The failure to secure this constitutional remedy for the public improvement fever was a cause of anxiety to Jefferson in the closing days of his life. In 1824, an amendment of this kind was pending, together with others limiting the term of the Presidency and abolishing the electoral system. "If I can see these three great amendments prevail," said the aged statesman, "I shall consider it as a renewed extension of the time of the lease, shall live in more confidence, and die in more hope." He complained of the "irresistible torrent of general opinion"; thought national appropriations for constructing roads and canals such a breach of the national compact as would warrant withdrawal from it; and wrote out for the Virginia Legislature a protest, as he had done for Kentucky during the Alien and Sedition laws a quarter of a century before. He also drew a general law to be passed by all State Legislatures rendering legitimate all national money previously spent within the State. Its adoption would have been a singular confession of unconstitutional action. Several State Legislatures in the South resolved to protest. Their representatives in Congress were resisting national appropriations, while the Northern and Western States were getting the advantage of them. Thus did political theory supplement the work of nature in directing the larger portion of these appropriations to the northern part of the country. Years after, this unequal distribution was to constitute a Southern grievance. This internal improvement contention, arraying the Eastern and Western States against each other, partly nullified the permanent sectionalism between the North and the South, and so made for unionism. Louisiana and Ohio, uniting for improvement appropriations, forgot their differences of opinion upon constitutional powers, upon home rule or nationalism, upon freedom or slavery. South Carolina and Massachusetts, joining hands to prevent these drains upon the treasury for public works far removed from their borders, forgot for the nonce their differences upon the question of a tariff. But all such affiliations and truces were only temporary. Sooner or later the combat was bound to be renewed between North and South, between peoples alienated by inheritance, temperament, and products.