From an unprejudiced standpoint, this presentation of the historic facts in the case is difficult to answer. "There were two separate and independent governments," continued the President, "established over our union, one for local purposes over each state by the people of the state, the other for national purposes over all the states by the people of the United States." He next proceeded to examine the six powers given to the National Government, which had been so distorted and incorrectly interpreted in justifying national expenditures for public improvements that, in his opinion, they threatened the very existence of the States. These six enumerated powers and their distortions may be summed up: 1. To establish post-roads; consequently to construct highways for commerce. 2. To declare war; consequently to provide means for moving troops and supplies. 3. To regulate commerce; consequently to improve rivers and build harbours for inland commerce. 4. To pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare; consequently, to make appropriations for anything which would benefit the people and contribute to their defence or welfare. 5. To make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into effective execution the foregoing powers; consequently to extend the expressed powers to an unlimited degree by adding corollaries to them. 6. To dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations concerning the territory of the United States; consequently, to appropriate money for public improvements in them. At the same time that he was attempting to prove that no general system of improvements was justified by any of these expressed powers, Monroe was demonstrating the absurdity of the policy of hesitation. The justice of a toll system no one questioned. Those who use an improvement should pay for its repair. A toll was sanctioned by generations of practice and was in use on many State and corporate turnpikes and bridges. Monroe had travelled the National Road and had seen numerous evidences of the manner in which the highway was abused by the users and could fully appreciate the necessity for its protection and repair. Yet his conscientious scruples could not allow the agency which built the road to care for it properly by collecting money simply because it must be done inside the sacred precincts of some State. Neither would he admit that the States individually could give permission to collect a toll, although they could and did allow money from the national treasury to be spent within their limits in constructing the highway originally. Into what a constitutional maze had strict construction, driven by the needs of the people, brought the Administration of the United States!