THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



87 



construed according to the general import and evident intention of all 

 its parts. 



If we can construe the law from its own provisions, it would be ex- 

 ceedingly unsafe and improper to interpret it by reference to the opin- 

 ions of a portion only of those who voted for it, being the minor part of 

 them. To do this would be to make the opinions of a few control the 

 acts and intentions of the mnjority as expressed in the law, and in ef- 

 fect to give to those few the law making ower. In the present case the 

 evident intention was to carry out the pur ose of Smithson's will, name 

 ly : "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." 



The title of the act, its preamble and provisions, would have been 

 palpably absurd, if their object had been only or chiefly to found a great 

 library. To describe a library as an institution " for the increase and 

 diffusion of knowledge among men," would be a preposterous abuse of 

 terms. So, too, " to erect a suitable building of sufficient size, with 

 suitable rooms or halls for the reception and arrangement, upon a liberal 

 scale, of objects of natural history, geological, mineralogical, and bo- 

 tanical specimens, classed and arranged so as to facilitate tlie study of 

 them, with a chemical laborator\s lecture rooms, &c.," as provided in 

 sections 5 and 6, is wholly inconsistent with the idea of an institution, 

 of which a hbrary is to be the principal agent. 



It is true that the eighth section of the act authorizes an application 

 of an annual sum, not exceeding $25,000, for the gradual formation of 

 a hbrary. This is in great disproportion to the various objects before 

 recited in the act, and if it had been mandatory, would have made the 

 general authority and discretion given to the Regents in the ninth sec- 

 tion, absurd and nugatory, and would indeed have equally defeated the 

 other provisions before mentioned. Such an appropriation, if" made, 

 would establish a great library, but not such an institution as is indi- 

 cated by the title of the bill, or warranted by its various provisions. 

 Instead of a Secretar}- with assistants, it should have provided for a 

 Librarian, with an assistant as secretary, and assistant librarians. In- 

 stead of providing for a building on a hberal scale, with suitable rooms 

 or halls f()r a chemical laboratory, lecture rooms, &c., not indicating the 

 library as of paramount importance, but according to the order of enu- 

 meration, placing it after other objects, the law would have declared it 

 to be of piimary importance, and designated the other objects as in- 

 cidental or subsidiary to the Library. The act, in its various terms and 

 provisions, does not seem to have been the result of plans entirely har- 

 monious and consistent, but bears some marks of conflictingopinions ; and 

 the large discretion allowed in the ninth section appears to have been in- 

 tended to give to the Regents the authority to reconcile and determine 

 those difficulties which Congress could not avoid or provide for, to their 

 own satisfaction. 



Nothing, however, seems to be clearer than that the Legislature did 

 not intend a public library to be the principal instrument of the In- 

 stitution. The third section enacts that " the business of the Institu- 

 tion shall be conducted at the city of Washington by a Board of Re- 

 gents." The terms of Smithson's will requires that Washington should 

 be the locality of the Institution ; but, if this section had reference to a 

 pubUc library, absorbing almost the whole interest of the fund, would 



