WASHINGTON, August 3, 1846.

To the House of Representatives: 

I have considered the bill entitled “An act making appropriations for the improvement of certain harbors and rivers” with the care which its importance demands, and now return the same to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with my objections to its becoming a law.  The bill proposes to appropriate $1,378,450 to be applied to more than forty distinct and separate objects of improvement.  On examining its provisions and the variety of objects of improvement which it embraces, many of them of a local character, it is difficult to conceive, if it shall be sanctioned and become a law, what practical constitutional restraint can hereafter be imposed upon the most extended system of internal improvements by the Federal Government in all parts of the Union.  The Constitution has not, in my judgment, conferred upon the Federal Government the power to construct works of internal improvement within the States, or to appropriate money from the Treasury for that purpose.  That this bill assumes for the Federal Government the right to exercise this power can not, I think, be doubted.  The approved course of the Government and the deliberately expressed judgment of the people have denied the existence of such a power under the Constitution.  Several of my predecessors have denied its existence in the most solemn forms.

The general proposition that the Federal Government does not possess this power is so well settled and has for a considerable period been so generally acquiesced in that it is not deemed necessary to reiterate the arguments by which it is sustained.  Nor do I deem it necessary, after the full and elaborate discussions which have taken place before the country on this subject, to do more than to state the general considerations which have satisfied me of the unconstitutionality and inexpediency of the exercise of such a power.

It is not questioned that the Federal Government is one of limited powers.  Its powers are such, and such only, as are expressly granted in the Constitution or are properly incident to the expressly granted powers and necessary to their execution.  In determining whether a given power has been granted a sound rule of construction has been laid down by Mr. Madison.  That rule is that—­

Whenever a question arises concerning a particular power, the first question is whether the power be expressed in the Constitution.  If it be, the question is decided.  If it be not expressed, the next inquiry must be whether it is properly an incident to an expressed power and necessary to its execution.  If it be, it may be exercised by Congress.  If it be not, Congress can not exercise it.

It is not pretended that there is any express grant in the Constitution conferring on Congress the power in question.  Is it, then, an incidental power necessary and proper for the execution of any of the