Considered in connection with the difficulties which have heretofore attended appropriations for purposes of internal improvement, and with those which this experience tells us will certainly arise when ever power over such subjects may be exercised by the Central Government, it is hoped that it may lead to the adoption of some plan which will reconcile the diversified interests of the States and strengthen the bonds which unite them.  Every member of the Union, in peace and in war, will be benefited by the improvement of inland navigation and the construction of high ways in the several States.  Let us, then, endeavor to attain this benefit in a mode which will be satisfactory to all.  That hitherto adopted has by many of our fellow citizens been deprecated as an infraction of the Constitution, while by others it has been viewed as inexpedient.  All feel that it has been employed at the expense of harmony in the legislative councils.

To avoid these evils it appears to me that the most safe, just, and federal disposition which could be made of the surplus revenue would be its apportionment among the several States according to their ratio of representation, and should this measure not be found warranted by the Constitution that it would be expedient to propose to the States an amendment authorizing it.  I regard an appeal to the source of power in cases of real doubt, and where its exercise is deemed indispensable to the general welfare, as among the most sacred of all our obligations.

Upon this country more than any other has, in the providence of God, been cast the special guardianship of the great principle of adherence to written constitutions.  If it fail here, all hope in regard to it will be extinguished.

That this was intended to be a government of limited and specific, and not general, powers must be admitted by all, and it is our duty to preserve for it the character intended by its framers.  If experience points out the necessity for an enlargement of these powers, let us apply for it to those for whose benefit it is to be exercised, and not under-mine the whole system by a resort to over-strained constructions.  The scheme has worked well.  It has exceeded the hopes of those who devised it, and become an object of admiration to the world.  We are responsible to our country and to the glorious cause of self-government for the preservation of so great a good.

The great mass of legislation relating to our internal affairs was intended to be left where the Federal Convention found it—­in the State governments.  Nothing is clearer, in my view, than that we are chiefly indebted for the success of the Constitution under which we are now acting to the watchful and auxiliary operation of the State authorities.  This is not the reflection of a day, but belongs to the most deeply rooted convictions of my mind.  I can not, therefore, too strongly or too earnestly, for my own sense of its importance, warn you against all encroachments upon the legitimate sphere of State sovereignty.  Sustained by its healthful and invigorating influence the federal system can never fall.