find an amendment introduced in 1873 forbidding Congress to make anything but gold and silver legal tender in payment of debts. The year 1874 was marked by the passage of the "inflation bill," which was vetoed by President Grant,2 and an amendment similar to the one introduced the previous year was shortly afterward presented.3

It is of interest to note that incidental to the short career of the Greenback party, which was opposed to the resumption of specie payments, an amendment was presented by Judge Ewing of Ohio, and Mr. Oliver of Iowa, in 1878, providing for the issue of legal-tender notes and regulating the amounts thereof.1

March 3, 1884, the Supreme Court in the third legal-tender case, that of Julliard v. Greenman, decided that Congress may make Government notes legal tender in time of peace as well as war. Just one week later four resolutions proposing amendments to the Constitution, relative to the issue of legaltender notes, were presented. That these were directly suggested by the recent decision of the Supreme Court is shown by the text of the amendment proposed by Mr. Potter of New York. This provided that Congress should not have power to make anything but "gold or silver coin a tender in payment of debts, except after a declaration of war, when the public safety may require it."

Amendments similar to this, save as to the last clause, were presented by Mr. Hewitt of New York and Senator Bayard of Delaware. The remaining amendment proposed by Senator Garland, while not going so far as these, proposed to limit the public debt of the United States by stipulating that the issue of legal tender notes should never exceed the sum of $350,000,000, unless the bills providing for such increase should receive the concurrence of two-thirds of each House of Congress, the vote being recorded by yeas and nays in the journals.9

App., No. 1378. Although another amendment was proposed at the same time to empower Congress to pass necessary laws to protect the financial affairs of the people of the United States." No. 1375 (e).

2 Mason's Veto Power, App. A, No. 92; also pp. 80-81.

3 App., No. 1387.

4 App., Nos. 1463, 1466. They also prohibited the United States or any State from authorizing the issue of any other kind of notes. by any person, association, or corporation.

$110 U. S., 421.

App., No. 1626.

'App., No. 1627.

App, No. 1628. "App., No. 1628.

156. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

A much more hotly contested use of implied powers, especially those growing out of the commerce clause, has been the expenditure of public money for internal improvements. Such a practice seems not to have been contemplated by the Federalists up to 1801. The act authorizing the building of the Cumberland road, passed March 29, 1806, was the first measure making provision for internal improvements out of the general funds. In December of this year, President Jefferson in his annual message, in calling the attention of Congress to an anticipated surplus, recommended its "application" to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper. Public men seemed to agree as to the desirableness of internal improvements, and Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury, in anticipation of the adoption of such a policy, had already drawn up a plan for a system of national turnpikes and canals. The President, however, suggested that amendments should be added to the Constitution distinctly conferring this power upon Congress. No action was taken upon this recommendation and the discussion of the constitutionality of such an act was reserved to a later day. The President again referred to the subject in his messages of October 27, 1807, and March 8, 1808, but no further suggestion was made to amend the Constitution on this subject until 1813, when Mr. Jackson of Virginia introduced two amendments, one empowering Congress to make roads, the other authorizing it to construct canals in any State, with the consent of the State within which the same shall be made.3 The same resolutions were reintroduced by him in the remaining session of the Thirteenth Congress and were debated, but they led to no action. President Madison in his annual messages of 1815 and 1816 suggested that the Government should undertake internal improvements. He reminded Congress that "any defect of constitutional authority which may be encountered can be supplied in a mode which the Constitution itself has providently pointed out." Shortly after the last message, Madison vetoed an act making internal improvements

1 Statutes at Large, 11, 357.

App., No. 376.

3 App., Nos. 411, 412.

4 App., Nos. 416, 417, 421, 422.

5 App., Nos. 448, 457.

on the ground that it was unconstitutional.' President Monroe in his first annual message in 1817 recommended the adoption of an amendment to the Constitution conferring upon Congress the right in question.2

A week later, Senator Barbour of Virginia introduced an amendment empowering Congress "to pass laws appropriating money for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses." No improvements were to be made in any State without the consent of such State. Whenever such appropriations were made the amount was to be dis tributed among the several States in proportion to the number of Representatives from each State, but the portion of any State, with its own consent, may be applied to internal improvements in any other State.

May 4, 1822, President Monroe vetoed "An act for the pres ervation and repair of the Cumberland road." The President recommended, however, that an amendment should be adopted giving the Federal Government power to make improvements for great national purposes.*

In his annual message of this year," the President again invited the attention of Congress to the subject." In 1817 John Quincy Adams opposed the President's purpose to mention the matter in his message. He feared it would provoke contest between the executive and legal departments. Further, he doubted the propriety of the President recommending amendments, inasmuch as the Constitution gave him no share in framing them."

In response to the President's message, three amendments were proposed in this session of Congress, authorizing the appropriation of money for "great national purposes."

In 1824, and again in 1825, Martin Van Buren, then a member of the Senate, introduced an amendment giving Congress power to make roads and canals.9

Adams: Memoirs, IV, pp. 463-464; VII, pp. 302. Post, par., 184.

App., Nos. 515, 522, 523.

9 App., Nos. 536 and 546a. See Jefferson, annoyance at the victory of the liberal constructionists. Morse's Jefferson, p. 329. See Van Buren's remarks in 1825. Debates, Nineteenth Congress, first session, pp. 20-21. Between 1826 and 1830, the legislatures of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama repeatedly passed resolutions declaring

In the early part of the Nineteenth Congress (December, 1825), Mr. Bailey of Massachusetts presented a very explicit amendment to the Constitution, which besides giving Congress power to appropriate money for constructing roads and canals, further provided that it might "construct roads and canals for urgent purposes, of military, commercial, or mail communication, etc."

Nothing further is heard of a constitutional amendment until Jackson's Administration. May 27, 1830, President Jackson vetoed the Maysville road bill, the first of a series of vetoes of internal-improvement bills. The new test of the constitutionality of such bills as laid down by him was: "The general principle that the works which might be thus aided should be of a general, not local; national, not State, character."3 Jackson, like his predecessors, Madison and Monroe, in similar cases recommended the adoption of an amendment. In his annual message of two years later (1832), and,again in 1834, he urges Congress "to refrain from the exercise of internal improvements" except of a national character, unless they first procure from the States such an amendment of the Constitution as will define its character and prescribe its bounds." In his message of 1834 he still further defines what national improvements were, and desired that an amendment embodying the definition should be adopted. But such an amendment was not only impossible, but undesirable.

About this time Mr. Archer of Virginia suggested the expediency of amending the Constitution so as to give Congress the power to appropriate the revenue accruing from the sales of the public lands "in aid of the construction of such works of

the appropriation of money by Congress for internal improvement within the State to be unconstitutional. At the same time they pronounced the protective tariff laws unconstitutional. The legislature of Tennessee, in 1821, passed resolutions declaring that the power over internal improvements had been "exercised to an unwarrantable extent." See Niles' Register, vol. XXIX, p. 293; vol. xxx, p. 38; vol. XXXII, pp.135-139; vol. XXXIII, pp. 325-328; vol. XXXV, pp. 309-310. This led to counter replies from other States. See Niles' Register, vol. XXXII, p. 169; vol. XXXII, pp. 275, 321, 347, 387, 391; vol. XXXIV, pp. 300-302; vol. XXXVI, p. 55. 3 Am. An. Reg., 131, 136, 136-137, 137-138, 147. Jour. of Senate of Pennsylvania (1827-28), pp. 593-623, Ibid. (1828-29), pp. 372-381; Ibid. (1831-32), vol. II, pp. 454-455.

'App., No. 543.

* Mason's Veto Power, App. A, Nos. 10, 11, 12, 13, 18. The legislature of Tennessee expressed its approval of "the views and sentiments of President Jackson" as expressed in this veto. Jour. of Senate of Pennsylvania (1831-32) vol. 11, pp. 454–455. Mason, pp. 96-97.

4App., Nos. 611. House Journal, Twenty-third Congress, second session, pp. 28-32.

internal improvements as may be authorized, commenced, or patronized by the States respectively within which the same are to be executed."1

The legislature of Georgia, in its series of proposed amendments to the Constitution, in 1833, suggested that the practice of appropriating money for works of internal improvement should be either sanctioned by an express delegation of power or restrained by express inhibition.2

No further proposal to amend the Constitution was made until 1847, when President Polk, in a special message containing his reasons for vetoing a river and harbor bill, suggested that the State be allowed to pay tonnage duties for internal improvements, but should it be impossible to secure such by this means, "it is safer and wiser to apply to the States, in the mode prescribed by the Constitution, for an amendment whereby the power of the General Government may be enlarged." 3

Although several internal-improvement bills have since been vetoed, this is the last time an amendment to the Constitution has been advocated. The question of the constitutionality of such a bill is no longer considered by Congres, which now habitually exercises this once doubted power; but the President is left to decide each particular case as it comes before him, whether the expenditure is national or local in its character.

157. NAVIGATION LAWS AND EMBARGOES.

Another subject which pertains both to the financial and commercial powers of the Government is that of the passage of laws regulating or taxing navigation. The first suggestion of an amendment on the question is found in the proposition of the North Carolina convention, in 1788. This provides for a slight alteration in the last part of the sixth paragraph of the ninth section of the first article, so that it should read: "Nor shall vessels bound to a particular State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another;" thus striking out the restriction in regard to vessels bound from a State.

App., No. 609a. See also ante sec. 115.

"App., No. 620.

3 Statesman's Manual, p. 1725. Mason's Veto Power, App. A, No. 33; also p. 101. App., No. 101.