Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1847-06-19
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT.

IL II have no other merit, may certainly claim that
of consistency both for the Administration and lis
Editor. The author and the applauder of the sue
cessiye Vetoes on appropriations for afiording to
Western Navigation the same degree of protection
which the General Government has, most wisely,
always extended to Eastern, might be expected to
be opposed to any concentration of popular senti-
ment intended to instruct them in their duty to the
people in this particular. And yet it is passing
strange that an Administration which can derive
from the Constitution Of the United States power
to the President to establish governments in foreign
territories, and to nauralize entire populations be-
yond the limits of the United States to the extent
of hanging them for treason which can see no.
thing in that instrument to prevent the President
from levyng taxes at his own will and pleasure on
our own and other citizens in foreign land or
from expanding the proceeds of such taxes at his
own arbitrary dscreton-it is strange that such an
Administration should consider any attempt by
Congress- in its exercise of its planest authority,
for purposes beneficial to our own country and
citizens, as tending to a dangerous perversion of
the powers granted by the Federal Constitution -
If any thing of party bigory and blindness to say
nothing OF the gross presumption, can exceed this
claim of prerogative to the Executive, and denial
of vested right TO the Legislature, we have yet to
live to see (which surely we should not do were
we to live to the age of Methusaleh But our OBJ
ject just is to place the fact before our readers
and not to raise an argument upon it. The time
for that will come.
): We deem the projected Convention (says the
. Union) nexpedient and unwise. 1t is peculiarly
g ill-timed. 1t is at war with the wisest opinions
and the best precedents in our policy 1t tends
to dangerous perversion of the powers granted
by the Federal Constitution and is urged upon
US from one quarter at least, and by one class of
advocates, which should make ii an object of sus-
'pcion and distrust to the Democracy of the
!" country.
1t SO happened that Immediately after reading
this passage in the " Union, we met with paper
containing speech delivered by Senator BENTON
very recently at Jefferson, MOI in which we find
the constitutional scruples of those who oppose on
that ground the improvement of the Western Wa
tiers treated in a manner which can hardly fail to
even those OF our readers who do not alto
gether like it, among whom we presume may be
numbered the friends of the distinguished Senator
from South Carolina whom the Colonel seems not
to be disposed to spare on any occasion. The use,
however, of the phrase peculiarly appropriated
for many years by the venerable Editor of the
Union in the following extract from the Hon.
Missourians speech, seems to show that he had the
Government Editor and his friend the President at
the same time also in his eye:
EXTRACT FROM Mn. BErToSs SPEECH.
g Col. B. said he had long been advocate for the i'm
provement of great esen rivers Above twenty years
ago, and when esher from the classics and from his Roman
reading than present. he had characterized Mississippi
in the Senate the Romans did their Mediterranean Sea
Mare the he applied it. in ausion to the
which divided the earth in the middle and saw one flag
ALL The Mississippi like that sea, divided
land in the middle, and with the help of and its bu-
taes afforded much navigation the Mediterranean and
collected all its and rolled all its floods under the single
flag of the American Union. He called it Dun SEA, but
without the slightest suspicion that he making into
altering clause of the Constitution of the United
States.
GA short time ago a Convention-he believed il was call
ed a River Convention-assembed at Memphis. 1t made
the discovery that mare nostrum not figure OF
speech, but reality that what formerly only rivers
had expanded into seas-nand and that the Constu-
ton--accommodatng instrument like the miraculous tent
, in the Arabian Nights compressbIe that il might be
squeezed into the grasp Of shut hand and expansbe
that could spread over the whole encampment Of Oriental
OF
the and that these improvements perfectly
constitutional IN the river under the of inland
which were perfectly unconstitutional under its
name, under the classic establishment Of norum,
the equally classic and still appropriate title the
time bestowed upon it Of REX FLuyIUa-Kng of Ri
The constitutional difficulty solved but there
practical difficulty There were many rivers in the
United States and OF many Sizes and all could be
"The pinch was TO assert hem and the genius of the
Convention equal TO the difficulty Of the task rule
given-a general rue-nohing like generalization. II
laid down and accepted, that where washed three
States more, became inland sea-and entitled
to the benefits of the Constitution and where not This
was the rule and now for the application Applied 10 the
little States in New England, and river Of three hundred
miles long became and received constitutional inn
provement; applied tho Great West and river three
thousand miles long he Missour remained only river
by The rule, for had but State upon il
and consequently, could have constitutional
"Ths awkward exemplication of the rule; but il
Of despair, and hope consolation. There
light ahead, and Other States mghtgow
sp the Missouri, in fact another has already come owa
and in time there may be a third Then this great river
which from the setting sum- and washes the base
this capitol and goes toward the rising sum- may complete
Tits growth and become inland sca-and be entitled
constitutional Improvement Col b. said that the idea OF
the growth of river new and original the
Memphis Conventonony borrowed for the occasion by that
iustrious body. 1t old idea, and often Swallowed
forth in the exclamation Of the asonished traveller finding
large river, like tho Mississippi the Missouri, in
country This large river for country In this
exclamation the seminal conception Of the idea Of the
growth Of rivers ectousy developed in the proceedings
of the Memphis Convention Oh nnptophysics potica