From this view of the right to appropriate and of the practice under it I think that I am authorized to conclude that the right to make internal improvements has not been granted by the power “to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare,” included in the first of the enumerated powers; that that grant conveys nothing more than a right to appropriate the public money, and stands on the same ground with the right to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, conveyed by the first branch of that power; that the Government itself being limited, both branches of the power to raise and appropriate the public money are also limited, the extent of the Government as designated by the specific grants marking the extent of the power in both branches, extending, however, to every object embraced by the fair scope of those grants and not confined to a strict construction of their respective powers, it being safer to aid the purposes of those grants by the appropriation of money than to extend by a forced construction the grant itself; that although the right to appropriate the public money to such improvements affords a resource indispensably necessary to such a scheme, it is nevertheless deficient as a power in the great characteristics on which its execution depends.

The substance of what has been urged on this subject may be expressed in a few words.  My idea is that Congress have an unlimited power to raise money, and that in its appropriation they have a discretionary power, restricted only by the duty to appropriate it to purposes of common defense and of general, not local, national, not State, benefit.

I will now proceed to the fifth source from which the power is said to be derived, viz, the power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States or in any department or officer thereof.  This is the seventeenth and last of the enumerated powers granted to Congress.

I have always considered this power as having been granted on a principle of greater caution to secure the complete execution of all the powers which had been vested in the General Government.  It contains no distinct and specific power, as every other grant does, such as to lay and collect taxes, to declare war, to regulate commerce, and the like.  Looking to the whole scheme of the General Government, it gives to Congress authority to make all laws which should be deemed necessary and proper for carrying all its powers into effect.  My impression has been invariably that this power would have existed substantially if this grant had not been made; for why is any power granted unless it be to be executed when required, and how can it be executed under our Government unless it be by laws necessary and proper for the purpose—­that is, well adapted to the end?  It is a principle universally admitted that a grant of a power conveys