The Cciicsis of tJic United States Nalioiial Muschdi. 149 



the United States. Besides this, the extensive museum of the Patent OfTice would 

 immediately fill the space allotted for collections of this kind in the Smithsonian 

 edifice, and in a short time another appropriation would be required for the erection 

 of another building. Moreover, all the objects of interest of this collection have 

 been described and figured in the volumes of the expedition, and the small portion 

 of our funds which can be devoted to a museum may be l>etter employed in collect- 

 ing new objects, such as have not yet been studied, than in preserving those from 

 which the harvest of discovery has already been fully gathered. 



The answer made to some of these objections has usually been, that the Govern- 

 ment would grant an annual appropriation for the support of the museum of the 

 Exploring Expedition. But this would be equally objectionable; since it would 

 annually bring the Institution before Congress as a supplicant for Government 

 patronage, and ultimately subject it to political influence and control. 



After an experience of three years, I am fully convinced that the true policy of the 

 Institution is to ask nothing from Congress except the safe-keeping of its funds, to 

 mingle its operations as little as possible with those of the General Government, and 

 to adhere in all cases to its own distinct organization, while it cooperates with other 

 institutions in the way of promoting knowledge ; and on the other hand, that it is 

 desirable that Congress should place as few restrictions on the Institution as possi- 

 ble consistent with a jitdicious expenditure of the income, and that this be judged 

 of by a proper estimate of the results produced. 



The Regents and their Secretary were in harmony. 



In the Senate, April 15, 1850, the discussion of the bill for the com- 

 pletion of the Patent Office building elicited the following statement from 

 Senator Jeffenson Davis : 



What the wants of the Patent Office are now is one thing, and what those wants 

 will be in a few years is another, and an entirely different thing. Not only from the 

 report of the last Commissioner of Patents, but from inspection, if anyone choose to 

 make it, and see the condition of things in that department, I think it may be denied 

 that there is room enough in the present building for the wants of the department. 

 If I understand the report of the present Commissioner of Patents or the Secretary 

 of the Interior, the argument against the want of further room by the Patent Depart- 

 ment is based iipoti the supposition that all which now belongs to the National Insti- 

 tute, all connected with the exploring expedition which now fills the museum of the 

 Patent Office, is to be transferred to the Smithsonian Institution. That seems to be 

 the basis of the conclusion. Now, sir, I wish to state to the Senate that Congress 

 has no power to impose upon that Institution the duty of taking charge of this col- 

 lection of the exploring expedition — we may infer from their act — nor did they ever 

 intend to do so. They gave to that Institution the right to take all such curiosities 

 brought home by the exploring expedition, as might be desired for that Institution, 

 and I will inform the Senate that it is not the intention of the present Board of 

 Regents of the Smithsonian Institution to take charge of the museum of the Patent 

 Office, and the room appropriated to these curiosities will be required hereafter as 

 now.' 



By its action in directing at this time the enlargement of the Patent 

 Office, Congress appears to have accepted the ideas of Senator Davis, or, 

 as Professor Henry expressed it, "concurred in the opinions expressed 

 in the Senate by the Hon. Jefferson Davis, that it was a gift which ought 

 not to be pressed upon the Institution."^ 



• 'Rhees, Documents, p. 505. 



''The National Museum, although the designation proposed in Mr. Ingersoll's 

 amendment to the Owen bill for the Smithsonian Institution was never legally sane- 



