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well say to the nation, "If you will do nothing for me, I will do nothing for you." Thus it is seen, that if this argument of "inequality" is sufficient anywhere, it is sufficient everywhere, and puts an end to improvement altogether. I hope and believe, that if the nation and the States would, in good faith, in their respective spheres, do what they could in the way of improvements, what of inequality might be produced in one place might be compensated in another, and that the sum of the whole would not be very unequal. But suppose, after all, there should be some degree of inequality: inequality is certainly never to be embraced for its own sake; but is every good thing to be discarded which may be inseparably connected with some degree of it? If so, we must discard all government. This capitol is built at the public expense, for the public benefit; but does any one doubt that it is of some peculiar local advantage to the property-holders and business people of Washington? Shall we remove it for this reason? And if so, where shall we set it down, and be free from the difficulty? To make sure of our object shall we locate it nowhere, and have Congress hold its sessions, as the loafer lodges, "in spots about?" I make no special allusion to the present President when I say there are few stronger cases of "burden to the many, and benefit to the few"-of "inequality”—than the Presidency itself is by some thought to An honest laborer digs coal at about seventy cents a day, while the President digs abstractions at about seventy dollars a day. The coal is clearly worth more than the abstractions, and yet what a monstrous unequality in the prices! Does the President, for this reason, wish to abolish the Presidency? He does not, and he ought not. The true rule in determining to embrace or reject anything, is not whether it have any evil in it, but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially in governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded. On this principle, the President, his friends, and the world generally, act on most subjects. Why not apply it, then, upon this question? Why, as to improvements, magnify the evil, and stoutly refuse to see any good in them?

be.

Mr. Chairman, on the third position of the message (the

constitutional question) I have not much to say. Being the man I am, and speaking when I do, I feel that any attempt at an original constitutional argument, I should not be, and ought not to be listened to patiently. The ablest and best of men have gone over the whole ground long ago. I shall attempt but little more than a brief notice of what some of them have said. In reference to Mr. Jefferson's views, I read from Mr. Polk's veto message:

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"President Jefferson, in his message to Congress in 1806, recommended an amendment of the Constitution, with a view to apply an anticipated surplus in the treasury' to the great purposes of public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvements as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of the federal powers.' And he adds, "I suppose an amendment to the Constitution, by consent of the States, necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the Constitution, and to which it permits the public monies to be applied." In 1825, he repeated, in his published letters, the opinion that no such power has been conferred on Congress. I introduce this, not to controvert, just now, the constitutional opinion, but to show that on the question of expediency, Mr. Jefferson's opinion was against the present President-that this opinion of Mr. Jefferson, in one branch, at least, is, in the hands of Mr. Polk, like Fingal's gun—

"Beats wide, and kicks the owner over."

But, to the constitutional question :

In 1826, Chancellor Kent first published his commentaries on American law. He devoted a portion of one of the lectures to the question of the authority of Congress to appropriate public moneys for internal improvements. He mentioned that the question had never been brought under judicial consideration, and proceeds to give a brief summary of the discussions it had undergone between the legislative and executive branches of the government.

He shows that the legislative branch had usually been for, and executive against the power, till the period of Mr. J. Q. Adams' administration; at which point he considers the executive influence as withdrawn from opposition and added to the support of the power.

In 1844 the Chancellor published a new edition of his commentaries, in which he adds some notes of what had transpired on the question since 1826. I have not time to read the original text or the notes, but the whole may be found on page 267 and the two or three following pages of the first volume of the edition of '44. As to what Chancellor Kent seems to consider the sum of the whole, I read from one of the notes: "Mr. Justice Story, in his commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, vol. ii., page 429-440, and again, page 519-538, has stated at large the arguments for and against the proposition that Congress have a constitutional power to lay taxes, and to apply the power to regulate commerce, as a means to encourage and protect domestic manufactures; and, without giving any opinion of his own on the contested doctrine, he has left the reader to draw his own conclusions. I should think, however, from the arguments as stated, that every mind which has taken no part in the discussions, and felt no prejudice or territorial bias on either side of the question, would deem the argument in favor of Congressional power vastly superior."

It will be seen, that in this extract the power to make improvements is not directly mentioned, but by examining the context, both of Kent and of Story, it will appear that the power mentioned in the extract, and the power to make improvements, are regarded as identical. It is not to be denied that many great and good men have been against the power; but it is insisted that quite as many, as great and as good, have been for it; and it is shown that, on full survey of the whole, Chancellor Kent was of opinion that the arguments of the latter were vastly superior. This is but the opinion of a man, but who was that man? He was one of the ablest and most learned lawyers of his age, or of any age. It is no disparagement to Mr. Polk; nor, indeed, to any one who devotes much time to politics, to be placed far behind Chancellor Kent as a lawyer. His attitude was most favorable to correct conclusions. He wrote coolly and in retirement. He was struggling to rear a durable monument of fame, and he well knew that truth and thoroughly sound reasoning were the only sure foundations. Can the party opinion of a party President on a law question, as this purely is, be at all compared or set in opposition to that of such a man, in such an attitude, as Chancellor Kent?

This constitutional question will probably never be better settled than it is, until it shall pass under judicial consideration; but I do think no man who is clear on this question of expediency need feel his conscience much pricked on this.

Mr. Chairman, the President seems to think that enough may be done in the way of improvements by means of tonnage dues, under State authority, with the consent of the general government. Now, I suppose this matter of tonnage duties is well enough in its own sphere. I suppose it may be efficient, and perhaps sufficient, to make slight improvements and repairs in harbors already in use, and not much out of repairs. But if I have any correct general idea of it, it must be wholly inefficient for any generally beneficent purposes of improvement. I know very little, or rather nothing at all, of of the practical matters of levying and collecting tonnage duties, but I suppose that one of its principles must be, to lay a duty for the improvement of any particular harbor, upon the tonnage coming into that harbor. To do otherwise-to collect money at one harbor to be expended on improvements on another - would be an extremely aggravated form of that inequality which the President so much deprecates. If I be right in this, how could we make any entirely new improvements by means of tonnage duties? How make a road, a canal, or clear a greatly obstructed river? The idea that we could, involves the same absurdity of the Irish bull about the new boots: "I shall never git 'em on," says Patrick, "till I wears 'em a day or two, and stretch 'em a little." We shall never make a canal by tonnage duties until it shall already have been made awhile, so the tonnage can get into it.

After all, the President concludes that possibly there may be some great objects of improvement which cannot be effected by tonnage duties, and which, therefore, may be expedient for the general government to take in hand. Accordingly, he suggests, in case any such should be discovered, the propriety of amending the Constitution. Amend it for what? If, like Mr. Jefferson, the President thought improvements expedient, but not constituttional, it would be natural enough for him to recommend such an amendment; but hear what he says int his very message:

"In view of these portentous consequences, I cannot but think that this course of legislation should be arrested, even if

there were nothing to forbid it in the fundamental laws of our Union."

For what, then, would he have the Constitution amended? With him it is a proposition to remove one impediment, merely to be met by others, which, in his opinion, cannot be removed to enable Congress to do what, in his opinion, they ought not to do if they could.

[Here Mr. Meade, of Virginia, inquired if Mr. Lincoln understood the President to be opposed, on grounds of expediency, to any and every improvement.]

To which Mr. Lincoln answered: In the very part of his message of which I am now speaking, I understand him as giving some vague expressions in favor of some possible objects of improvements; but, in doing so, I understand to be directly in the teeth of his own argument in the other parts of it. Neither the President, nor any one, can possibly specify an improvement, which shall not be liable to one or the other objections he has, urged on the score of expediency. I have shown, and might show again, that no work-no object-can be so general as to dispense its benefits with precise equality; and this inequality is among the "portentous consequences" for which he declare the improvements should be arrested. No, sir; when the President intimates that something in the way of improvements may properly be done by the general government, he is shrinking from the conclusions to which his own argument would force him. He feels not that the improvements of this broad and goodly land are a mighty interest, and he is unwilling to confess to the people, and perhaps to himself, that he has built an argument which, when pressed to its conclusion, utterly annihilate this interest. I have already said that no one who is satisfied of the expediency of making improvements, need be much uneasy in his conscience about its unconstitutionality. I wish now to submit a few remarks on the general proposition of amending the Constitution. As a general rule, I think we would do much better to let it alone. No slight occasion should tempt us to touch it. Better not take the first step, which may lead to a habit of altering it. Better, rather, to habituate ourselves to think it unalterable. It can scarcely be made better than it is. New provisions would introduce new difficulties, and thus create and increase still further appetite for change.

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