Each is done to save life
and property, and for nothing else.
The navy, then, is the most general in its benefits of all this class of
objects; and yet even the navy is of some peculiar advantage to
Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, beyond what it
is to the interior towns of Illinois. The next most general object I can
think of would be improvements on the Mississippi River and its
tributaries. They touch thirteen of our States-Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri,
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Now I suppose it will not
be denied that these thirteen States are a little more interested in
improvements on that great river than are the remaining seventeen. These
instances of the navy and the Mississippi River show clearly that there
is something of local advantage in the most general objects. But the
converse is also true. Nothing is so local as to not be of some general
benefit. Take, for instance, the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Considered
apart from its effects, it is perfectly local. Every inch of it is within
the State of Illinois. That canal was first opened for business last
April.
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