Doc. No. 11 13 



leading branches of physical and moral science as the funds of the instf- 

 tution may be able to bear. Apparatus to be piovided for the branches 

 requiring it. One of the lectureships to be dedicated to government and 

 public law. When conflicting opinions on government are raging in the 

 world, to have the democratic principle, as modified by our systems of 

 representation, and the conjoint workings of the federative and national 

 principle, illustrated in elementary disquisitions, apart from temporary 

 topics and passions, is a desideratum which the Smithsonian Institution 

 might supply. Such productions seem due to mankind, as to ourselves, 

 imperfectly described as our institutions have been, through adverse feel- 

 ings in (he wiiters ; it having generally fared with us as the cause of Roman 

 liberty fared in the hands of royal historians. Rarely can foreigners, 

 however enlightened, be equal to the task of justly analyzing the com- 

 plicated movements, unintelligible to hasly observers, yet full of harmo- 

 ny, that maintain (he order, prosperity, and freedom, of this great con- 

 federated republic, under guards combining the efficacy of popular 

 sovereignty with its safety. Authentic explanations of them, all issuing 

 from this institution, at an age when steam is quickening all intercourse 

 throughout the world, would give new motives for listening to the doc- 

 trines and results of the democratic principle in this hemisphere. So 

 expounded, it would go before the world without disparagement, and be 

 fairly judged by its results. Under public law, the tenets of America, 

 now locked up in diplomacy, or otherwise hidden or overlooked in 

 Europe, might come into useful publicity ; her proposals to Europe to 

 abolish privateering, and prohibit public ships from capturing merchant 

 vessels upon the ocean, thus forever stripping war of more than half its 

 evils upon that element — a stride in civilization to transcend, whenever 

 it maybe made, the West India abolition act; her resistance, single- 

 handed, against the enforcement of British municipal law upon the 

 ocean, as seen in the individual miseries and national violations involved 

 in the feudal claim of impressment, and her desire, shown in other ways, 

 for freeing the international code from barbarous relics, whereby this 

 institution, working in its orbit of calm discussion, might become the ally 

 of America towaids gaining for these great public benefactions, and 

 others, the growth of our institutions, in our days, (so maligned for re- 

 taining the domestic servitude bequeathed to them by our progenitors,) 

 favor and acceptance among nations. The steady abhorrence expressed 

 by this Government against em))loying savages in warfare between civ- 

 ilized and Christian States, and its abortive negotiations to prevent it, 

 would further illustrate the harmonizisig policy of America. Such are 

 samples of the maxims that might claim elucidation from an institution 

 reared under the sanction of this republic, and thence, by the principle 

 of its existence, desirous of doing justice to them, examined in juxtapo- 

 sition with those taught in the ancient and cloistered seminaries of the 

 old world, and upheld by its Governments. 



The other lectureships, as the foregoing, might be made to yield, each 

 in its proper field, contributions to '' the increase and diffusion of knowl- 

 edge among men." I am aware that voluntary lectureships have not 

 always been found to succeed. But in the foundation of these, consid- 

 ering the time and all concomitant circumstances, there seems reasonable 

 ground for anticipating success. The plan would imply that the lectur- 

 ers be also appointed by the President and Senate. It would imply that 



