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On the other hand, it was equally true that Clay and the advocates of his system could never return to the close confines of a limited or individualistic government. A protective tariff and internal improvements supplemented each other. Clay's companion in measures, John Quincy Adams, was an apostate from Federalism, and never at ease in the strict-construction ranks.
No excuse similar to the one under which it was begun ever presented itself, and the party vision was not sufficiently national to undertake public improvements unless in disguise. The strict-construction theory that these works should be built by the individual States threw upon the newer States a burden which they could ill afford to bear.
Ex-Governor Monroe, of Virginia, was chosen to assist Livingston, because his former executive position had put him in touch with the Western people. In several ways Louisiana played havoc with strict-construction theories.
The most rigid of the strict-construction Presidents became helpless before them, or never foresaw their possibilities.
During the same year, the Government defaulted on the interest due on the national debt. Moneyed men claimed that business had been so impaired by the embargo and war as to prevent their coming to the relief of the nation. Unfortunately, strict-construction theory had cut off the bank which might otherwise have been a source of supply.
Insidiously the internal-improvement precedent had been allowed to creep into the strict-construction fold. How it grew until one veto after another was required to bring the people back to their senses remains to be described later.
Strict-construction scruples were satisfied by securing the consent of the States through which the road was to be built. Consent having been given by the State Legislatures of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, work was begun in 1808 at the eastern terminus of the portage, Fort Cumberland, Maryland, a name eventually given to the entire road.
The insularity upon which the United States has depended so largely, the freedom from annoying neighbours, room for the westward expansion of the people, the unification of the Mississippi valley all would have been lost if the original strict-construction theory had prevailed.