1834 Andrew Jackson - Veto of An act to improve the navigation of the Wabash River

In his sixth State of the Union Address, President Andrew Jackson included a veto of “An act to improve the navigation of the Wabash River".  This was Jackson’s final internal improvement veto, and he took the opportunity to once and for all outline his principles for internal improvement.  In his message he explained how these internal improvement bills were not only unconstitutional but opening the door to a never-ending power grab by the federal government at the expense of the states.  Individual states were exchanging local gains for a more powerful federal government, all the while creating jealousies between the states.

One of the first key events in the presidency of Andrew Jackson was his veto of the Maysville Road act.  The Maysville Road Act would have authorized the purchase of $150,000 worth of stock in the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Company.  The road, better known as the Cumberland road, was to be built entirely within the state of Kentucky. In his first State of the Union, President Jackson made it very clear that when appropriating funds for the purposes of internal improvement, he believed that it should be done in a way that would benefit all states, not just one. Congress failed to override the Maysville Veto by votes of 96 to 90 in the House and 21 to 17 in the Senate.   The opposition to Jackson's veto was harsh not only in Congress, but in public as well. The newspapers of the day published opposing views, reporting that Jackson had alienated himself from his manufacturing friends in the North and his frontier friends in the West. Despite the opposition, Jackson would go on to veto several more internal improvement acts. 

In 1830, Andrew Jackson used a procedure known as the "pocket veto" to kill both an act appropriating funds to build light houses and improve harbors as well as an act to authorize the purchase of stock in the Louisville and Portland Canal Company.  By allowing these bills to expire while Congress was in session, Jackson was able to kill these bills without needing to explain his reasoning for not signing them.  The move was assumed to be a political calculation to avoid giving Henry Clay a campaign issue to run on in 1832, but Jackson explained that his move was not political, but rather to avoid the politics of "pork-barrel spending".  He suggested that the bills contained too many "direct" appropriations that were neither necessary nor useful. Furthermore, Jackson argued that purchasing stock in the Louisville and Portland Canal Company would open the federal treasury to special interest groups and a never-ending power grab of the federal government.  

In 1834, Jackson vetoed another internal improvement bill. This, his final internal improvement veto was of an act to improve the navigation of the Wabash river.  The veto message was delivered as part of his sixth State of the Union Address. Jackson took the opportunity to not only explain why he was vetoing this bill, but also to lay out clearly his set of principles on internal improvements. Jackson explained that while none of these acts were infringements on our personal rights, they were nonetheless unconstitutional. They offered local advantages in exchange for a more powerful federal government. Despite, what Jackson considered grave dangers Jackson, the number of projects proposed by Congress was growing at an alarming rate. Jackson estimated that the combined cost of the Maysville act and those he vetoed in 1832 would have amounted to $106 million, and now pending in Congress were additional appropriations of internal improvement projects that most certainly exceeded another $100 million. That may not seem like much today even when we adjust for inflation, but back then the federal government remained but a small fraction of what it is today.

Rather than try to embellish on Jackson's own words, I will let them speak for themselves.  Here are Jackson's principles on internal improvement from his sixth annual address.  This is a very lengthy portion of his address because it is the full veto message of the Act.  Typically these are delivered separate from the State of the Union Address, but Jackson chose to append it to his address nonetheless.

"I have not been able to satisfy myself that the bill entitled "An act to improve the navigation of the Wabash River" , which was sent to me at the close of your last session, ought to pass, and I have therefore withheld from it my approval and now return it to the Senate, the body in which it originated.

There can be no question connected with the administration of public affairs more important or more difficult to be satisfactorily dealth with than that which relates to the rightful authority and proper action of the Federal Government upon the subject of internal improvements. To inherent embarrassments have been added others resulting from the course of our legislation concerning it.

I have heretofore communicated freely with Congress upon this subject, and in adverting to it again I can not refrain from expressing my increased conviction of its extreme importance as well in regard to its bearing upon the maintenance of the Constitution and the prudent management of the public revenue as on account of its disturbing effect upon the harmony of the Union.

We are in no danger from violations of the Constitution by which encroachments are made upon the personal rights of the citizen. The sentence of condemnation long since pronounced by the American people upon acts of that character will, I doubt not, continue to prove as salutary in its effects as it is irreversible in its nature.

But against the dangers of unconstitutional acts which, instead of menacing the vengeance of offended authority, proffer local advantages and bring in their train the patronage of the Government, we are, I fear, not so safe. To suppose that because our Government has been instituted for the benefit of the people it must therefore have the power to do what ever may seem to conduce to the public good is an error into which even honest minds are too apt to fall. In yielding themselves to this fallacy they overlook the great considerations in which the Federal Constitution was founded. They forget that in consequence of the conceded diversities in the interest and condition of the different States it was foreseen at the period of its adoption that although a particular measure of the Government might be beneficial and proper in 1 State it might be the reverse in another; that it was for this reason the States would not consent to make a grant to the Federal Government of the general and usual powers of government, but of such only as were specifically enumerated, and the probable effects of which they could, as they thought, safely anticipate; and they forget also the paramount obligation upon all to abide by the compact then so solemnly and, as it was hoped, so firmly established.

In addition to the dangers to the Constitution springing from the sources I have stated, there has been one which was perhaps greater than all. I allude to the materials which this subject has afforded for sinister appeals to selfish feelings, and the opinion heretofore so extensively entertained of its adaptation to the purposes of personal ambition. With such stimulus it is not surprising that the acts and pretensions of the Federal Government in this behalf should some times have been carried to an alarming extent. The questions which have arisen upon this subject have related --

1. To the power of making internal improvements within the limits of a State, with the right of territorial jurisdiction, sufficient at least for their preservation and use.
2. To the right of appropriating money in aid of such works when carried on by a State or [see APP Note] by a company in virtue of State authority, surrendering the claim of jurisdiction; and
3. To the propriety of appropriation for improvements of a particular class, viz, for light houses, beacons, buoys, public piers, and for the removal of sand bars, sawyers, and other temporary and partial impediments in our navigable rivers and harbors.

The claims of power for the General Government upon each of these points certainly present matter of the deepest interest. The first is, however, of much the greatest importance, in as much as, in addition to the dangers of unequal and improvident expenditures of public moneys common to all, there is super-added to that the conflicting jurisdictions of the respective governments. Federal jurisdiction, at least to the extent I have stated, has been justly regarded by its advocates as necessarily appurtenant to the power in question, if that exists by the Constitution.

That the most injurious conflicts would unavoidably arise between the respective jurisdictions of the State and Federal Governments in the absence of a constitutional provision marking out their respective boundaries can not be doubted. The local advantages to be obtained would induce the States to overlook in the beginning the dangers and difficulties to which they might ultimately be exposed. The powers exercised by the Federal Government would soon be regarded with jealousy by the State authorities, and originating as they must from implication or assumption, it would be impossible to affix to them certain and safe limits.

Opportunities and temptations to the assumption of power incompatible with State sovereignty would be increased and those barriers which resist the tendency of our system toward consolidation greatly weakened. The officers and agents of the General Government might not always have the discretion to abstain from intermeddling with State concerns, and if they did they would not always escape the suspicion of having done so. Collisions and consequent irritations would spring up; that harmony which should ever exist between the General Government and each member of the Confederacy would be frequently interrupted; a spirit of contention would be engendered and the dangers of disunion greatly multiplied.

Yet we know that not withstanding these grave objections this dangerous doctrine was at one time apparently proceeding to its final establishment with fearful rapidity. The desier to embark the Federal Government in works of internal improvement prevailed in the highest degree during the first session of the first Congress that I had the honor to meet in my present situation. When the bill authorizing a subscription on the part of the United States for stock in the Maysville and Lexington TurnPike Company passed the two houses, there had been reported by the Committees of Internal Improvements bills containing appropriations for such objects, inclusive of those for the Cumberland road and for harbors and light houses, to the amount of $106,000,000. In this amount was included authority to the Secretary of the Treasury to subscribe for the stock of different companies to a great extent, and the residue was principally for the direct construction of roads by this Government. In addition to these projects, which had been presented to the two Houses under the sanction and recommendation of their respective Committees on Internal Improvements, there were then still pending before the committees, and in memorials to Congress presented but not referred, different projects for works of a similar character, the expense of which can not be estimated with certainty, but must have exceeded $100,000,000.

Regarding the bill authorizing a subscription to the stock of the Maysville and Lexington TurnPike Company as the entering wedge of a system which, however weak at first, might soon become strong enough to rive the bands of the Union asunder, and believing that if its passage was acquiesced in by the Executive and the people there would no longer be any limitation upon the authority of the General Government in respect to the appropriation of money for such objects, I deemed it an imperative duty to withhold from it the Executive approval.

Although from the obviously local character of that work I might well have contented myself with a refusal to approve the bill upon that ground, yet sensible of the vital importance of the subject, and anxious that my views and opinions in regard to the whole matter should be fully understood by Congress and by my constituents, I felt it my duty to go further. I therefore embraced that early occasion to apprise Congress that in my opinion the Constitution did not confer upon it the power to authorize the construction of ordinary roads and canals within the limits of a State and to say, respectfully, that no bill admitting such a power could receive my official sanction. I did so in the confident expectation that the speedy settlement of the public mind upon the whole subject would be greatly facilitated by the difference between the 2 Houses and myself, and that the harmonious action of the several departments of the Federal Government in regard to it would be ultimately secured.

So far, at least, as it regards this branch of the subject, my best hopes have been realized. Nearly four years have elapsed, and several sessions of Congress have intervened, and no attempt within my recollection has been made to induce Congress to exercise this power. The applications for the construction of roads and canals which were formerly multiplied upon your files are no longer presented, and we have good reason to infer that the current public sentiment has become so decided against the pretension as effectually to discourage its reassertion. So thinking, I derive the greatest satisfaction from the conviction that thus much at least has been secured upon this important and embarrassing subject.

From attempts to appropriate the national funds to objects which are confessedly of a local character we can not, I trust, have anything further to apprehend. My views in regard to the expediency of making appropriations for works which are claimed to be of a national character and prosecuted under State authority -- assuming that Congress have the right to do so -- were stated in my annual message to Congress in 1830, and also in that containing my objections to the Maysville road bill.

So thoroughly convinced am I that no such appropriations ought to be made by Congress until a suitable constitutional provision is made upon the subject, and so essential do I regard the point to the highest interests of our country, that I could not consider myself as discharging my duty to my constituents in giving the Executive sanction to any bill containing such an appropriation. If the people of the United States desire that the public Treasury shall be resorted to for the means to prosecute such works, they will concur in an amendment of the Constitution prescribing a rule by which the national character of the works is to be tested, and by which the greatest practicable equality of benefits may be secured to each member of the Confederacy. The effects of such a regulation would be most salutary in preventing unprofitable expenditures, in securing our legislation from the pernicious consequences of a scramble for the favors of Government, and in repressing the spirit of discontent which must inevitably arise from an unequal distribution of treasures which belong alike to all.

There is another class of appropriations for what may be called, without impropriety, internal improvements, which have always been regarded as standing upon different grounds from those to which I have referred. I allude to such as have for their object the improvement of our harbors, the removal of partial and temporary obstructions in our navigable rivers, for the facility and security of our foreign commerce. The grounds upon which I distinguished appropriations of this character from others have already been stated to Congress. I will now only add that at the 1st session of Congress under the new Constitution it was provided by law that all expenses which should accrue from and after the 15th day of August, 1789, in the necessary support and maintenance and repairs of all light houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers erected, placed, or sunk before the passage of the act within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States, for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe, should be defrayed out of the Treasury of the United States, and, further, that it should be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to provide by contracts, with the approbation of the President, for rebuilding when necessary and keeping in good repair the light houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers in the several States, and for furnishing them with supplies.

Appropriations for similar objects have been continued from that time to the present without interruption or dispute. As a natural consequence of the increase and extension of our foreign commerce, ports of entry and delivery have been multiplied and established, not only upon our sea-board but in the interior of the country upon our lakes and navigable rivers. The convenience and safety of this commerce have led to the gradual extension of these expenditures; to the erection of light houses, the placing, planting, and sinking of buoys, beacons, and piers, and to the removal of partial and temporary obstructions in our navigable rivers and in the harbors upon our Great Lakes as well as on the sea-board.

Although I have expressed to Congress my apprehension that these expenditures have some times been extravagant and disproportionate to the advantages to be derived from them, I have not gelt it to be my duty to refuse my assent to bills containing them, and have contented myself to follow in this respect in the foot-steps of all my predecessors. Sensible, however, from experience and observation of the great abuses to which the unrestricted exercise of this authority by Congress was exposed, I have prescribed a limitation for the government of my own conduct by which expenditures of this character are confined to places below the ports of entry or delivery established by law. I am very sentible that this restriction is not as satisfactory as could be desired, and that much embarrassment may be caused to the executive department in its execution by appropriations for remote and not well-understood objects. But as neither my own reflections nor the lights which I may properly derive from other sources have supplied me with a better, I shall continue to apply my best exertions to a faithful application of the rule upon which it is founded.

I sincerely regret that I could not give my assent to the bill entitled: "An act to improve the navigation of the Wabash River" ; but I could not have done so without receding from the ground which I have, upon the fullest consideration, taken upon this subject, and of which Congress has been heretofore apprised, and without throwing the subject again open to abuses which no good citizen entertaining my opinions could desire.

I rely upon the intelligence and candor of my fellow citizens, in whose liberal indulgence I have already so largely participated, for a correct appreciation on my motives in interposing as I have done on this and other occasions checks to a course of legislation which, without in the slightest degree calling in question the motives of others, I consider as sanctioning improper and unconstitutional expenditures of public treasure.
I am not hostile to internal improvements, and wish to see them extended to every part of the country. But I am fully persuaded, if they are not commenced in a proper manner, confined to proper objects, and conducted under an authority generally conceded to be rightful, that a successful prosecution of them can not be reasonably expected. The attempt will meet with resistance where it might otherwise receive support, and instead of strengthening the bonds of our Confederacy it will only multiply and aggravate the causes of disunion."

References

Presidency.ucsb.edu. 2020. Sixth Annual Message | The American Presidency Project. [online] Available at: <https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/sixth-annual-message-2> [Accessed 18 July 2020].

Stateoftheunionhistory.com. 2020. 1830 Andrew Jackson - The Pocket Veto And The Election Of 1832. [online] Available at: <http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2019/01/1830-andrew-jackson-pocket-veto-and.html> [Accessed 18 July 2020].

Stateoftheunionhistory.com. 2020. 1830 Andrew Jackson - Jackson Vetoes Pork Belly Spending. [online] Available at: <http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2019/02/1830-andrew-jackson-jackson-vetoes-pork.html> [Accessed 18 July 2020].

Stateoftheunionhistory.com. 2020. 1830 Andrew Jackson - Veto Of Louisville And Portland Canal Bill. [online] Available at: <http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2019/02/1830-andrew-jackson-veto-of-louisville.html> [Accessed 18 July 2020].

Stateoftheunionhistory.com. 1829 Andrew Jackson - Signaling The Maysville Road Veto Of 1830. [online] Stateoftheunionhistory.com. Available at: <http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2018/10/1829-andrew-jackson-signaling-maysville.html> [Accessed 18 July 2020].