The
power to improve harbors and rivers for purposes of navigation, by
deepening or clearing out, by dams and sluices, by locking or canalling,
must be admitted without any other limitation than the discretion of
Congress, or it must be denied altogether. If it be admitted, how broad
and how susceptible of enormous abuses is the power thus vested in the
General Government! There is not an inlet of the ocean or the Lakes, not
a river, creek, or streamlet within the States, which is not brought for
this purpose within the power and jurisdiction of the General
Government.
Speculation, disguised under the cloak of public good, will call on
Congress to deepen shallow inlets, that it may build up new cities on
their shores, or to make streams navigable which nature has closed by
bars and rapids, that it may sell at a profit its lands upon their
banks. To enrich neighborhoods by spending within them the moneys of the
nation will be the aim and boast of those who prize their local
interests above the good of the nation, and millions upon millions will
be abstracted by tariffs and taxes from the earnings of the whole people
to foster speculation and subserve the objects of private ambition.
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