the theatre of its operations, and the extent of its punishments. * * * * * Having thus established, and, as he thought, conclusively, the right to construct roads and canals for mail and military purposes, he came next to say a few words on the subject of those which appertained to the express power of "regulating commerce with foreign nations and _among the several States_." This power carried with it, as a necessary incident, the right to construct commercial roads and canals. From this grant Congress derived exactly the same power to make roads and canals that it did sea-walls, light-houses, buoys, beacons, etc., along the seaboard. If the power existed over the one it existed over the other in every point of view; the cases were precisely parallel; it was impossible to draw a distinction between them. This power was essential to every government--there was no government under the sun without it. All writers on national law and political economy considered the right to construct roads and canals as belonging to the commercial power of all governments. * * * There were great arteries of communication between distant divisions of this extensive empire, passing through many States or bordering upon them, which the States never could and never would make. These works were emphatically national, and ought to be accomplished by national means. He instanced the road now under consideration--it passed through Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia, yet neither of these States would have given a dollar to make it. It passed mostly through mountainous and uninhabited regions. He adverted to the Potomac, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers. Important as these were to all the States, yet they were the internal concerns of none--they were mere boundaries to which the States would give nothing, while they had so many objects exclusively internal requiring all their means. For these reasons he was utterly opposed to the project of dividing the surplus revenue of the general government among the several States; this would be to surrender the national means which the people had confided to this purpose to mere local and sectional objects, while those truly national would remain forever unprovided for. He did not claim for this government the power to make roads and canals for all purposes. The powers of this government and of the States were distinct and well defined. To the national government belonged, under the Constitution, the power of making national roads and canals for national purposes. To the States belonged the power of providing for state and local objects. The roads and canals projected and executed by the States and private companies were often highly important in a national point of view; and to such, in his opinion, this government ought always to afford aid in a proportion corresponding with the interest the nation had in their accomplishment. When individuals