Jefferson was the first president to advocate a broad program of public works, calling for a constitutional amendment to authorize the financing of “education, roads, rivers, canals,” and other projects.13,14,15 “By these operations,” he said in his Sixth Annual Message, “new channels of communication will be opened between the States; the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.”16
