amendment of the Constitution, with a view to apply an anticipated surplus
in the treasury 'to the great purposes of the public education, roads,
rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may
be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of the federal
powers'; and he adds: 'I suppose an amendment to the Constitution, by
consent of the States, necessary, because the objects now recommended are
not among those enumerated in the Constitution, and to which it permits
the public moneys to be applied.' In 1825, he repeated in his published
letters the opinion that no such power has been conferred upon Congress."
I introduce this not to controvert just now the constitutional opinion,
but to show that, on the question of expediency, Mr. Jefferson's opinion
was against the present President; that this opinion of Mr. Jefferson,
in one branch at least, is in the hands of Mr. Polk like McFingal's
gun--"bears wide and kicks the owner over."
But to the constitutional question. In 1826 Chancellor Kent first
published his Commentaries on American law. He devoted a portion of one of
the lectures to the question of the authority of Congress to appropriate
public moneys for internal improvements. He mentions that the subject had
never been brought under judicial consideration, and proceeds to give a
brief summary of the discussion it had undergone between the legislative
and executive branches of the government. He shows that the legislative
branch had usually been for, and the executive against, the power, till
the period of Mr. J.Q. Adams's administration, at which point he considers
the executive influence as withdrawn from opposition, and added to the
support of the power. In 1844 the chancellor published a new edition of
his Commentaries, in which he adds some notes of what had transpired on
the question since 1826. I have not time to read the original text on
the notes; but the whole may be found on page 267, and the two or three
following pages, of the first volume of the edition of 1844. As to what
Chancellor Kent seems to consider the sum of the whole, I read from one of
the notes:
"Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United
States, Vol. II., pp. 429-440, and again pp. 519-538, has stated at
large the arguments for and against the proposition that Congress have a
constitutional authority to lay taxes and to apply the power to
regulate commerce as a means directly to encourage and protect domestic
manufactures; and without giving any opinion of his own on the contested
doctrine, he has left the reader to draw his own conclusions. I should
think, however, from the arguments as stated, that every mind which has
taken no part in the discussion, and felt no prejudice or territorial bias
on either side of the question, would deem the arguments in favor of the
Congressional power vastly superior."
It will be seen that in this extract the power to make improvements is not
directly mentioned; but by examining the context, both of Kent and Story,
it will be seen that the power mentioned in the extract and the power to
make improvements are regarded as identical. It is not to be denied that
many great and good men have been against the power; but it is insisted
that quite as many, as great and as good, have been for it; and it is
shown that, on a full survey of the whole, Chancellor Kent was of opinion
that the arguments of the latter were vastly superior. This is but the
opinion of a man; but who was that man? He was one of the ablest and most
learned lawyers of his age, or of any age. It is no disparagement to
Mr. Polk, nor indeed to any one who devotes much time to politics, to
be placed far behind Chancellor Kent as a lawyer. His attitude was most
favorable to correct conclusions. He wrote coolly, and in retirement. He
was struggling to rear a durable monument of fame; and he well knew that
truth and thoroughly sound reasoning were the only sure foundations. Can
the party opinion of a party President on a law question, as this purely
is, be at all compared or set in opposition to that of such a man, in
such an attitude, as Chancellor Kent? This constitutional question will
probably never be better settled than it is, until it shall pass under
judicial consideration; but I do think no man who is clear on the
questions of expediency need feel his conscience much pricked upon this.
Mr. Chairman, the President seems to think that enough may be done, in
the way of improvements, by means of tonnage duties under State authority,
with the consent of the General Government. Now I suppose this matter
of tonnage duties is well enough in its own sphere. I suppose it may be
efficient, and perhaps sufficient, to make slight improvements and repairs
in harbors already in use and not much out of repair. But if I have any
correct general idea of it, it must be wholly inefficient for any general
beneficent purposes of improvement. I know very little, or rather nothing
at all, of the practical matter of levying and collecting tonnage
duties; but I suppose one of its principles must be to lay a duty for the
improvement of any particular harbor upon the tonnage coming into that
harbor; to do otherwise--to collect money in one harbor, to be expended
on improvements in another--would be an extremely aggravated form of that
inequality which the President so much deprecates. If I be right in this,
how could we make any entirely new improvement by means of tonnage duties?
How make a road, a canal, or clear a greatly obstructed river? The idea
that we could involves the same absurdity as the Irish bull about the new
boots. "I shall niver git 'em on," says Patrick, "till I wear 'em a day
or two, and stretch 'em a little." We shall never make a canal by tonnage
duties until it shall already have been made awhile, so the tonnage can
get into it.
After all, the President concludes that possibly there may be some great
objects of improvement which cannot be effected by tonnage duties, and
which it therefore may be expedient for the General Government to take
in hand. Accordingly he suggests, in case any such be discovered, the
propriety of amending the Constitution. Amend it for what? If, like
Mr. Jefferson, the President thought improvements expedient, but not
constitutional, it would be natural enough for him to recommend such an
amendment. But hear what he says in this very message:
"In view of these portentous consequences, I cannot but think that this
course of legislation should be arrested, even were there nothing to
forbid it in the fundamental laws of our Union."
For what, then, would he have the Constitution amended? With him it is a
proposition to remove one impediment merely to be met by others which,
in his opinion, cannot be removed, to enable Congress to do what, in his
opinion, they ought not to do if they could.
Here Mr. Meade of Virginia inquired if Mr. Lincoln understood the
President to be opposed, on grounds of expediency, to any and every
improvement.
Mr. Lincoln answered: In the very part of his message of which I am
speaking, I understand him as giving some vague expression in favor of
some possible objects of improvement; but in doing so I understand him
to be directly on the teeth of his own arguments in other parts of it.
Neither the President nor any one can possibly specify an improvement
which shall not be clearly liable to one or another of the objections he
has urged on the score of expediency. I have shown, and might show again,
that no work--no object--can be so general as to dispense its benefits
with precise equality; and this inequality is chief among the "portentous
consequences" for which he declares that improvements should be arrested.
No, sir. When the President intimates that something in the way of
improvements may properly be done by the General Government, he is
shrinking from the conclusions to which his own arguments would force him.
He feels that the improvements of this broad and goodly land are a mighty
interest; and he is unwilling to confess to the people, or perhaps
to himself, that he has built an argument which, when pressed to its
conclusions, entirely annihilates this interest.
I have already said that no one who is satisfied of the expediency of
making improvements needs be much uneasy in his conscience about its
constitutionality. I wish now to submit a few remarks on the general
proposition of amending the Constitution. As a general rule, I think we
would much better let it alone. No slight occasion should tempt us to
touch it. Better not take the first step, which may lead to a habit
of altering it. Better, rather, habituate ourselves to think of it as
unalterable. It can scarcely be made better than it is. New provisions
would introduce new difficulties, and thus create and increase appetite
for further change. No, sir; let it stand as it is. New hands have never
touched it. The men who made it have done their work, and have passed
away. Who shall improve on what they did?
Mr. Chairman, for the purpose of reviewing this message in the least
possible time, as well as for the sake of distinctness, I have analyzed
its arguments as well as I could, and reduced them to the propositions
I have stated. I have now examined them in detail. I wish to detain the
committee only a little while longer with some general remarks upon the
subject of improvements. That the subject is a difficult one, cannot
be denied. Still it is no more difficult in Congress than in the State
Legislatures, in the counties, or in the smallest municipal districts
which anywhere exist. All can recur to instances of this difficulty in the
case of county roads, bridges, and the like. One man is offended because
a road passes over his land, and another is offended because it does not
pass over his; one is dissatisfied because the bridge for which he is
taxed crosses the river on a different road from that which leads from his
house to town; another cannot bear that the county should be got in debt
for these same roads and bridges; while not a few struggle hard to have
roads located over their lands, and then stoutly refuse to let them be
opened until they are first paid the damages. Even between the different
wards and streets of towns and cities we find this same wrangling and
difficulty. Now these are no other than the very difficulties against
which, and out of which, the President constructs his objections of
"inequality," "speculation," and "crushing the treasury." There is but a
single alternative about them: they are sufficient, or they are not. If
sufficient, they are sufficient out of Congress as well as in it, and
there is the end. We must reject them as insufficient, or lie down and do
nothing by any authority. Then, difficulty though there be, let us meet
and encounter it. "Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt; nothing so
hard, but search will find it out." Determine that the thing can and shall
be done, and then we shall find the way. The tendency to undue expansion
is unquestionably the chief difficulty.
How to do something, and still not do too much, is the desideratum. Let
each contribute his mite in the way of suggestion. The late Silas Wright,
in a letter to the Chicago convention, contributed his, which was worth
something; and I now contribute mine, which may be worth nothing. At all
events, it will mislead nobody, and therefore will do no harm. I would not
borrow money. I am against an overwhelming, crushing system. Suppose that,
at each session, Congress shall first determine how much money can, for
that year, be spared for improvements; then apportion that sum to the most
important objects. So far all is easy; but how shall we determine which
are the most important? On this question comes the collision of interests.
I shall be slow to acknowledge that your harbor or your river is more
important than mine, and vice versa. To clear this difficulty, let us
have that same statistical information which the gentleman from Ohio [Mr.
Vinton] suggested at the beginning of this session. In that information we
shall have a stern, unbending basis of facts--a basis in no wise subject
to whim, caprice, or local interest. The prelimited amount of means will
save us from doing too much, and the statistics will save us from doing
what we do in wrong places. Adopt and adhere to this course, and, it seems
to me, the difficulty is cleared.
One of the gentlemen from South Carolina [Mr. Rhett] very much deprecates
these statistics. He particularly objects, as I understand him, to
counting all the pigs and chickens in the land. I do not perceive much
force in the objection. It is true that if everything be enumerated, a
portion of such statistics may not be very useful to this object. Such
products of the country as are to be consumed where they are produced need
no roads or rivers, no means of transportation, and have no very proper
connection with this subject. The surplus--that which is produced in
one place to be consumed in another; the capacity of each locality for
producing a greater surplus; the natural means of transportation, and
their susceptibility of improvement; the hindrances, delays, and losses of
life and property during transportation, and the causes of each, would be
among the most valuable statistics in this connection. From these it would
readily appear where a given amount of expenditure would do the most good.
These statistics might be equally accessible, as they would be equally
useful, to both the nation and the States. In this way, and by these
means, let the nation take hold of the larger works, and the States the
smaller ones; and thus, working in a meeting direction, discreetly, but
steadily and firmly, what is made unequal in one place may be equalized in
another, extravagance avoided, and the whole country put on that career
of prosperity which shall correspond with its extent of territory, its
natural resources, and the intelligence and enterprise of its people.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUNG POLITICIANS
TO WILLIAM H. HERNDON.
WASHINGTON, June 22, 1848.
DEAR WILLIAM:--Last night I was attending a sort of caucus of the Whig
members, held in relation to the coming Presidential election. The whole
field of the nation was scanned, and all is high hope and confidence.
Illinois is expected to better her condition in this race. Under these
circumstances, judge how heartrending it was to come to my room and find
and read your discouraging letter of the 15th. We have made no gains, but
have lost "H. R. Robinson, Turner, Campbell, and four or five more."
Tell Arney to reconsider, if he would be saved. Baker and I used to do
something, but I think you attach more importance to our absence than is
just. There is another cause. In 1840, for instance, we had two senators
and five representatives in Sangamon; now we have part of one senator and
two representatives. With quite one third more people than we had then, we
have only half the sort of offices which are sought by men of the speaking
sort of talent. This, I think, is the chief cause. Now, as to the young
men. You must not wait to be brought forward by the older men. For
instance, do you suppose that I should ever have got into notice if I had
waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men? You young men get
together and form a "Rough and Ready Club," and have regular meetings and
speeches. Take in everybody you can get. Harrison Grimsley, L. A. Enos,
Lee Kimball, and C. W. Matheny will do to begin the thing; but as you go
along gather up all the shrewd, wild boys about town, whether just of age,
or a little under age, Chris. Logan, Reddick Ridgely, Lewis Zwizler, and
hundreds such. Let every one play the part he can play best,--some speak,
some sing, and all "holler." Your meetings will be of evenings; the
older men, and the women, will go to hear you; so that it will not only
contribute to the election of "Old Zach," but will be an interesting
pastime, and improving to the intellectual faculties of all engaged. Don't
fail to do this.
You ask me to send you all the speeches made about "Old Zach," the war,
etc. Now this makes me a little impatient. I have regularly sent you the
Congressional Globe and Appendix, and you cannot have examined them, or
you would have discovered that they contain every speech made by every man
in both houses of Congress, on every subject, during the session. Can I
send any more? Can I send speeches that nobody has made? Thinking it would
be most natural that the newspapers would feel interested to give at least
some of the speeches to their readers, I at the beginning of the session
made arrangements to have one copy of the Globe and Appendix regularly
sent to each Whig paper of the district. And yet, with the exception of my
own little speech, which was published in two only of the then five, now
four, Whig papers, I do not remember having seen a single speech, or even
extract from one, in any single one of those papers. With equal and full
means on both sides, I will venture that the State Register has thrown
before its readers more of Locofoco speeches in a month than all the Whig
papers of the district have done of Whig speeches during the session.
If you wish a full understanding of the war, I repeat what I believe I
said to you in a letter once before, that the whole, or nearly so, is
to be found in the speech of Dixon of Connecticut. This I sent you in
pamphlet as well as in the Globe. Examine and study every sentence of that
speech thoroughly, and you will understand the whole subject. You ask how
Congress came to declare that war had existed by the act of Mexico. Is it
possible you don't understand that yet? You have at least twenty speeches
in your possession that fully explain it. I will, however, try it once
more. The news reached Washington of the commencement of hostilities
on the Rio Grande, and of the great peril of General Taylor's army.
Everybody, Whigs and Democrats, was for sending them aid, in men and
money. It was necessary to pass a bill for this. The Locos had a majority
in both houses, and they brought in a bill with a preamble saying:
Whereas, War exists by the act of Mexico, therefore we send General Taylor
money. The Whigs moved to strike out the preamble, so that they could
vote to send the men and money, without saying anything about how the
war commenced; but being in the minority, they were voted down, and the
preamble was retained. Then, on the passage of the bill, the question came
upon them, Shall we vote for preamble and bill together, or against
both together? They did not want to vote against sending help to
General Taylor, and therefore they voted for both together. Is there any
difficulty in understanding this? Even my little speech shows how this
was; and if you will go to the library, you may get the Journal of
1845-46, in which you will find the whole for yourself.
We have nothing published yet with special reference to the Taylor race;
but we soon will have, and then I will send them to everybody. I made an
internal-improvement speech day before yesterday, which I shall send home
as soon as I can get it written out and printed,--and which I suppose
nobody will read.
Your friend as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
SALARY OF JUDGE IN WESTERN VIRGINIA
REMARKS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JUNE 28, 1848.
Discussion as to salary of judge of western Virginia:--Wishing to increase
it from $1800 to $2500.
Mr. Lincoln said he felt unwilling to be either unjust or ungenerous,
and he wanted to understand the real case of this judicial officer. The
gentleman from Virginia had stated that he had to hold eleven courts. Now
everybody knew that it was not the habit of the district judges of the
United States in other States to hold anything like that number of
courts; and he therefore took it for granted that this must happen under a
peculiar law which required that large number of courts to be holden every
year; and these laws, he further supposed, were passed at the request of
the people of that judicial district. It came, then, to this: that the
people in the western district of Virginia had got eleven courts to be
held among them in one year, for their own accommodation; and being thus
better accommodated than neighbors elsewhere, they wanted their judge
to be a little better paid. In Illinois there had been until the present
season but one district court held in the year. There were now to be two.
Could it be that the western district of Virginia furnished more business
for a judge than the whole State of Illinois?
NATIONAL BANK
JULY, 1848,
[FRAGMENT]
The question of a national bank is at rest. Were I President, I should not
urge its reagitation upon Congress; but should Congress see fit to pass an
act to establish such an institution, I should not arrest it by the veto,
unless I should consider it subject to some constitutional objection from
which I believe the two former banks to have been free.
YOUNG v.s. OLD--POLITICAL JEALOUSY
TO W. H. HERNDON.
WASHINGTON, July 10, 1848.
DEAR WILLIAM:
Your letter covering the newspaper slips was received last night. The
subject of that letter is exceedingly painful to me, and I cannot but
think there is some mistake in your impression of the motives of the old
men. I suppose I am now one of the old men; and I declare on my veracity,
which I think is good with you, that nothing could afford me more
satisfaction than to learn that you and others of my young friends at home
were doing battle in the contest and endearing themselves to the people
and taking a stand far above any I have ever been able to reach in their
admiration. I cannot conceive that other men feel differently. Of course
I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was
never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. The way for a
young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting
that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion
and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes
be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed,
too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood
over the attempted injury. Cast about and see if this feeling has not
injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.
Now, in what I have said I am sure you will suspect nothing but sincere
friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a studious
young man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I ever
have been. You cannot fail in any laudable object unless you allow your
mind to be improperly directed. I have some the advantage of you in the
world's experience, merely by being older; and it is this that induces me
to advise. You still seem to be a little mistaken about the Congressional
Globe and Appendix. They contain all of the speeches that are published in
any way. My speech and Dayton's speech which you say you got in pamphlet
form are both word for word in the Appendix. I repeat again, all are
there.
Your friend, as ever,
A. LINCOLN.
GENERAL TAYLOR AND THE VETO
SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 27, 1848.