from this consideration how much the farmer is kept back for want of spare capital; and what will be the advantages of the settler who commands it. The same remark applies to bacon, and every article of produce.

We must not suppose, that the poor farmer who is obliged to sell under such a disadvantage, is absolutely poor. He is, on the contrary, a thriving man... He is growing rich, but he would proceed at a double speed, if he had the value of one year's crop beforehand: such is the general condition of new settlers.

a

A good cow and calf is worth from twelve to twenty dollars; sow three dollars; a stout horse for drawing, sixty dollars or upwards. Wheat sells at 3s. 4 1-2d. sterling, per bushel, Winchester measure. Oats, Is. 4d.

Indian corn, IId.

Hay, about 35s. per ton.

Flour, per barrel, 36s.: 196 lb. nett.

Fowls, 4 1-2d. each.

Eggs, 1-2d.

Butter, 6d. per pound.

Cheese, rarely seen, 13 1-2d. per lb.

Meat, 2d. per lb.

A buck, 4s. 6d. without the skin.

Salt, 3s. 4d. per bushel.

Milk, given away.

Tobacco, 3d. per pound.

... the tavern charges are reasonable. Our board is two dollars per week, each person, for which we receive twenty-one meals. Excellent coffee and tea, with broiled chickens, bacon, &c. for breakfast and supper; and variety of good but simple fare at dinner; about five pence sterling a meal. No liquor but water is thought of at meals in this country, besides coffee, tea, or milk.

Travelling expences are very regular and moderate, amounting to a dollar per day, for man and horse,

Breakfast and feed for horse.

Feed for horses at noon..

Supper, lodging, man and horse.

viz.

The power of capital in this newly settled or settling region, is not thoroughly understood in the eastern states, or emigration would not be confined to the indigent or laborious classes... Emigrants from Europe are too apt to linger in the eastern cities, wasting their time,

their money, and their resolution. They should push out westward without delay, where they can live cheaply until they fix themselves. Two dollars, saved in Pennsylvania, will purchase an acre of good land in the Illinois.

The land carriage from Philadelphia, to Pittsburg, is from seven to ten dollars per cwt. (100 lb.) Clothing, razors, pocket-knives, pencils, mathematical instruments, and light articles in general, of constant usefulness, ought to be carried even at this expence, and books, which are scarce, and much wanted in the west. Good gunlocks are rare and difficult to procure. No heavy implements will pay carriage...

August 7. We are now domiciliated in Princeton. Though at the farthest limits of Indiana, but two years old, and containing about fifty houses, this little town affords respectable society: it is the county-town, and can boast as many well-informed genteel people, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, as any county-town I am acquainted with. I think there are half as many individuals who are entitled to that distinction as there are houses, and not one decidedly vicious character, nor one that is not able and willing to maintain himself...

101. MADISON'S VETO OF THE BONUS BILL

The so-called Bonus Bill was a measure proposing to apply to works of internal improvement the bonus paid for its charter by the Second Bank. In his veto, Madison applied the principles of strict construction of the constitution. Compare his reasoning on the powers of Congress with that of Marshall in McCulloch vs. Maryland.

Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 1, pp. 584-585.

MARCH 3, 1817.

To the House of Representatives of the United States: HAVING considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States.

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses...

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them...

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution.

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and a reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest.

JAMES MADISON.

102. THE RUSH-BAGOT AGREEMENT, 1818

In effect the following document neutralized the waters common to the United States and Canada. It marked the beginning of the unfortified frontier between the two countries, so significant an argument for international peace. It was proclaimed by Monroe on April 28, 1818. Public Statutes at Large of the United States, Vol. 8, p. 231.

ARRANGEMENT

BETWEEN the United States and Great Britain, between Richard Rush, Esq., acting as Secretary of the Department of State, and Charles Bagot, His Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary, &c.

The naval force to be maintained upon the American lakes, by his majesty and the government of the United States, shall henceforth be confined to the following vessels on each side; that is —

On lake Ontario, to one vessel not exceeding one hundred tons burden, and armed with one eighteen pound cannon.

On the upper lakes, to two vessels, not exceeding like burden each, and armed with like force.

On the waters of lake Champlain, to one vessel not exceeding like burden, and armed with like force.

All other armed vessels on these lakes shall be forthwith dismantled, and no other vessels of war shall be there built or armed.

If either party should hereafter be desirous of annulling this stipulation, and should give notice to that effect to the other party, it shall cease to be binding after the expiration of six months from the date of such notice.

The naval force so to be limited shall be restricted to such services as will, in no respect, interfere with the proper duties of the armed. vessels of the other party.

103. THE OREGON CONVENTION OF 1818

In 1819 and 1824 the United States extinguished the Spanish and Russian claims to Oregon; by the following document and its renewals a final settlement with Great Britain was postponed until 1846. It was concluded October 20, 1818.

Public Statutes at Large of the United States, Vol. 8, pp. 248

CONVENTION WITH GREAT BRITAIN
[Preamble recites appointment of plenipotentiaries]

Who, after having exchanged their respective full powers, found to be in due and proper form, have agreed to and concluded the following articles:

ARTICLE 3.

It is agreed that any country that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, westward of the Stony Mountains, shall, together with its harbours, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open for the term of ten years from the date of the signature of the present convention to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two powers; it being well understood that this agreement is not to be construed to the prejudice of any claim which either of the two high contracting parties may have to any part of the said country, nor shall it be taken to affect the claims of any other power or state to any part of the said country; the only object of the high contracting parties, in that respect, being to prevent disputes and differences amongst themselves.

104. THE FLORIDA CESSION

February 22, 1819, a treaty was concluded between the United States and Spain by which Spain, in effect, recognized the United States' acquisition of West Florida, ceded her the remainder of Florida and delimited the boundary of the two powers to the west.

Public Statutes at Large of the United States, Vol. 8, pp. 252264.

TREATY OF AMITY, SETTLEMENT, AND LIMITS,

Between the United States of America and his Catholic Majesty. THE United States of America and his Catholic Majesty, desiring to consolidate, on a permanent basis, the friendship and good correspondence which happily prevails between the two parties, have determined to settle and terminate all their differences and pretensions, by a Treaty, which shall designate, with precision, the limits of their respective bordering territories on North America...