The magnitude of the transportation problem was such, however, that neither individual States nor private corporations seemed able to meet the demands of an expanding internal trade. As early as 1807, Albert Gallatin had advocated the construction of a great system of internal waterways to connect East and West, at an estimated cost of $20,000,000. But the only contribution of the National Government to internal improvements during the Jeffersonian era was an appropriation in 1806 of two per cent of the net proceeds of the sales of public lands in Ohio for the construction of a national road, with the consent of the States through which it should pass. By 1818 the road was open to traffic from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, Virginia. In 1816, with the experiences of the war before him, no well-informed statesman could shut his eyes to the national aspects of the problem. Even President Madison invited the attention of Congress to the need of establishing "a comprehensive system of roads and canals." Soon after Congress met, it took under consideration a bill drafted by Calhoun which proposed an appropriation of $1,500,000 for internal improvements. Because this appropriation was to be met by the moneys paid by the National Bank to the Government, the bill was commonly referred to as the "Bonus Bill." "Let it not be forgotten," said Calhoun in advocacy of his bill, "that it [the size of the Union] exposes us to the greatest of all calamities,--next to the loss of liberty,--and even to that in its consequences--disunion. We are great, and rapidly--I was about to say fearfully--growing. This is our pride and our danger; our weakness and our strength.... We are under the most imperious obligation to counteract every tendency to disunion.... Whatever impedes the intercourse of the extremes with this, the center of the Republic, weakens the Union." The one section which was impervious to these national considerations at this moment was New England; but it was President Madison, and not New England, who defeated the Bonus Bill. On the day before he left office, Madison sent to Congress a notable veto message. Reverting to his earlier faith, he pronounced the measure unconstitutional. Neither the express words of the Constitution nor any fair inference could, in his judgment, warrant the exercise of such powers by Congress. To pass the bill over his veto was impossible. Monroe, too, in his first message to Congress intimated that he also held strict views of the powers of Congress. The policy of internal improvements by Federal aid was thus wrecked on the constitutional scruples of the last of the Virginia dynasty.