Tlic Genesis of the United States National Museum. 143 



Among' them were George M. Dallas, the first chancellor, at that time 

 Vice-President of the United States ; Chief Justice Taney ; Rufus 

 Choate, of Massachusetts; Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana; George P. 

 Marsh, of Vermont; Lewis Cass, of Michigan; Jefferson Davis, of Mis- 

 sissippi; James A. Pearce, of Montana; James M. Mason and William 

 Winston Seaton, of Virginia; John McPherson Berrien, of Georgia; 

 William C. Preston, of South Carolina; William J. Hough, of New York; 

 Alexander Dallas Bache, Superintendent of the Coast vSurve}^ and Gen- 

 eral Joseph G. Totten. 



The Regents soon realized that in order to carry out efficiently the 

 trust which had devolved upon them, it would be necessary to decide 

 upon a definite course of policy, and to settle for themselves the inter- 

 pretation of certain of the provisions in the act of incorporation. 



A committee was appointed at once to digest a plan to carry out the 

 provisions of the "Act to establish the vSmithsonian Institution," and on 

 January 25, 1847, this report was made, signed by Robert Dale Owen, 

 Henry W. Hilliard, Rufus Choate, and Alexander Dallas Bache, after 

 having made a ])reliminary report December i, which was recommitted 

 to the conunittee December 2 1 . 



These dates are mentioned in order to afford opportunity for the remark 

 that in the interval between December i and December 21, Professor 

 Joseph Henry had been elected to and accepted the secretarj-ship of the 

 Institution, and that previous to his election he had submitted to the 

 Regents a sketch of a proposed plan of organization, which appears to 

 have been acceptable to the majority of the Board, and that in this sketch 

 were printed opinions which had from that time on a most powerful, and 

 in time a controlling, influence upon the policy of the Institution." 



The election of Professor Henry w^as in accordance wath the view held 

 l)y the Regents, and expressed in the report of the committee, and even 

 more forcibly in the resolutions of the Board, that the Secretary nnist of 

 necessity become the chief executive officer of the Institution, and "that 

 upon the choice of this single officer, more probably than on any one 

 other act of the Board, will depend the future good name and success 

 and usefulness of the Smithsonian Institution."' 



' At a meetinj^ of the Joint Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds in Fcbru- 

 ar}', 1865, Professor Henry said: " I have been from the first, now eighteen years, the 

 vSecretary or executive officer of the Smithsonian Institution. . . . Before my elec- 

 tion I was requested by one of the Regents to give a sketch of what, in accordance 

 with the will of Smithson, I considered should be the plan of organization, and after 

 due consideration of the subject there was not the least shadow of a doubt in my mind 

 that the intention of the donor was to found a cosmopolitan institution, the effects of 

 which should not be confined to one city, or even to one country, but should be 

 extended to the whole civilized world." (Rep. Com., No. 129, Thirty-eighth Con- 

 gress, second session. ) 



^Report of the Organization Connnittee of the Smithsonian Institution, etc. Wash- 

 ington, 1847, pp. 18, 19. [Rhees, Documents, p. 941.] 



