Accompanying his veto (May 4,
1822), he submitted "Views on the Subject of Internal Improvements."
[Footnote: Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 142-183; Monroe,
Writings, VI., 216; Mason, Veto Power, 85; Nelson presidential
Influence on Int. Imp. (Iowa Journal of Hist, and Politics), IV.,
29, 30.] In this elaborate disquisition, he rehearsed the
constitutional history of internal improvements, and expounded his
conception of the construction of the Constitution, and of the
relation of the states and the nation under the theory of divided
sovereignty. Although he denied to the federal government the right
of jurisdiction and construction, he asserted that Congress had
unlimited power to raise money, and that "in its appropriation, they
have a discretionary power, restricted only by their duty to
appropriate it to purposes of common defense and of general, not
local, national, not state, benefit." Nevertheless, he strongly
recommended a system of internal improvements, if it could be
established by means of a constitutional amendment.
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