In considering this bill under the restriction that the power of Congress to construct a work of internal improvement is limited to cases in which the work is manifestly needful and proper for the execution of some one or more of the powers expressly delegated to the General Government, I have not been able to find for the proposed expenditure any such relation, unless it be to the power to provide for the common defense and to maintain an army and navy.  But a careful examination of the subject, with the aid of information officially received since my last annual message was communicated to Congress, has convinced me that the expenditure of the sum proposed would serve no valuable purpose as contributing to the common defense, because all which could be effected by it would be to afford a channel of 12 feet depth and of so temporary a character that unless the work was done immediately before the necessity for its use should arise it could not be relied on for the vessels of even the small draft the passage of which it would permit.

Under existing circumstances, therefore, it can not be considered as a necessary means for the common defense, and is subject to those objections which apply to other works designed to facilitate commerce and contribute to the convenience and local prosperity of those more immediately concerned—­an object not to be constitutionally and justly attained by the taxation of the people of the whole country.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

WASHINGTON, May 22, 1856.

To the Senate of the United States: 

Having considered the bill, which originated in the Senate, entitled “An act making an appropriation for deepening the channel over the flats of the St. Marys River, in the State of Michigan,” it is herewith returned without my approval.

The appropriation proposed by this bill is not, in my judgment, a necessary means for the execution of any of the expressly granted powers of the Federal Government.  The work contemplated belongs to a general class of improvements, embracing roads, rivers, and canals, designed to afford additional facilities for intercourse and for the transit of commerce, and no reason has been suggested to my mind for excepting it from the objections which apply to appropriations by the General Government for deepening the channels of rivers wherever shoals or other obstacles impede their navigation, and thus obstruct communication and impose restraints upon commerce within the States or between the States or Territories of the Union.  I therefore submit it to the reconsideration of Congress, on account of the same objections which have been presented in my previous communications on the subject of internal improvements.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

WASHINGTON, August 11, 1856.

To the House of Representatives: