The great difficulty which lay in the way of the realization of President Monroe's principle of the appropriation of national money for internal improvements of a national character was the proper determination of the question as to what improvements were really of that character. The danger was that the {122} appropriation bills would become log-rolling measures for the purpose of obtaining national money for matters of local concern. This difficulty was distinctly felt, and Congress undertook to meet it by the Act of April 30th, 1824, which authorized the President to cause "surveys, plans, and estimates to be made of the routes of such roads and canals as he might deem of national importance," and required him to lay the same before Congress. From all this it is apparent that, down to the presidential election of 1824, the development of a pro-slavery, strict-constructionist, "States' rights" party is hardly to be discovered in the attitude of the different sections of the country toward the question of internal improvements. Despite the fact that the slaveholders had become conscious during the Missouri struggle that their interests demanded the establishment of a particularistic view of the Constitution and a particularistic practice in the working of the governmental system of the country, not much progress had been made, in the period between 1820 and 1824, in the way of twisting the policies developed during the previous eight years into line with such a view. In fact the foreign relations of the United States were again, in 1822, of a somewhat threatening character, and the consideration of these relations was acting as a certain hindrance to the development of parties upon internal issues. [Sidenote: Foreign relations during Monroe's second term.] The menace, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the apparent menace, came from two quarters; but in neither case did it relate immediately to the territory or interests of the United States. In both cases it was consequential and more or less remote. {123} [Sidenote: Russia and the northwest coast of America.]