Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/218

206 his own experience. Evidently this candidate for the presidency still had opinions of his own and courage to express them. It was not by the small tricks of the demagogue, but rather by a strong advocacy of the policies he believed in, that he hoped to commend himself to the confidence of the people. So we find him soon engaged in a hot debate on internal improvements.

In May, 1822, Monroe had vetoed a bill to establish tollgates on the Cumberland Road, and on the same occasion submitted to Congress an elaborate statement supporting his belief that the practical execution of works of internal improvement by the general government was unwarranted by the Constitution, admitting however the power of Congress under the Constitution to grant and appropriate money in aid of works of internal improvement to be executed by others. In January, 1824, a bill was reported authorizing the President to cause the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates to be made for such a system of roads and canals as he might deem of national importance in a postal, commercial, or military point of view. For this purpose the bill proposed an appropriation of $30,000. The debate turned mainly on the point of constitutional power, and in his most dashing style Clay attacked Monroe's constitutional doctrines, stopping but little short of ridicule, and pronounced himself again in favor of the most liberal construction of the fundamental law. In the power “to establish” post roads, he easily found the