The ablest and
the best of men have gone over the whole ground long ago. I shall attempt
but little more than a brief notice of what some of them have said. In
relation to Mr. Jefferson's views, I read from Mr. Polk's veto message:
"President Jefferson, in his message to Congress in 1806, recommended an
amendment of the Constitution, with a view to apply an anticipated
surplus in the treasury 'to the great purposes of the public education,
roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it
may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of the
federal powers'; and he adds: 'I suppose an amendment to the
Constitution, by consent of the States, necessary, because the objects
now recommended are not among those enumerated in the Constitution, and
to which it permits the public moneys to be applied.' In 1825, he
repeated in his published letters the opinion that no such power has been
conferred upon Congress."
I introduce this not to controvert just now the constitutional opinion,
but to show that, on the question of expediency, Mr. Jefferson's opinion
was against the present President; that this opinion of Mr. Jefferson, in
one branch at least, is in the hands of Mr.
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