US Presidency
1850

Not only have light-houses, buoys, and beacons been establishedand floating lights maintained, but harbors have been cleared and improved, piers constructed, and even breakwaters for the safety of shipping andsea walls to protect harbors from being filled up and rendered uselessby the action of the ocean, have been erected at very great expense. Andthis construction of the Constitution appears the more reasonable fromthe consideration that if these works, of such evident importance and utility, are not to be accomplished by Congress they can not be accomplished atall. By the adoption of the Constitution the several States voluntarilyparted with the power of collecting duties of imposts in their own ports, and it is not to be expected that they should raise money by internal taxation, direct or indirect, for the benefit of that commerce the revenues derivedfrom which do not, either in whole or in part, go into their own treasuries.