One other peculiarity in this course of legislation is not less remarkable.  It is that when the General Government first took charge of lighthouses and beacons it required the works themselves and the lands on which they were situated to be ceded to the United States.  And although for a time this precaution was neglected in the case of new works, in the sequel it was provided by general laws that no light-house should be constructed on any site previous to the jurisdiction over the same being ceded to the United States.

Constitutional authority for the construction and support of many of the public works of this nature, it is certain, may be found in the power of Congress to maintain a navy and provide for the general defense; but their number, and in many instances their location, preclude the idea of their being fully justified as necessary and proper incidents of that power.  And they do not seem susceptible of being referred to any other of the specific powers vested in Congress by the Constitution, unless it be that to raise revenue in so far as this relates to navigation.  The practice under all my predecessors in office, the express admissions of some of them, and absence of denial by any sufficiently manifest their belief that the power to erect light-houses, beacons, and piers is possessed by the General Government.  In the acts of Congress, as we have already seen, the inducement and object of the appropriations are expressly declared, those appropriations being for “light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers” erected or placed “within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe.”

If it be contended that this review of the history of appropriations of this class leads to the inference that, beyond the purposes of national defense and maintenance of a navy, there is authority in the Constitution to construct certain works in aid of navigation, it is at the same time to be remembered that the conclusions thus deduced from cotemporaneous construction and long-continued acquiescence are themselves directly suggestive of limitations of constitutionality, as well as expediency, regarding the nature and the description of those aids to navigation which Congress may provide as incident to the revenue power; for at this point controversy begins, not so much as to the principle as to its application.

In accordance with long-established legislative usage, Congress may construct light-houses and beacons and provide, as it does, other means to prevent shipwrecks on the coasts of the United States.  But the General Government can not go beyond this and make improvements of rivers and harbors of the nature and to the degree of all the provisions of the bill of the last session of Congress.