Of the last appropriation for continuing the Cumberland Road, there remained a balance in the Treasury of less than $10,000. In the General Appropriation Bill of this session (1822), provision was made for the repair of the road. A member from New Jersey moved to increase the amount. On this amendment there was an animated discussion, in which Mr. Buchanan appears to have considered that this public work was so beneficial to the general prosperity of the Union, that Congress might well appropriate the money needed for its support. “The truth is,” he said, “we are all so connected together by our interests, as to place us in a state of mutual dependence upon each other, and to make that which is for the interest of any one member of the Federal family beneficial, in most instances, to all the rest. We never can be divided without first being guilty of political suicide. The prosperity of all the States depends as much upon their Union, as human life depends upon that of the soul and body.” It is quite obvious that this kind of reasoning was, however true in the general, too broad and sweeping to justify the appropriation of money from the Federal Treasury for a public work which could claim no other than an incidental and remote relation to the prosperity of all the States. Every appropriation of money by Congress must rest upon some specific power of the Federal Constitution; and although Congress has a specific power “to regulate commerce among the several States,” and while it may be admitted that commerce includes intercourse, it has been from the first, and still is, a serious question whether this grant of the power of commercial regulation includes a power to establish and maintain the means by which commerce is carried on, and by which intercourse may be facilitated, unless such means fall within the designation of “post-roads,” and are established, primarily at least, for the transmission of mails. The appropriation proposed for the continued support of the Cumberland Road failed, and then came the question, in a separate bill, of imposing tolls for the support of the road. Mr. Buchanan voted for this bill, as did most of his colleagues from Pennsylvania, and it passed both Houses. But on the 4th of May (1822), the President, Mr. Monroe, returned the bill with a very long message, stating his objections to it. From this voluminous message, we may extract, although with some difficulty, two positions; first, that in Mr. Monroe’s opinion, Congress had no power to raise money by erecting toll-gates and collecting tolls, and that the States cannot individually grant such a power to Congress by their votes in Congress, or by any special compact with the United States; secondly, that Congress having an unlimited power to raise money by taxation general and uniform throughout the United States, its absolute discretion in the appropriation of the money so raised is restricted