During the consideration of this proposition a motion was made to enlarge the proposed power for “cutting canals” into a power “to grant charters of incorporation when the interest of the United States might require and the legislative provisions of the individual States may be incompetent;” and the reason assigned by Mr. Madison for the proposed enlargement of the power was that it would “secure an easy communication between the States, which the free intercourse now to be opened seemed to call for.  The political obstacles being removed, a removal of the natural ones, as far as possible, ought to follow.”

The original proposition and all the amendments were rejected, after deliberate discussion, not on the ground, as so much of that discussion as has been preserved indicates, that no direct grant was necessary, but because it was deemed inexpedient to grant it at all.  When it is considered that some of the members of the Convention, who afterwards participated in the organization and administration of the Government, advocated and practiced upon a very liberal construction of the Constitution, grasping at many high powers as implied in its various provisions, not one of them, it is believed, at that day claimed the power to make roads and canals, or improve rivers and harbors, or appropriate money for that purpose.  Among our early statesmen of the strict-construction class the opinion was universal, when the subject was first broached, that Congress did not possess the power, although some of them thought it desirable.

President Jefferson, in his message to Congress in 1806, recommended an amendment of the Constitution, with a view to apply an anticipated surplus in the Treasury “to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of Federal powers.”  And he adds: 

I suppose an amendment to the Constitution, by consent of the States, necessary, because the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the Constitution, and to which it permits the public moneys to be applied.

In 1825 he repeated, in his published letters, the opinion that no such power has been conferred upon Congress.

President Madison, in a message to the House of Representatives of the 3d of March, 1817, assigning his objections to a bill entitled “An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,” declares that—­

“The power to regulate commerce among the several States” can not include a power to construct roads and canals and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such a commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms, strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.

President Monroe, in a message to the House of Representatives of the 4th of May, 1822, containing his objections to a bill entitled “An act for the preservation and repair of the Cumberland road,” declares: