" By that act large
appropriations were made, which were to be "applied, under the direction
of the President of the United States," to numerous improvements
in ten of the States. This act, passed thirty-seven years after
the organisation of the present Government, contained the first
appropriation ever made for the improvement of a navigable river,
unless it be small appropriations for examinations and surveys in 1820.
During the residue of that Administration many other appropriations of
a similar character were made, embracing roads, rivers, harbors, and
canals, and objects claiming the aid of Congress multiplied without
number.
This was the first breach effected in the barrier which the universal
opinion of the framers of the Constitution had for more than thirty
years thrown in the way of the assumption of this power by Congress.
The general mind of Congress and the country did not appreciate the
distinction taken by President Monroe between the right to appropriate
money for an object and the right to apply and expend it without the
embarrassment and delay of applications to the State governments.
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