Internal Improvements and a Military Academy

During Jefferson’s Second Inaugural Address, he suggested for the first time that federal funds be applied in the future “to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within each state.”[68] On the basis of this passage, many historians have rushed to the conclusion that Jefferson in his second term became an advocate of public works programs, government spending as an engine of prosperity, and expansive federal powers. They are wrong, for Jefferson was merely suggesting one way in which surplus federal funds could be spent after the federal debt had been fully retired. He also made it clear that an amendment to the Constitution would have to be obtained in order to authorize such spending.

He brought up the subject again in his Sixth Annual Message. He explained to his countrymen that federal revenues were increasing at such a rate that there would be very soon a surplus beyond what was required to pay the interest and the sinking fund on the federal debt. He pointed out that there were two things that could be done. Congress could reduce the impost, or it could apply the funds to “public education, roads, rivers, canals, and other such objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers.”[69] Once again, he stressed the need for an amendment to the Constitution, for “the objects now recommended are not among those enumerated in the constitution, and to which it permits the public moneys to be applied.”[70] As the impost was low, and as it was applied mainly to “foreign luxuries,” he recommended spending the surplus on objects of public improvement. Jefferson was not suggesting that an empowered federal government take up the responsibility of funding and supervising educational institutions all over the country; rather, he was suggesting merely that Congress should consider founding a “national establishment for education,” or a national university:

Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal; but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country.[71]

That he had thought through this subject is evident from the fact that earlier in the year he had discussed the issue with his friend Joel Barlow and had sent him a draft of a “bill for the establishment of a National Academy & University at the city of Washington.”[72] However, Jefferson refused to propose such a bill to Congress until the latter had obtained constitutional authorization by passing an amendment. Jefferson again brought the subject up in his last annual message to Congress. He asked:

Shall [the surplus] lie unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the revenue be reduced? Or shall it rather be appropriated to the improvement of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union, under the powers which Congress may already possess, or such amendment of the constitution as may be approved by the States?[73]

Here Jefferson for the first time equivocated on this issue. Just four months before he would be stepping down as president, he suggested that maybe Congress already had the power to fund internal improvements: “While uncertain of the course of things, the time may be advantageously employed in obtaining the powers necessary for a system of improvement, should that be thought best.”[74] Jefferson had run into the same problem he had encountered with the Louisiana treaty. He was finding himself alone in defending strict construction.

Jefferson himself was fairly consistent in not undertaking unconstitutional improvement projects. In March 1802, he signed a bill which authorized him to establish a military academy at West Point, New York. The law limited the academy to twenty officers and men. Establishing an institution for the training of military officers, particularly engineers, certainly fell within Congress’s powers to “provide for the common Defense” and “raise and support Armies.”[75] Jefferson’s one slight inconsistency in this area was his approval of the Cumberland Road bill in March 1806. Under its terms, Congress appropriated $30,000 and authorized the president to appoint three commissioners and surveyors to survey and lay out a national road connecting Cumberland, Maryland, on the Potomac River with Wheeling, Virginia, on the Ohio River. The president was also required to get the approval of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, states through which the road would pass. Jefferson fulfilled the terms of the law. However, construction did not begin nor were any funds appropriated for that purpose under Jefferson’s presidency.[76] President James Madison began construction of the road in 1811; Monroe completed it in 1818.