stitutional power. There
remains only the phrase "and other _needful_ buildings." Wherefore
needful? Needful for any possible purpose within the whole range of
the business of society and of Government? Clearly not; but only such
"buildings" as are "needful" to the United States in the exercise of
any of the powers conferred on Congress.

Thus the United States need, in the exercise of admitted powers, not
only forts, magazines, arsenals, and dockyards, but also court-houses,
prisons, custom-houses, and post-offices within the respective States.
Places for the erection of such buildings the General Government may
constitutionally purchase, and, having purchased them, the jurisdiction
over them belongs to the United States. So if the General Government has
the power to build a light-house or a beacon, it may purchase a place
for that object; and having purchased it, then this clause of the
Constitution gives jurisdiction over it. Still, the power to purchase
for the purpose of erecting a light-house or beacon must depend on the
existence of the power to erect, and if that power exists it must be
sought after in some other clause of the Constitution.

From whatever point of view, therefore, the subject is regarded, whether
as a question of express or implied power, the conclusion is the same,
that Congress has no constitutional authority to carry on a system of
internal improvements; and in this conviction the system has been
steadily opposed by the soundest expositors of the functions of the
Government.

It is not to be supposed that in no conceivable case shall there be
doubt as to whether a given object be or not a necessary incident
of the military, naval, or any other power. As man is imperfect, so
are his methods of uttering his thoughts. Human language, save in
expressions for the exact sciences, must always fail to preclude all
possibility of controversy. Hence it is that in one branch of the
subject--the question of the power of Congress to make appropriations
in aid of navigation--there is less of positive conviction than in
regard to the general subject; and it therefore seems proper in this
respect to revert to the history of the practice of the Government.

Among the very earliest acts of the first session of Congress was that
for the establishment and support of light-houses, approved by President
Washington on the 7th of August, 1789, which contains the following
provisions:

That all expenses whi