the time, given the public debt. Until the debt was paid off, there would be no surplus to spend on these projects. Generally, Jackson supported internal improvements. During his first term, he sanctioned federal expenditures for transportation projects at a rate nearly double that of the expenditures under President John Quincy Adams. It was seen as good policy to spend federal money on national improvements, as long as two conditions were met. First, they should be done pursuant to a general system of improvement, not by ad hoc legislation. Second, the Constitution should be amended to make clear the limits on federal power. Some scholars argue that Jackson's veto can be seen as largely driven by personal, rather than political motives, particularly given Jackson's approval of internal improvement bills with as much a local nature as the Maysville Road. Jackson's veto may have been one of the many manifestations of the rivalry between Jackson and Henry Clay, who was one of the major proponents of the Maysville Road as part of his American System. Because the Maysville Road Project was of a local nature, the veto did not encounter resounding opposition in Congress. In fact, the veto would please voters in New York and Pennsylvania who were responsible for financing their own projects, and saw no reason to help fund similar projects in other states. It also appealed to Southern states' rights supporters who had no need for canals or new roads. For Jackson, this decision underscored his belief that the construction of roads and canals lay more within the realm of the states rather than the federal government. This belief in limiting the federal government's scope of action was to be one of the tenets of Jacksonian democracy. In 1846 President James K. Polk, an admirer and follower of Jackson, vetoed the Rivers and Harbors Bill on similar grounds. Henry Clay and his Whig Party, in contrast to Jackson, supported both the 1830 and 1846 bills because they believed the national government had a responsibility to promote trade commerce and economic modernization. U.S. Route 68 While Henry Clay and the Whig Party lost the argument, the two positions represented by the Maysville Road veto continued to face each other into the future. A route that closely approximated the surveyed right-of-way for the Maysville and Lexington Turnpike received substantial federal aid in the 20th century and would be designated as