Should the system of internal improvements proposed
prevail, all these evils will multiply and increase with the increase of
the number of the States and the extension of the geographical limits of
the settled portions of our country. With the increase of our numbers
and the extension of our settlements the local objects demanding
appropriations of the public money for their improvement will be
proportionately increased. In each case the expenditure of the public
money would confer benefits, direct or indirect, only on a section,
while these sections would become daily less in comparison with the
whole.
The wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in withholding power over
such objects from the Federal Government and leaving them to the local
governments of the States becomes more and more manifest with every
year's experience of the operations of our system.
In a country of limited extent, with but few such objects of expenditure
(if the form of government permitted it), a common treasury might be
used for their improvement with much less inequality and injustice than
in one of the vast extent which ours now presents in population and
territory.
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