Whole sections of the country were thus sought to be influenced, and the
system was fast becoming one not only of profuse and wasteful
expenditure, but a potent political engine.
If the power to improve a harbor be admitted, it is not easy to perceive
how the power to deepen every inlet on the ocean or the lakes and make
harbors where there are none can be denied. If the power to clear out or
deepen the channel of rivers near their mouths be admitted, it is not
easy to perceive how the power to improve them to their fountain head
and make them navigable to their sources can be denied. Where shall the
exercise of the power, if it be assumed, stop? Has Congress the power
when an inlet is deep enough to admit a schooner to deepen it still
more, so that it will admit ships of heavy burden, and has it not the
power when an inlet will admit a boat to make it deep enough to admit a
schooner? May it improve rivers deep enough already to float ships and
steamboats, and has it no power to improve those which are navigable
only for flatboats and barges? May the General Government exercise power
and jurisdiction over the soil of a State consisting of rocks and sand
bars in the beds of its rivers, and may it not excavate a canal around
its waterfalls or across its lands for precisely the same object?
Giving to the subject the most serious and candid consideration of which
my mind is capable, I can not perceive any intermediate grounds.
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