Internal Improvements

at Federal Expense. The Constitution did not provide for internal improvements, hence they have become a party question. Since 1789 money has been steadily appropriated by Congre for improvements lying strictly within Federal jurisdiction, as for light-houses, buoys, beacons and public piers, The first actual appropriation for other internal improvement was in 1806, when a sum was appropriated for the construction of the Cumber land Road, which should penetrate the Western States and be the means of transmitting emigrants and mails in time of peace, and troops in time of war. About the same time a road was begun through Georgia on the route to New Orleans. Congre pa ed a resolution in 1818, declaring its power to appropriate money for the construction of roads and canals, and for the improvement of water-courses. March 3, 1823, the first act for harbor improvement pa ed Congre . April 13, 1824, $30,000 was appropriated for the survey of such roads and canals as the President should deem of national importance, and $300,000 was subscribed to the stock of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. In May, 1822, President Monroe vetoed the Cumber land Road Bill, declaring that Congre had no power under the Constitution to carry out a system of internal improvements at Federal expense. This, and Jackson’s veto of the Maysville Turnpike Road Bill in 1830, threw the matter into the hands of the States. 358