Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/461

 CH. XIV.] the latter requiring terms of great extent and force to accommodate the former, which have been adopted; and both placed in the same clause and sentence. Can it be presumed, that all these circumstances were so nicely adjusted by mere accident? Is it not more just to conclude, that they were the result of due deliberation and design? Had it been intended, that congress should be restricted in the appropriation of the public money to such expenditures, as were authorized by a rigid construction of the other specific grants, how easy would it have been to have provided for it by a declaration to that effect. The omission of such declaration is, therefore, an additional proof, that it was not intended, that the grant should be so construed.

§ 985. It was evidently impossible to have subjected this grant, in either branch, to such restriction, without exposing the government to very serious embarrassment. How carry it into effect? If the grant had been made in any degree dependent upon the states, the government would have experienced the fate of the confederation. Like it, it would have withered, and soon perished. Had the Supreme Court been authorized, or should any other tribunal, distinct from the government, be authorized to interpose its veto, and to say, that more money had been raised under either branch of this power, (that is, by taxes, duties, imposts, or excises,) than was necessary; that such a tax or duty was useless; that the appropriation to this or that purpose was unconstitutional; the movement might have been suspended, and the whole system disorganized. It was impossible to have created a power within the government, or any other power, distinct from congress and the executive, which should control the movement of the government in this respect,