powers of the general government may be enlarged, with such limitations and restrictions as experience has shown to be proper, than to assume and exercise a power which has not been granted, or which may be regarded as doubtful in the opinion of a large portion of our constituents. This course has been recommended successively by Presidents Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson, and I fully concur with them in opinion. If an enlargement of power should be deemed proper, it will unquestionably be granted by the states, if otherwise it would be withheld; and in either case their decision should be final. In the mean time I deem it proper to add, that the investigation of this subject has impressed me more strongly than ever with the solemn conviction, that the usefulness and permanency of this government, and the happiness of the millions over whom it spreads its protection, will be best promoted by carefully abstaining from the exercise of all powers not clearly granted by the constitution.

Washington, December 15, 1848.

JAMES K. POLK.

THE MEMORIAL TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE CONVENTION OF EIGHTEEN STATES ASSEMBLED AT CHICAGO, VINDICATING THE CONSTITUTIONALITY AND EXPEDIENCY OF RIVER AND HARBOUR IMPROVEMENTS BY THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT.

The memorial of the subscribers, members of a committee appointed at a meeting of delegates from different parts of the Union, assembled at Chicago, in the State of Illinois, on the fifth day of July, 1848, in the most numerous delegated convention ever held in this country,

RESPECTFULLY SHOWS:

That your memorialists were instructed by the said convention to transmit its proceedings to the President of the United States, and to both houses of Congress, and to communicate such information as the said committee might be able to collect, to guide intelligent and just legislation.

In obedience to these instructions, your memorialists now transmit herewith the "Declaration of Sentiments" adopted by that convention with entire una nimity, excepting the last clause of the fifth proposition, and expressing, as your memorialists believe, the universal opinions of the vast constituencies represented in that meeting. These circumstances, together with the calmness and deliberation which marked the discussions and proceedings of the convention, and the enthusiastic approbation which the principles it avowed have received from all quarters of the country, must entitle them to the respectful consideration of the representatives of the people and of the States in Congress assembled.

STATISTICAL REFERENCES.

In discharge of the duty assigned them, your memorialists have collected various and extensive statistics of the greatest interest in relation to the commerce of the country, and particularly of the inland lakes and rivers.

So far as the returns received by us extend, they not only corroborate the results contained in a report made to the senate at its present session, by the very able and enlightened chief of the topographical corps of engineers, (number four of Executive Documents,) but exhibit a prodigious increase during the year 1847 of the imports and exports of different ports. To avoid encumbering this communication with details, we annex an abstract of the reports received. The facts are taken from the books of the custom houses, where they furnished the materials, and in other cases from reliable sources of information, the respective authorities being given in the detailed reports, which

are also herewith communicated. They exhibit the actual amounts of exports during the last year from ports and places on Lake Erie, and the lakes west of and connected with it, of more than sixty-four millions of dollars. This, which is believed to be under rather than above the true result, is sufficient to satisfy you that it is an interest even now worthy of attention. But when it is recollected that it is but the childhood, the infancy of a trade, which is but of yesterday's growth, and that a boundless extent of the best land on the continent is yet to be opened to cultivation, to swell the mighty torrent of trade which is to empty itself into the Atlantic,-it will be difficult to fix limits to the vastness of the commerce which will call upon you for protection and aid.

The accounts of the losses of lives and of property caused by shipwrecks and other disasters, and which, in all human probability, would have been avoided, had there been adequate harbors on the lakes, we lament to say, are very deficient. There is an intrinsic difficulty in obtaining authentic accounts of such events which rest in the memory of so many individuals. In two reports which have been furnished us, we find the names of ninety vessels which have been lost since 1833 on the great lakes, besides four on Lake Superior, the value of which, and that of their cargoes, where known, exceeds 680,000 dollars; and we find, also, by one of those reports, that 367 lives are known to have been lost. A return from Oswego shows a loss of ten vessels within the present year on Lake Ontario, causing damage to the amount of $26,250, besides injuries to cargoes to the amount of $9,375. To the above should be added the vessels that have gone ashore almost every week at different places on the lake coast. It is impossible to estimate the amount of damage the vessels themselves have received, the expense of getting them afloat and repairing them, the injury to cargoes, and the loss of time and wages.

Some faint idea of the extent of suffering, arising from the causes mentioned, may be formed from a chronological account of disasters on the lakes during the year 1846, published in a newspaper of great credit, and which has not been questioned. We beg leave to annex it to this memorial, as furnishing a graphic account of the storms on the lower lakes and the frequency of their

occurrence.

We know not that any language of ours could add to the impression which a simple statement of the facts ought to make upon every human heart. It is a tale of wo and distress that must excite the strongest sympathy, and prompt to the most energetic efforts to remove the causes of such unnecessary suffering. We say unnecessary, because official reports from competent and disinterested officers of the United States, have, for years, been laid before congress, demonstrating the facility and moderate expense with which the most important harbors on the lakes can be rendered accessible, and afford that shelter which is now denied to the persons and property engaged in that navigation. These reports also show the obstructions in the navigation of the lakes and rivers emptying into them, and with what great ease and little expense they can be removed.

The same remarks are applicable to the navigation of the Mississippi, and of the great rivers leading to it. The authentic report of the committee appointed at St. Louis, which is communicated herewith, exhibits the vast amount of tonnage engaged in the trade on those rivers, the almost incredible value of the cargoes transported, and the great number of persons employed in it. The difficulties and obstructions in that commerce are too well known to need description here, and the facility with which they can be removed has been demonstrated so clearly by the success which has attended the few efforts heretofore made for the purpose, that no doubt can remain with the most obtuse.

An abstract of the reports received from the ports on the Atlantic coast, and

the original returns which it condenses, are also annexed, containing much valuable local information, particularly in reference to obstructions in rivers and harbors on the sea-board.

That

In the further discharge of their duties, your memorialists would most respectfully submit their views in elucidation and defence of the propositions embodied in the "Declaration of Sentiments," herewith transmitted. document was necessarily brief and condensed; its very nature forbidding any amplification of the fundamental truths it was designed to proclaim. The subject requires the consideration,

First, Of the constitutional power of congress to make appropriations for the improvements contemplated by the convention within the limitations declared by it; and

Second, The duty and expediency of exercising that power.

And while considering the latter, it will be proper to discuss the question whether there are other means of effecting the proposed improvements, which are just in themselves, and adequate to the purpose, and which can be adopted without producing interminable difficulties between the states, and threatening the most disastrous consequences to the whole Union.

CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF CONGRESS.

In discussing the constitutional power, we abjure at once all considerations of danger in its exercise. If there be any, of the frightful character which has been supposed, they address themselves to the sound discretion of congress, when called upon to make any specific appropriation; but they have no bearing whatever upon the inquiry, whether the power itself exists. And we cannot but lament the perversity which seeks to intimidate from a frank, deliberate and thorough investigation of the constitutional provisions on this or any other subject, by exaggerated appeals to the fears and prejudices of our citizens. It betrays a consciousness of weakness, thus to block up the very portals of truth. We are bound to presume that the illustrious men who devoted so much time and anxious deliberation to the embodying the elements of a free government for themselves and their posterity, were not so incompetent to their task, as to have adopted any provision which would produce the frauds, national demoralization and bankruptcy that have been so freely predicted. Our inquiry now is, what is the law and the testimony-what provision does the constitution in fact make? not what it ought to make. And we utterly deny that the liability to abuse of any supposed power in a government, is any argument whatever to prove that such power does not exist. For the undeniable truth is, that no government ever has been or can be created, without possessing powers which may be used to the injury, and even ruin of its subjects, and its own destruction. It is very true, that on the threshold of the inquiry, it will occur to every mind to ask, whether the power claimed is one which civilized governments usually possess; and if it be utterly unknown in the history of the world, such as never has been hitherto required by the wants of any community, then indeed the keenest vigilance may well be aroused to insist upon the clearest proofs of the most express and unequivocal grant of the power, and to watch most closely for any defect in the chain of argument to prove its existence. But if, on the contrary, it be a power which every other government in Christendom is admitted to possess-which has always been exercised by every government hitherto existing-a power essential to the progress of civilization, without which agriculture must languish and labour be unrewarded, commerce and trade must be impeded and intercourse obstructed; then the inquirer will approach the investigation in a different spirit. While he will still require satisfactory evidence, he will be prepared to give a favourable ear to what may be adduced to establish the fact of such a power having been granted.

It certainly cannot be necessary for your memorialists to do more than ask any intelligent mind, to which of these classes belongs the power of opening intercourse between the various sections of our vast country-the power of finishing what the God of nature began, when he established the mighty rivers and the still more mighty lakes which mark this continent?

Before advancing further in this inquiry, let us endeavor to understand exactly the extent of the power over this subject, claimed for congress by the convention, whose declaration of sentiments is now before you,—and it is the more necessary in consequence of the exaggerations and misrepresentations with which the public ear has been abused.

Its advocates have been described as seeking to establish a system of rapacity, by which unscrupulous men would enhance the value of petty localities in which they are interested, at the public expense; and in respect to which, the people themselves are represented as so profligate as to form extensive and dangerous combinations to render such schemes successful. What then does the convention really claim? Their first proposition asserts that the constitution was framed and mainly designed "to create a government whose functions should and would be adequate to the protection of the common interests of all the states, or of two or more of them, which interests could not be maintained by the action of separated states." The second proposition applies this undeniable principle to "internal trade and navigation, wherever the concurrence of two or more states is necessary to its preservation, or where the expense of its maintenance should equitably be borne by two or more states, and where, of course, those states must necessarily have a voice in its regulation." Such trade and navigation could not be maintained by the action of the separated states, and therefore if any provision was to be made for its protection and assistance, it must necessarily be by the general government.

Such, then, are the clear and well-defined limitations of the power in question, set forth by the Chicago Convention, and they afford in themselves the best answer to the idle declaration which represents the friends of internal improvement as seeking to establish a system which has no other limits than the "discretion of congress." The mind which is really incapable of perceiving any distinction between the power to improve the great channels of intercourse common to two or more states, and the authority to make turnpikes and canals within states, must be beyond the reach of argument. That even within the limits above defined, there will necessarily be room for discretion in the selection of objects of improvement, we would not deny. And when it is shown that there is any one power of human governments that is not equally and unavoidably open to a like discretion, but not till then, we will admit that the fact, that choice and selection may be exercised in reference to the subjects of a power, is sufficient in itself to show that the power cannot exist! in other words, that a legislative body is not to be permitted to exercise judgment and caution, and to regard utility or economy in its enactments. When a constitution shall be framed upon such principles as to deny all discretion to the legislative body, there will be little occasion for such a cumbrous and expensive machinery.

Your memorialists cannot but regret that it should be necessary to enter into any extended argument to prove the accuracy of the position assumed by the declaration of sentiments accompanying this memorial, in respect to the power of congress to make appropriations for improvements of the character already indicated. That power is deduced from the express grant "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states," and the concurrent and continuous exercise of the power, from the commencement of the government, with the sanction of the people, as declaratory of the sense in which the grant was understood by all parties. The fact of such a practical construction having been given, is so clearly and summarily stated by the late President Jackson,

that we prefer to use his own words in one of his messages to congress: "The practice," he says, "of defraying out of the treasury of the United States, the expenses incurred by the establishment and support of light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers, within the bays, inlets, and harbours and ports of the United States, to render the navigation thereof safe and easy, is coeval with the adoption of the constitution, and has continued without interruption or dispute."

We may add, that one of the first acts passed at the first session of the very first congress under the constitution, was for the establishment of light-houses, buoys, beacons, and public piers. Many of those who had been conspicuous in the debates of the convention were members of that congress; there is no evidence of any opposition to the act; and it was approved and signed by WASHINGTON. Similar provisions for affording facilities to commerce have been made annually by congress down to their last session, when an act was passed making large appropriations for the erection of light-houses, buoys, and beacons, and establishment of light-boats, at various points on the Atlantic and upon the lakes, and upon the rivers emptying into them.

It has been contended, however, that the power of the government thus uninterruptedly exercised from its foundation, to erect light-houses, &c., is derived not from their authority "to regulate commerce," but from that clause in the constitution which authorizes congress to exercise exclusive legislation over the territory which should become the seat of the federal government, "and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state where the same shall be, for the erection of forts, maga zines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings;" and then, by further contending that the consent of the state was, by this clause, required to the erection of such forts, magazines, &c., it has been argued, that this is inconsistent with the idea that congress possessed this power under other grants in the constitution.

The mistake in this argument is evident, in not adverting to the real object of the clause in question, which was not to confer any new power to erect these buildings, or to purchase the lands requisite for the purpose, but simply to give congress exclusive jurisdiction over such places as should be purchased with the consent of the states, so that there should not be a divided empire between the general and state governments.

In accordance with this view, the highest judicial federal authority has decided, (3 Wheaton, 388,) that congress may purchase land for a fort or lighthouse, and erect such buildings, without the consent of the state, but that in such cases the jurisdiction remains in the state, and cannot be acquired by the United States otherwise than by a cession, which is to be the free act of the state.

This was actually the case in respect to Fort Niagara, which was held for many years by the United States, without any cession by the state; and it was held by the courts of New York, that the state, not having ceded its jurisdic tion by consenting to the purchase, or otherwise, it remained unimpaired. But when the state consents to the purchase, the jurisdiction at once passes to the federal government. (17 Johnson, 225)

The clause referred to, it will be perceived, therefore, gives no new authority to congress to erect forts, magazines, or other needful buildings, but gives jurisdiction over the land upon which they are erected, when the purchase of such land has been made with the assent of the state. And the fact that it does not give the authority to purchase land for those purposes, or to erect the building specified, but provides for the contingency of its being purchased, and confers jurisdiction when such purchase has been made with the consent of the state, is in itself the strongest evidence that the framers of the constitution believed such authority had already been given. And yet, there is cer