jealousy against Federal power which actuated the framers of the Constitution.  It is certain that the power in question is not enumerated among the express grants to Congress contained in the instrument.  In construing the Constitution we must then next inquire, Is its exercise “necessary and proper"?—­not whether it may be convenient or useful “for carrying into execution” the power to regulate commerce among the States.  But the jealous patriots of that day were not content even with this strict rule of construction.  Apprehending that a dangerous latitude of interpretation might be applied in future times to the enumerated grants of power, they procured an amendment to be made to the original instrument, which declares that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.”

The distinctive spirit and character which pervades the Constitution is that the powers of the General Government are confined chiefly to our intercourse with foreign nations, to questions of peace and war, and to subjects of common interest to all the States, carefully leaving the internal and domestic concerns of each individual State to be controlled by its own people and legislature.  Without specifically enumerating these powers, it must be admitted that this well-marked distinction runs through the whole instrument.  In nothing does the wisdom of its framers appear more conspicuously than in the care with which they sought to avoid the danger to our institutions which must necessarily result from the interference of the Federal Government with the local concerns of the States.  The jarring and collision which would occur from the exercise by two separate governments of jurisdiction over the same subjects could not fail to produce disastrous consequences.  Besides, the corrupting and seducing money influence exerted by the General Government in carrying into effect a system of internal improvements might be perverted to increase and consolidate its own power to the detriment of the rights of the States.

If the power existed in Congress to pass the present bill, then taxes must be imposed and money borrowed to an unlimited extent to carry such a system into execution.  Equality among the States is equity.  This equality is the very essence of the Constitution.  No preference can justly be given to one of the sovereign States over another.  According to the best estimate, our immense coast on the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, and the Ivakes embraces more than 9,500 miles, and, measuring by its indentations and to the head of tide water on the rivers, the distance is believed to be more than 33,000 miles.  This everywhere throughout its vast extent contains numerous rivers and harbors, all of which may become the objects of Congressional appropriation.  You can not deny to one State what you have granted to another.  Such injustice would produce strife, jealousy, and