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. Opposition to the bill came from sectional rivalries in the older eastern states, fearing that providing the means for settlers to travel west would drain their population and create competing states in less settled areas, including the Louisiana Purchase, and from questions of the bill's constitutionality. 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." Although President James Madison approved of the need and stated goals of improvemen