The declivities from the mountains and all the heights must suffer from the frequent and heavy falls of water and its descent to the valleys, as also from the deep congelations during our severe winters.  Other injuries have also been experienced on this road, such as the displacing the capping of the walls and other works, committed by worthless people either from a desire to render the road impassable or to have the transportation in another direction, or from a spirit of wantonness to create employment for idlers.  These considerations show that an active and strict police ought to be established over the whole road, with power to make repairs when necessary, to establish turnpikes and tolls as the means of raising money to make them, and to prosecute and punish those who commit waste and other injuries.

Should the United States be willing to abandon this road to the States through which it passes, would they take charge of it, each of that portion within its limits, and keep it in repair?  It is not to be presumed that they would, since the advantages attending it are exclusively national, by connecting, as it does, the Atlantic with the Western States, and in a line with the seat of the National Government.  The most expensive parts of this road lie within Pennsylvania and Virginia, very near the confines of each State and in a route not essentially connected with the commerce of either.

If it is thought proper to vest this power in the United States, the only mode in which it can be done is by an amendment of the Constitution.  The States individually can not transfer the power to the United States, nor can the United States receive it.  The Constitution forms an equal and the sole relation between the General Government and the several States, and it recognizes no change in it which shall not in like manner apply to all.  If it is once admitted that the General Government may form compacts with individual States not common to the others, and which the others might even disapprove, into what pernicious consequences might it not lead?  Such compacts are utterly repugnant to the principles of the Constitution and of the most dangerous tendency.  The States through which this road passes have given their sanction only to the route and to the acquisition of the soil by the United States, a right very different from that of jurisdiction, which can not be granted without an amendment to the Constitution, and which need not be granted for the purposes of this system except in the limited manner heretofore stated.  On full consideration, therefore, of the whole subject I am of opinion that such an amendment ought to be recommended to the several States for their adoption.