money, but to apply it,
under the direction and authority of the General Government, as well to
the construction of roads as to the improvement of harbors and rivers,
was fully asserted and exercised." This, then, was the period of greatest
enormity. These, if any, must have been the days of the two hundred
millions. And how much do you suppose was really expended for improvements
during that four years? Two hundred millions? One hundred? Fifty? Ten?
Five? No, sir; less than two millions. As shown by authentic documents,
the expenditures on improvements during 1825, 1826, 1827, and 1828
amounted to one million eight hundred and seventy-nine thousand six
hundred and twenty-seven dollars and one cent. These four years were the
period of Mr. Adams's administration, nearly and substantially. This fact
shows that when the power to make improvements "was fully asserted and
exercised," the Congress did keep within reasonable limits; and what has
been done, it seems to me, can be done again.

Now for the second portion of the message--namely, that the burdens of
improvements would be general, while their benefits would be local and
partial, involving an obnoxious inequality. That there is some degree
of truth in this position, I shall not deny. No commercial object of
government patronage can be so exclusively general as to not be of some
peculiar local advantage. The navy, as I understand it, was established,
and is maintained at a great annual expense, partly to be ready for
war when war shall come, and partly also, and perhaps chiefly, for the
protection of our commerce on the high seas. This latter object is, for
all I can see, in principle the same as internal improvements. The driving
a pirate from the track of commerce on the broad ocean, and the removing
of a snag from its more narrow path in the Mississippi River, cannot,
I think, be distinguished in principle. Each is done to save life and
property, and for nothing else.

The navy, then, is the most general in its benefits of all this class
of objects; and yet even the navy is of some peculiar advantage to
Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, beyond what it
is to the interior towns of Illinois. The next most general object I
can think of would be improvements on the Mississippi River and its
tributaries. They touch thirteen of our States-Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois,
Indiana,