The number of light-house keepers is already very large, and the bill before me proposes to add to it fifty-one more of various descriptions.  From representations upon the subject which are understood to be entitled to respect I am induced to believe that there has not only been great improvidence in the past expenditures of the Government upon these objects, but that the security of navigation has in some instances been diminished by the multiplication of light-houses and consequent change of lights upon the coast.  It is in this as in other respects our duty to avoid all unnecessary expense, as well as every increase of patronage not called for by the public service.  But in the discharge of that duty in this particular it must not be forgotten that in relation to our foreign commerce the burden and benefit of protecting and accommodating it necessarily go together, and must do so as long as the public revenue is drawn from the people through the custom-house.  It is indisputable that whatever gives facility and security to navigation cheapens imports, and all who consume them are alike interested in whatever produces this effect.  If they consume, they ought, as they now do, to pay; otherwise they do not pay.  The consumer in the most inland State derives the same advantage from every necessary and prudent expenditure for the facility and security of our foreign commerce and navigation that he does who resides in a maritime State.  Local expenditures have not of themselves a corresponding operation.

From a bill making direct appropriations for such objects I should not have withheld my assent.  The one now returned does so in several particulars, but it also contains appropriations for surveys of a local character, which I can not approve.  It gives me satisfaction to find that no serious inconvenience has arisen from withholding my approval from this bill; nor will it, I trust, be cause of regret that an opportunity will be thereby afforded for Congress to review its provisions under circumstances better calculated for full investigation than those under which it was passed.

In speaking of direct appropriations I mean not to include a practice which has obtained to some extent, and to which I have in one instance, in a different capacity, given my assent—­that of subscribing to the stock of private associations.  Positive experience and a more thorough consideration of the subject have convinced me of the impropriety as well as inexpediency of such investments.  All improvements effected by the funds of the nation for general use should be open to the enjoyment of all our fellow-citizens, exempt from the payment of tolls or any imposition of that character.  The practice of thus mingling the concerns of the Government with those of the States or of individuals is inconsistent with the object of its institution and highly impolitic.  The successful operation of the federal system can only be preserved by confining it to the few and simple, but yet important, objects for which it was designed.