Every annual message of President Adams pleaded for a liberal interpretation of the powers of Government. Now he advocated more generous appropriations for the Cumberland Road, now the endowment of a national university, or the erection of a national monument to Washington. He suggested the founding of national observatories, the increase of the navy, the extension of the pensions, the establishing of a naval academy, the equipping of scientific exploring expeditions, provisions for civilising the Indians, and a reform in the method of taking the census. Every message bore the full imprint of Henry Clay's national improvement policy, a sentiment in which Adams could readily join. The attention of Congress was called from time to time to the reports of surveys made by the engineers under the act of April, 1824. These reports contemplated roads and canals, river and harbour improvements, "needing the assistance of means and resources more comprehensive than individual enterprise can command," as Adams said. He called especial attention to the fact that from three to four million dollars were being spent annually on the public works without intrenching upon the necessities of the Treasury, adding to the public debt, or stopping its gradual discharge. When the State of New York, grown weary of soliciting national aid, constructed a canal from the tide-water of the Hudson to Lake Erie, really around the northern end of the Allegheny Mountains, Adams seized the opportunity of asking whether the representative authorities of the whole Union should fall behind the single members of the confederation in exercising the trust imposed by the people. Whatever another President might have accomplished by his personal influence in these appeals was denied to Adams because of his lack of mingling qualities, and because of the hostility aroused by the manner of his election. The impression prevailed among the former supporters of Monroe and among the people of the South-west that "the will of the people" had been thwarted in some manner and could be vindicated only by the election of Jackson in 1828. This faction also imagined that Adams stood for aristocratic New England and Jackson for the democratic South-west. They were opposed to the protective principle, to internal improvements, and the continuance in power of the Atlantic coast regime. Rallying under the standard of Andrew Jackson, "the man of the people," they began to call themselves Democratic Republicans, or simply "Jackson men." Their opponents, embracing Adams and Clay and such minor leaders as the Administration had been able to collect, considered themselves as good Republicans as their opponents; but, taking into account their nationalistic tendencies, called themselves "National Republicans," or "Adams men." Unconsciously and even unwillingly, political parties had been revived.