peculiar local advantage. The navy, as I understand it, was established,
and is maintained at a great annual expense, partly to be ready for war
when war shall come, and partly also, and perhaps chiefly, for the
protection of our commerce on the high seas. This latter object is, for
all I can see, in principle the same as internal improvements. The
driving a pirate from the track of commerce on the broad ocean, and the
removing of a snag from its more narrow path in the Mississippi River,
cannot, I think, be distinguished in principle. Each is done to save life
and property, and for nothing else.

The navy, then, is the most general in its benefits of all this class of
objects; and yet even the navy is of some peculiar advantage to
Charleston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, beyond what it
is to the interior towns of Illinois. The next most general object I can
think of would be improvements on the Mississippi River and its
tributaries. They touch thirteen of our States-Pennsylvania, Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri,
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Now I suppose it will not
be denied that these thirteen States are a little more interested in
improvements on that great river than are the remaining seventeen. These
instances of the navy and the Mississippi River show clearly that there
is something of local advantage in the most general objects. But the
converse is also true. Nothing is so local as to not be of some general
benefit. Take, for instance, the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Considered
apart from its effects, it is perfectly local. Every inch of it is within
the State of Illinois. That canal was first opened for business last
April. In a very few days we were all gratified to learn, among other
things, that sugar had been carried from New Orleans through this canal
to Buffalo in New York. This sugar took this route, doubtless, because it
was cheaper than the old route. Supposing benefit of the reduction in the