Had this bill become a law, it is easy to foresee that largely increased
demands upon the Treasury would have been made at each succeeding
session of Congress for the improvements of numerous other harbors,
bays, inlets, and rivers of equal importance with those embraced by its
provisions. Many millions would probably have been added to the
necessary amount of the war debt, the annual interest on which must also
have been borrowed, and finally a permanent national debt been fastened
on the country and entailed on posterity.
The policy of embarking the Federal Government in a general system of
internal improvements had its origin but little more than twenty years
ago. In a very few years the applications to Congress for appropriations
in furtherance of such objects exceeded $200,000,000. In this alarming
crisis President Jackson refused to approve and sign the Maysville road
bill, the Wabash River bill, and other bills of similar character. His
interposition put a check upon the new policy of throwing the cost of
local improvements upon the National Treasury, preserved the revenues of
the nation for their legitimate objects, by which he was enabled to
extinguish the then existing public debt and to present to an admiring
world the unprecedented spectacle in modern times of a nation free from
debt and advancing to greatness with unequaled strides under a
Government which was content to act within its appropriate sphere in
protecting the States and individuals in their own chosen career of
improvement and of enterprise.
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