President Monroe yielded his approval to these measures, though he entertained, and had, in a message to the House of Representatives on the 4th of May, 1822, expressed, the opinion that the Constitution had not conferred upon Congress the power to “adopt and execute a system of internal improvements.”  He placed his approval upon the ground, not that Congress possessed the power to “adopt and execute” such a system by virtue of any or all of the enumerated grants of power in the Constitution, but upon the assumption that the power to make appropriations of the public money was limited and restrained only by the discretion of Congress.  In coming to this conclusion he avowed that “in the more early stage of the Government” he had entertained a different opinion.  He avowed that his first opinion had been that “as the National Government is a Government of limited powers, it has no right to expend money except in the performance of acts authorized by the other specific grants, according to a strict construction of their powers,” and that the power to make appropriations gave to Congress no discretionary authority to apply the public money to any other purposes or objects except to “carry into effect the powers contained in the other grants.”  These sound views, which Mr. Monroe entertained “in the early stage of the Government,” he gave up in 1822, and declared that—­

The right of appropriation is nothing more than a right to apply the public money to this or that purpose.  It has no incidental power, nor does it draw after it any consequences of that kind.  All that Congress could do under it in the case of internal improvements would be to appropriate the money necessary to make them.  For every act requiring legislative sanction or support the State authority must be relied on.  The condemnation of the land, if the proprietors should refuse to sell it, the establishment of tumpikes and tolls, and the protection of the work when finished must be done by the State.  To these purposes the powers of the General Government are believed to be utterly incompetent.

But it is impossible to conceive on what principle the power of appropriating public money when in the Treasury can be construed to extend to objects for which the Constitution does not authorize Congress to levy taxes or imposts to raise money.  The power of appropriation is but the consequence of the power to raise money; and the true inquiry is whether Congress has the right to levy taxes for the object over which power is claimed.

During the four succeeding years embraced by the Administration of President Adams the power not only to appropriate money, but to apply it, under the direction and authority of the General Government, as well to the construction of roads as to the improvement of harbors and rivers, was fully asserted and exercised.