se words:

"That the Constitution does not confer upon the General Government the
power to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements."

General Cass, in his letter accepting the nomination, holds this language:

"I have carefully read the resolutions of the Democratic national
convention, laying down the platform of our political faith, and I adhere
to them as firmly as I approve them cordially."

These things, taken together, show that the question of internal
improvements is now more distinctly made--has become more intense--than
at any former period. The veto message and the Baltimore resolution I
understand to be, in substance, the same thing; the latter being the more
general statement, of which the former is the amplification the bill of
particulars. While I know there are many Democrats, on this floor and
elsewhere, who disapprove that message, I understand that all who voted
for General Cass will thereafter be counted as having approved it, as
having indorsed all its doctrines.

I suppose all, or nearly all, the Democrats will vote for him. Many of
them will do so not because they like his position on this question,
but because they prefer him, being wrong on this, to another whom they
consider farther wrong on other questions. In this way the internal
improvement Democrats are to be, by a sort of forced consent, carried over
and arrayed against themselves on this measure of policy. General Cass,
once elected, will not trouble himself to make a constitutional argument,
or perhaps any argument at all, when he shall veto a river or harbor bill;
he will consider it a sufficient answer to all Democratic murmurs to point
to Mr. Polk's message, and to the Democratic platform. This being the
case, the question of improvements is verging to a final crisis; and the
friends of this policy must now battle, and battle manfully, or surrender
all. In this view, humble as I am, I wish to review, and contest as well
as I may, the general positions of this veto message. When I say general
positions, I mean to exclude from consideration so much as relates to the
present embarrassed state of the treasury in consequence of the Mexican
War.

Those general positions are: that internal improvements ought not to be
made by the General Government--First. Because they would overwhelm the
treasury Second. Because, while their burdens would be general, their
benefits would be local and partial, involving an obnox