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The Bonus Bill of 1817 was legislation proposed by John C. Calhoun to earmark the revenue "bonus," as well as future dividends, from the recently established Second Bank of the United States for an internal improvements fund.[1] Proponents of the bill stressed the nearly universally accepted need for improvements and brushed off strict constructionists with their own arguments in favor of "implied powers."[2] Although President James Madison approved of the need and stated goals of improvements, he vetoed the bill as unconstitutional because he found no expressed congressional power to fund roads and canals in Article I, Section 8, of the United States Constitution. His veto message represented an important explication by the "Father of the Constitution."
- ^ Stephen Minicucci, Internal Improvements and the Union, 1790–1860, Studies in American Political Development (2004), 18: p.160-185, (2004), Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S0898588X04000094
- ^ Book review by Tom Downey of John Lauritz Larson, Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States, University of North Carolina Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-8078-4911-8