The Rhode-Island Republican. [volume] (Newport, R.I.) 1809-1841, 1834-12-10
that containing my objection to the Mays
Vile Road Bill.


such appropriations ought to be made
by yCongress, until suitable constitution
al provision is made upon the subject,
and so essential do ] regard the point to
the highest interests of our country, that
could not consider myself as discharg-
ing my duty to my constituents in giving
the Executive sanction to any bill con-
tanning such an appropriation. If the
people of the United States desire that
the public Treasury shall be resorted to
for the means to prosecute such works,
they will concur in an amendment ofthe
constitution, prescribing rulesby which
the national character of the works is to
be tested, and by which the greatest prac-
ticable equality of benefits may be Sc
cured to each member of the confederacy.
The effects Of such a regulation would
be most salutary in preventing unproft-
able expenditures, in securing our legis-
latiOn from the perniciOus consequence
q scramble for the favors of Government,
and in repressing the spirit of discomfort
which must inevitably arise from an un-
equal distribution of treasures which be-
long alike to all.
There is another class of appropria-
tons for what may be called, without i'm
propriety, internal improvements, which
have always been regarded as standing
upon different grounds from those to
which have referred. | allude to such
as have for their object the improvement
of our harbours, the removal of partial
and temporary distractions in our navi-
gable rivers, for the facility aud security
of our foreign commerce. The grounds
upon which distinguish appropriations
of this character from others have alrea-
DIV been stated to Congress. | will now
only add that at the first session Of Con-
grcss under the new Constitution, it was
provided by law, that all expenses which
should accrue from and after the 18th
day of August, 1889, in the necessary
support and maintenance and repairs of
all lighthouses, beacOns, buoys, and
public piers, erected, placed, or sunk be-
fore the passage of the act within any
bay, inlet, harbour, or port of the United
States, for rendering the navigation there
of easy and safe, should be betrayed out
of the Treasury of the United States (;
and further, that it should be the duty OF
the Secretary of the Treasury to provide
by contracts, with the appreciation of the
President, for rebuilding when necessa-
ry and keeping in good repair the light
houses, beacons, buOys, and public piers
i'm the several States, and for furnishing
them with supplies. Appropriations for
similar objects have been continued from
that time to the present without Interrupt
ton or dispute. As natural conse-
duence of the Increase and extension of
our foreign commerce, ports of entry and
delivery have been multiplied and sstab-
lished, not only upon our sea-board, but
in the interior of the country, upon our
lakes and nayigable rivers. The con-
venience and safety of this commerce
have led to the gradual extension OF these
expenditures to the erection of light
houses, the placing, planting, and sink
ing of buoys, beacOns, and piers, and to
the removal of partial and Temporary OBJ
structions in our navigable rivers, and in
the harbours upon our great lakes as
well as OH the sea-board. ,
Although have expressed to Congress
my apprehensions that these expenditures
have sometimes been extravagant and
disproportionate to the advantages to be
derived from them have not felt it to be
nv duty to refuse my assent to bills con-
tanning them, and have contented myself
to follow in this respect in the footsteps
of all my predecessors. Sensible, howcv-
cr, from experience and observation, Ofthe
great abuses to which the unrestricted
exercise of this authority by Congress
was exposed, l have prescribed lim-
itation for the government of my own
conduct, by which expenditures of this
character are confined to places below
the ports of entry and delivery established
by law. l am very sensible that this
restriction is not as satisfactory as could
be desired, and that much embarrassment
NAV be caused to the Executive Depart
ment in its execution, by appropriations
for remote, and not well understood OBJ
jects. But as neither my own reflections,
nor the lights which may properly de-
rive from other sources,have supplied me
with better l shall continue to apply
my be st exertions to faithful application
of the rule upon which it is founded. i
sincerely regret that could not give my
assent to the bill entitled I" An act to inn
prove the navigation of the Wabash riv-
er "but could not have done so with
out receding from the ground which
have, upon the fullest consideration, taken
upon this subject, and of which Congress
has been heretofore apprized, and without
throwing the subject agaiu open to abuse
which no good citizen, entertaining my