inst. will be distressing to many not possessing the notes of their own Banks. In the other States the payment in the legalized notes, will be generally impossible for a considerable time.

VETO MESSAGE.

March 3, 1817.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in

'The bill was drawn up by John C. Calhoun, who was much surprised when Madison vetoed it. It provided that the bonus and dividends of the United States from the United States Bank should constitute a fund for internal improvements.

order to facilitate, promote, and secure such a commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution.

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill cannot confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and a reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.

TO JAMES MONROE.

D. OF S. MSS. INSTR.

WASHINGTON, Mar. [Filed March 5] 1817.

DEAR SIR,-Altho' your personal and official acquaintance with M J. Graham,' be well known

This letter, probably handed to Graham just before Madison left the Presidency, was one of the few letters of recommendation for

to me, I can not, on the occasion of my final departure from the public service, satisfy myself, without expressing my sense of his great merit.

M: Graham, recommended by my knowledge of his public agency abroad, and of his private virtues, was invited into the Department of State, as the chief under the Head of it, whilst the Department was in my hands. It was my wish, more than his own that was gratified by the appointment. And I have always considered it as the effect of an honorable desire to serve his country, combined with his personal & political feelings, that he remained for so long a period, in a station, without the attractions, which could otherwise have detained him in it.

office written by Madison. Soon after his return to Montpelier he had the following circular letter printed:

The friendship which has long subsisted between the President of the United States and myself gave me reason to expect, on my retirement from office, that I might often receive applications to interpose with him on behalf of persons desiring appointments. Such an abuse of his dispositions towards me would necessarily lead to the loss of them, and to the transforming me from the character of a friend to that of an unreasonable and troublesome solicitant. It therefore became necessary for me to lay down as a law for my future conduct never to interpose in any case, either with him or the Heads of Departments (from whom it must go to him) in any case whatever for office. To this rule I must scrupulously adhere; for were I to depart from it in a single instance, I could no longer plead it with truth to my friends in excuse for my not complying with their requests. I hope therefore that the declining it in the present, as in every other case, will be ascribed to its true cause, the obligation of this general law, and not to any disinclination existing in this particular case; and still less to an unwillingness to be useful to my friends on all occasions not forbidden by a special impropriety.-D. of S. MSS. Applications for Office.

On these grounds, & from continued & varied opportunities of being intimately acquainted with M: Graham, I not only take a pleasure, but feel an obligation, in saying that I regard him as among the most worthy of men, and most estimable of citizens; as adding to a sound & discriminating judgment, a valuable stock of acquirements adapted to public affairs; and to both, a purity of character, a delicacy of sentiment, and an amenity of temper & manners, exceeded in no instance to which I could refer.

With this view of his capacity to be useful to his country and the principles guarantying a proper exertion of it, I can not but hope that suitable occasions may present themselves for preventing a loss to the public of the services of a citizen, so highly entitled to its confidence.

With the highest consideration & regard, I remain Yours.

TO JOHN ADAMS.1

May 22d, 1817.

DEAR SIR, I have received your favor of April 22d, with the two volumes bearing the name of Condorcet. If the length of time they remained in your hands had been in the least inconvenient to me, which was not the case, the debt would have been overpaid by the interesting observations into which you were led by your return of them. The idea of a Government "in one centre," as

1 From the Works of Madison (Cong. Ed.).