that by an
adequate protection of domestic manufactures, there would be an increased
demand for our raw materials at home, and thus the several productive and
manufacturing sections of the Republic would realize the benefits of a
dependence on each other, and the Union would be consolidated and
perpetuated for ages to come.

While a candidate for the presidency, Mr. Adams received a letter
inquiring his views on the subject of internal improvement. The following
is an extract from his reply:--

"On the 23rd of Feb., 1807, I offered, in the Senate of the United States,
of which I was then a member, the first resolution, as I believe, that
ever was presented to Congress, contemplating a general system of internal
improvement. I thought that Congress possessed the power of appropriating
money to such improvement, and of authorizing the works necessary for
making it--subject always to the territorial rights of the several States
in or through which the improvement is to be made, to be secured by the
consent of their Legislatures, and to proprietary rights of individuals,
to be purchased or indemnified. I still hold the same opinions; and,
although highly respecting the purity of intention of those who object, on
constitutional grounds, to the exercise of this power, it is with
heartfelt satisfaction that I perceive those objections gradually yielding
to the paramount influence of the general welfare. Already have
appropriations of money to great objects of internal improvement been
freely made; and I hope we shall both live to see the day, when the only
question of our statesmen and patriots, concerning the authority of
Congress to improve, by public works essentially beneficent, and beyond
the means of less than national resources, the condition of our common
country, will be how it ever could have been doubted."

On another occasion, Mr. Adams expressed himself on the subject of
internal improvements in the following manner:--

"The question of the power of Congress to authorize the making of internal
improvements, is, in other words, a question whether the people of this
Union, in forming their common social compact, as avowedly for the purpose
of promoting their general welfare, have performed their work in a manner
so ineffably stupid as to deny themselves the means of bettering their own
condition. I have too much respect for the intellect of my country to
believe it. The first object of human association is the im