Part 20

To the other powers of the General Government the same remarks are applicable and with greater force. The right to regulate commerce with foreign powers was necessary as well to enable Congress to lay and collect duties and imposts as to support the rights of the nation in the intercourse with foreign powers. It is executed at the ports of the several States and operates almost altogether externally. The right to borrow and coin money and to fix its value and that of foreign coin are important to the establishment of a National Government, and particularly necessary in support of the right to declare war, as, indeed, may be considered the right to punish piracy and felonies on the high seas and offenses against the laws of nations. The right to establish an uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws respecting bankruptcies seems to be essentially connected with the right to regulate commerce. The first branch of it relates to foreigners entering the country; the second to merchants who have failed. The right to promote the progress of useful arts and sciences may be executed without touching any of the individual States. It is accomplished by granting patents to inventors and preserving models, which may be done exclusively within the Federal district. The right to constitute courts inferior to the Supreme Court was a necessary consequence of the judiciary existing as a separate branch of the General Government. Without such inferior court in every State it would be difficult and might even be impossible to carry into effect the laws of the General Government. The right to establish post-offices and post-roads is essentially of the same character. For political, commercial, and social purposes it was important that it should be vested in the General Government. As a mere matter of regulation, and nothing more, I presume, was intended by it, it is a power easily executed and involving little authority within the States individually. The right to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the Federal district and over forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings with the consent of the State within which the same may be is a power of a peculiar character, and is sufficient in itself to confirm what has been said of all the other powers of the General Government. Of this particular grant further notice will hereafter be taken.

I shall conclude my remarks on this part of the subject by observing that the view which has been presented of the powers and character of the two Governments is supported by the marked difference which is observable in the manner of their endowment. The State governments are divided into three branches--a legislative, executive, and judiciary--and the appropriate duties of each assigned to it without any limitation of power except such as is-necessary to guard against abuse, in the form of bills of right. But in instituting the National Government an entirely different principle was adopted and pursued. The Government itself is organized, like the State governments, into three branches, but its powers are enumerated and defined in the most precise form. The subject has already been too fully explained to require illustration by a general view of the whole Constitution, every part of which affords proof of what is here advanced. It will be sufficient to advert to the eighth section of the first article, being that more particularly which defines the powers and fixes the character of the Government of the United States. By this section it is declared that Congress shall have power, first, to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, etc.

Having shown the origin of the State governments and their endowments when first formed; having also shown the origin of the National Government and the powers vested in it, and having shown, lastly, the powers which are admitted to have remained to the State governments after those which were taken from them by the National Government, I will now proceed to examine whether the power to adopt and execute a system of internal improvement by roads and canals has been vested in the United States.

Before we can determine whether this power has been granted to the General Government it will be necessary to ascertain distinctly the nature and extent of the power requisite to make such improvements. When that is done we shall be able to decide whether such power is vested in the National Government.

If the power existed it would, it is presumed, be executed by a board of skillful engineers, on a view of the whole Union, on a plan which would secure complete effect to all the great purposes of our Constitution. It is not my intention, however, to take up the subject here on this scale. I shall state a case for the purpose of illustration only. Let it be supposed that Congress intended to run a road from the city of Washington to Baltimore and to connect the Chesapeake Bay with the Delaware and the Delaware with the Raritan by a canal, what must be done to carry the project into effect? I make here no question of the existing power. I speak only of the power necessary for the purpose. Commissioners would be appointed to trace a route in the most direct line, paying due regard to heights, water courses, and other obstacles, and to acquire the right to the ground over which the road and canal would pass, with sufficient breadth for each. This must be done by voluntary grants, or by purchases from individuals, or, in case they would not sell or should ask an exorbitant price, by condemning the property and fixing its value by a jury of the vicinage. The next object to be attended to after the road and canal are laid out and made is to keep them in repair. We know that there are people in every community capable of committing voluntary injuries, of pulling down walls that are made to sustain the road, of breaking the bridges over water courses, and breaking the road itself. Some living near it might be disappointed that it did not pass through their lands and commit these acts of violence and waste from revenge or in the hope of giving it that direction, though for a short time. Injuries of this kind have been committed and are still complained of on the road from Cumberland to the Ohio. To accomplish this object Congress should have a right to pass laws to punish offenders wherever they may be found. Jurisdiction over the road would not be sufficient, though it were exclusive. It would seldom happen that the parties would be detected in the act. They would generally commit it in the night and fly far off before the sun appeared. The power to punish these culprits must therefore reach them wherever they go. They must also be amenable to competent tribunals, Federal or State. The power must likewise extend to another object not less essential or important than those already mentioned. Experience has shown that the establishment of turnpikes, with gates and tolls and persons to collect the tolls, is the best expedient that can be adopted to defray the expense of these improvements and the repairs which they necessarily require. Congress must therefore have power to make such an establishment and to support it by such regulations, with fines and penalties in the case of injuries, as may be competent to the purpose. The right must extend to all those objects, or it will be utterly incompetent. It is possessed and exercised by the States individually, and it must be possessed by the United States or the pretension must be abandoned.

Let it be further supposed that Congress, believing that they do possess the power, have passed an act for those purposes, under which commissioners have been appointed, who have begun the work. They are met at the first farm on which they enter by the owner, who forbids them to trespass on his land. They offer to buy it at a fair price or at twice or thrice its value. He persists in his refusal. Can they, on the principle recognized and acted on by all the State governments that in cases of this kind the obstinacy and perverseness of an individual must yield to the public welfare, summon a jury of upright and discreet men to condemn the land, value it, and compel the owner to receive the amount and to deliver it up to them? I believe that very few would concur in the opinion that such a power exists.

The next object is to preserve these improvements from injury. The locks of the canal are broken, the walls which sustained the road are pulled down, the bridges are broken, the road itself is plowed up, toll is refused to be paid, the gates of the canal or turnpike are forced. The offenders are pursued, caught, and brought to trial. Can they be punished? The question of right must be decided on principle. The culprits will avail themselves of every barrier that may serve to screen them from punishment. They will plead that the law under which they stand arraigned is unconstitutional, and that question must be decided by the court, whether Federal or State, on a fair investigation of the powers vested in the General Government by the Constitution. If the judges find that these powers have not been granted to Congress, the prisoners must be acquitted, and by their acquittal all claim to the right to establish such a system is at an end.

I have supposed an opposition to be made to the right in Congress by the owner of the land and other individuals charged with breaches of laws made to protect the works from injury, because it is the mildest form in which it can present itself. It is not, however, the only one. A State, also, may contest the right, and then the controversy assumes another character. Government might contend against government, for to a certain extent both the Governments are sovereign and independent of each other, and in that form it is possible, though not probable, that opposition might be made. To each limitations are prescribed, and should a contest rise between them respecting their rights and the people sustain it with anything like an equal division of numbers the worst consequences might ensue.

It may be urged that the opposition suggested by the owner of the land or by the States individually may be avoided by a satisfactory arrangement with the parties. But a suppression of opposition in that way is no proof of a right in Congress, nor could it, if confined to that limit, remove all the impediments to the exercise of the power. It is not sufficient that Congress may by the command and application of the public revenue purchase the soil, and thus silence that class of individuals, or by the accommodation afforded to individual States put down opposition on their part. Congress must be able rightfully to control all opposition or they can not carry the system into effect. Cases would inevitably occur to put the right to the test. The work must be preserved from injury, tolls must be collected, offenders must be punished. With these culprits no bargain can be made. When brought to trial they must deny the validity of the law, and that plea being sustained all claim to the right ceases.

If the United States possess this power, it must be either because it has been specifically granted or that it is incidental and necessary to carry into effect some specific grant. The advocates for the power derive it from the following sources: First, the right to establish post-offices and post-roads; second, to declare war; third, to regulate commerce among the several States; fourth, from the power to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; fifth, from the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof; sixth and lastly, from the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property of the United States. It is to be observed that there is but little accord among the advocates for this power as to the particular source from whence it is derived. They all agree, however, in ascribing it to some one or more of those above mentioned. I will examine the ground of the claim in each instance.

The first of these grants is in the following words: "Congress shall have power to establish post-offices and post-roads." What is the just import of these words and the extent of the grant? The word "establish" is the ruling term; "post-offices and post-roads" are the subjects on which it acts. The question therefore is, What power is granted by that word? The sense in which words are commonly used is that in which they are to be understood in all transactions between public bodies and individuals. The intention of the parties is to prevail, and there is no better way of ascertaining it than by giving to the terms used their ordinary import. If we were to ask any number of our most enlightened citizens, who had no connection with public affairs and whose minds were unprejudiced, what was the import of the word "establish" and the extent of the grant which it controls, we do not think there would be any difference of opinion among them. We are satisfied that all of them would answer that a power was thereby given to Congress to fix on the towns, court-houses, and other places throughout our Union at which there should be post-offices, the routes by which the mails should be carried from one post-office to another, so as to diffuse intelligence as extensively and to make the institution as useful as possible, to fix the postage to be paid on every letter and packet thus carried, to support the establishment, and to protect the post-office and mails from robbery by punishing those who should commit the offense. The idea of a right to lay off the roads of the United States on a general scale of improvement, to take the soil from the proprietor by force, to establish turnpikes and tolls, and to punish offenders in the manner stated above would never occur to any such person. The use of the existing road by the stage, mail carrier, or postboy in passing over it as others do is all that would be thought of, the jurisdiction and soil remaining to the State, with a right in the State or those authorized by its legislature to change the road at pleasure.

The intention of the parties is supported by other proof, which ought to place it beyond all doubt. In the former act of Government, the Confederation, we find a grant for the same purpose expressed in the following words: "The United States in Congress assembled shall have the sole and exclusive right and power of establishing and regulating post-offices from one State to another throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office." The term "establish" was likewise the ruling one in that instrument, and was evidently intended and understood to give a power simply and solely to fix where there should be post-offices. By transferring this term from the Confederation into the Constitution it was doubtless intended that it should be understood in the same sense in the latter that it was in the former instrument, and to be applied alike to post-offices and post-roads. In whatever sense it is applied to post-offices it must be applied in the same sense to post-roads. But it may be asked, If such was the intention, why were not all the other terms of the grant transferred with it? The reason is obvious. The Confederation being a bond of union between independent States, it was necessary in granting the powers which were to be exercised over them to be very explicit and minute in defining the powers granted. But the Constitution to the extent of its powers having incorporated the States into one Government like the government of the States individually, fewer words in defining the powers granted by it were not only adequate, but perhaps better adapted to the purpose. We find that brevity is a characteristic of the instrument. Had it been intended to convey a more enlarged power in the Constitution than had been granted in the Confederation, surely the same controlling term would not have been used, or other words would have been added, to show such intention and to mark the extent to which the power should be carried. It is a liberal construction of the powers granted in the Constitution by this term to include in it all the powers that were granted in the Confederation by terms which specifically defined and, as was supposed, extended their limits. It would be absurd to say that by omitting from the Constitution any portion of the phraseology which was deemed important in the Confederation the import of that term was enlarged, and with it the powers of the Constitution, in a proportional degree, beyond what they were in the Confederation. The right to exact postage and to protect the post-offices and mails from robbery by punishing the offenders may fairly be considered as incidents to the grant, since without it the object of the grant might be defeated. Whatever is absolutely necessary to the accomplishment of the object of the grant, though not specified, may fairly be considered as included in it. Beyond this the doctrine of incidental power can not be carried.

If we go back to the origin of our settlements and institutions and trace their progress down to the Revolution, we shall see that it was in this sense, and in none other, that the power was exercised by all our colonial governments. Post-offices were made for the country, and not the country for them. They are the offspring of improvement; they never go before it. Settlements are first made, after which the progress is uniform and simple, extending to objects in regular order most necessary to the comfort of man--schools, places of public worship, court-houses, and markets; post-offices follow. Roads may, indeed, be said to be coeval with settlements; they lead to all the places mentioned, and to every other which the various and complicated interests of society require.

It is believed that not one example can be given, from the first settlement of our country to the adoption of this Constitution, of a post-office being established without a view to existing roads or of a single road having been made by pavement, turnpike, etc., for the sole purpose of accommodating a post-office. Such, too, is the uniform progress of all societies. In granting, then, this power to the United States it was undoubtedly intended by the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution to convey it in the sense and extent only in which it had been understood and exercised by the previous authorities of the country.

This conclusion is confirmed by the object of the grant and the manner of its execution. The object is the transportation of the mail throughout the United States, which may be done on horseback, and was so done until lately, since the establishment of stages. Between the great towns and in other places where the population is dense stages are preferred because they afford an additional opportunity to make a profit from passengers; but where the population is sparse and on crossroads it is generally carried on horseback. Unconnected with passengers and other objects, it can not be doubted that the mail itself may be carried in every part of our Union with nearly as much economy and greater dispatch on horseback than in a stage, and in many parts with much greater. In every part of the Union in which stages can be preferred the roads are sufficiently good provided those which serve for every other purpose will accommodate them. In every other part where horses alone are used if other people pass them on horseback surely the mail carrier can. For an object so simple and so easy in its execution it would doubtless excite surprise if it should be thought proper to appoint commissioners to lay off the country on a great scheme of improvement, with the power to shorten distances, reduce heights, level mountains, and pave surfaces.

If the United States possessed the power contended for under this grant, might they not in adopting the roads of the individual States for the carriage of the mail, as has been done, assume jurisdiction over them and preclude a right to interfere with or alter them? Might they not establish turnpikes and exercise all the other acts of sovereignty above stated over such roads necessary to protect them from injury and defray the expense of repairing them? Surely if the right exists these consequences necessarily followed as soon as the road was established. The absurdity of such a pretension must be apparent to all who examine it. In this way a large portion of the territory of every State might be taken from it, for there is scarcely a road in any State which will not be used for the transportation of the mail. A new field for legislation and internal government would thus be opened.

From this view of the subject I think we may fairly conclude that the right to adopt and execute a system of internal improvement, or any part of it, has not been granted to Congress under the power to establish post-offices and post-roads; that the common roads of the country only were contemplated by that grant and are fully competent to all its purposes.

The next object of inquiry is whether the right to declare war includes the right to adopt and execute this system of improvement. The objections to it are, I presume, not less conclusive than those which are applicable to the grant which we have just examined.

Under the last-mentioned grant a claim has been set up to as much of that system as relates to roads. Under this it extends alike to roads and canals.

We must examine this grant by the same rules of construction that were applied to the preceding one. The object was to take this power from the individual States and to vest it in the General Government. This has been done in clear and explicit terms, first by granting the power to Congress, and secondly by prohibiting the exercise of it by the States. "Congress shall have a right to declare war." This is the language of the grant. If the right to adopt and execute this system of improvement is included in it, it must be by way of incident only, since there is nothing in the grant itself which bears any relation to roads and canals. The following considerations, it is presumed, prove incontestably that this power has not been granted in that or any other manner.

The United States are exposed to invasion through the whole extent of their Atlantic coast by any European power with whom we might be engaged in war--on the northern and northwestern frontier on the side of Canada by Great Britain, and on the southern by Spain or any power in alliance with her. If internal improvements are to be carried to the full extent to which they may be useful for military purposes, the power as it exists must apply to all the roads of the Union, there being no limitation to it. Wherever such improvements may facilitate the march of troops, the transportation of cannon, or otherwise aid the operations or mitigate the calamities of war along the coast or in any part of the interior they would be useful for military purposes, and might therefore be made. The power following as an incident to another power can be measured as to its extent by reference only to the obvious extent of the power to which it is incidental. So great a scope was, it is believed, never given to incidental power.