increased activity of the disease, to place the capital of our federative
Union in a position resembling that of imperial Rome, where each once
independent state was a subject province, and all the highways of the
world were said to meet in her forum. It was against this system, so
dangerous to liberty and to public and private integrity, that Jackson
declared war, by the famous Maysville veto.

It would be an absurd interpretation of Pierce's course, in regard to
this and similar measures, to suppose him hostile either to internal or
coastwise improvements, so far as they may legitimately be the business
of the general government. He was aware of the immense importance of our
internal commerce, and was ever ready to vote such appropriations as
might be necessary for promoting it, when asked for in an honest spirit,
and at points where they were really needed. He doubted, indeed, the
constitutional power of Congress to undertake, by building roads through
the wilderness, or opening unfrequented rivers, to create commerce where
it did not yet exist; but he never denied or questioned the right and
duty to remove obstructions in the way of inland trade, and to afford it
every facility, when the nature and necessity of things had brought it
into genuine existence. And he agreed with the best and wisest statesmen
in believing that this distinction involved the true principle on which
legislation, for the purpose here discussed, should proceed.

While a member of the House of Representatives, he delivered a forcible
speech against the bill authorizing appropriations for the Military
Academy at West Point. He was decidedly opposed to that institution as
then, and at present organized. We allude to the subject in illustration
of the generous frankness with which, years afterwards, when the battle
smoke of Mexico had baptized him also a soldier, he acknowledged himself
in the wrong, and bore testimony to the brilliant services which the