If direct appropriations be made of the money
in the Federal Treasury for such purposes, the expenditures will be
unequal and unjust. The money in the Federal Treasury is paid by a tax
on the whole people of the United States, and if applied to the purposes
of improving harbors and rivers it will be partially distributed and be
expended for the advantage of particular States, sections, or localities
at the expense of others.
By returning to the early and approved construction of the Constitution
and to the practice under it this inequality and injustice will be
avoided and at the same time all the really important improvements be
made, and, as our experience has proved, be better made and at less cost
than they would be by the agency of officers of the United States. The
interests benefited by these improvements, too, would bear the cost
of making them, upon the same principle that the expenses of the
Post-Office establishment have always been defrayed by those who derive
benefits from it. The power of appropriating money from the Treasury for
such improvements was not claimed or exercised for more than thirty
years after the organization of the Government in 1789, when a more
latitudinous construction was indicated, though it was not broadly
asserted and exercised until 1825.
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