Neither would he admit that the regulation of commerce
included more than waterways. It was an additional evidence of the
reversal of parties.
The Representatives from the Eastern States generally wished to use
the money to relieve the ordinary burdens of taxation, realising that
the larger part of these improvements would lie beyond the Alleghenies
and, presumably, of no benefit to them. Individual members may have
held great expectations of the gratitude to be gained from their
constituents by securing a share of the bank money. Madison rudely
shattered these in the closing hours of his administration by vetoing
the bill. It was a heroic duty. To such a distance had the party gone
from the confines of strict construction, so resistless had been the
hand of compulsion in the sixteen years of Republican administration,
so powerfully had this internal improvement system affected the cupidity
of the people, so careless had Congress grown of the difference between
the reserved and expressed powers, that Madison felt it necessary to
recall his party to its first principles. In his veto message, he spoke
the almost forgotten language of the old days when he said that the
power to regulate commerce did not extend to enterprises conducted
within the several States; that the efforts of the Union should be
confined to foreign commerce; that any expenditure of the bonus proceeds
under the plea of the common defence would be to give Congress a general
power of legislation.
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