of 1824 also entered somewhat into the presidential
campaign. The failure of the protectionists to secure a higher tariff in
1820 had been followed by other efforts to secure congressional action;
but none succeeded until Clay was again elected Speaker of the House and
thrust the matter into the foreground of discussion. Clay dwelt
eloquently upon the loss of the foreign market for agricultural products
and upon the consequent widespread distress. To his mind the remedy was
the establishment of an American market by fostering manufactures. That
such a policy would involve a clash of sectional interests, he did not
deny; but he believed that "reconciliation by mutual concessions" could
be effected and a genuine "American system" be brought into existence.

[Map: House Vote on Tariff Bill Apri