this construction of the Constitution appears the more reasonable from
the consideration that if these works, of such evident importance
and utility, are not to be accomplished by Congress they can not be
accomplished at all. By the adoption of the Constitution the several
States voluntarily parted with the power of collecting duties of imposts
in their own ports, and it is not to be expected that they should raise
money by internal taxation, direct or indirect, for the benefit of that
commerce the revenues derived from which do not, either in whole or in
part, go into their own treasuries. Nor do I perceive any difference
between the power of Congress to make appropriations for objects of this
kind on the ocean and the power to make appropriations for similar
objects on lakes and rivers, wherever they are large enough to bear on
their waters an extensive traffic. The magnificent Mississippi and its
tributaries and the vast lakes of the North and Northwest appear to me
to fall within the exercise of the power as justly and as clearly as the
ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. It is a mistake to regard expenditures
judiciously made for these objects as expenditures for local purposes.
The position or sight of the work is necessarily local, but its utility
is general. A ship canal around the Falls of St. Mary of less than a
mile in length, though local in its construction, would yet be national
in its purpose and its benefits, as it would remove the only obstruction
to a navigation of more than 1,000 miles, affecting several States, as
well as our commercial relations with Canada. So, too, the breakwater at
the mouth of the Delaware is erected, not for the exclusive benefit of
the States bordering on the bay and river of that name, but for that
of the whole coastwise navigation of the United States and, to a
considerable extent, also of foreign commerce. If a ship be lost on the
bar at the entrance of a Southern port for want of sufficient depth of
water, it is very likely to be a Northern ship; and if a steamboat be
sunk in any part of the Mississippi on account of its channel not having