Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 11).djvu/173

 In his first annual message to Congress, dated December 8, 1829, President Jackson stated plainly his attitude to the great question of internal improvements. "As the period approaches when the application of the revenue to the payment of [national] debt will cease, the disposition of the surplus will present a subject for the serious deliberation of Congress Considered in connection with the difficulties which have heretofore attended appropriations for purposes of internal improvement, and with those which this experience tells us will certainly arise whenever power over such subjects may be exercised by the General Government, it is hoped that it may lead to the adoption of some plan which will reconcile the diversified interests of the States and strengthen the bonds which unite them To avoid these evils it appears to me that the most safe, just, and federal disposition which could be made of the surplus revenue would be its apportionment among the several States according to their ratio of representation, and should this measure not be found warranted by the Constitution that it would be expedient to