TWENTY-FOURTH CONGRESS, 1835-37. 141 



assert and prosecute with effect the claim of the United 

 States to the legacy bequeathed to them by James Smithson, 

 was read the second time, and considered as in Committee 

 of the Whole ; and, 



On motion by Mr. Preston, 



Ordered, That it be laid on the table. 



Senate, Saturday, April 30, 1836. . 



On motion of Mr. Preston, the Senate took up the bill 

 authorizing the President of the United States to appoint 

 an agent or agents to prosecute and receive from the British 

 Court of Chancery the legacy bequeathed to the United 

 States hy the late James Smithson of London, for the pur- 

 pose of establishing at Washington city an institution for 

 the increase of knowledge among men, to be called the 

 Smithsonian University. 



Mr. Preston said, that by this will it was intended that 

 this Government should become the beneficiaries of this 

 legacy, and contended that if they had not the competence 

 to receive it by the Constitution, the act of no individual 

 could confer the power on them to do so. He claimed that 

 they had not the power to receive the money for national 

 objects, and if so, the expending it for another object was 

 a still higher power. He controverted the position that if 

 they could not receive it as the beneficiary legatee, they 

 might receive it as the fiduciary agent. If they had not the 

 power to establish an university without the power conferred 

 on them by a grant, they could not have it with the grant ; 

 or what they could not exercise directly, they could not ex- 

 ercise as trustee. He referred to a report made by Mr. 

 Adams in the House of Representatives, in which the gen- 

 ealogy of Mr. Smithson w^as given and traced* through the 

 line of the illustrious Percys and Seymours of England. 

 He thought this donation had been partly made with a view 

 to immortalize the donor, and that it was too cheap a way 

 of conferring immortality. There was danger of their im- 

 aginations being run away with by the associations of Chevy 

 Chase ballads, &c., and he had no idea of this District being 

 used as a fulcrum to raise foreigners to immortality by get- 

 ting Congress as the parens patricB of the District of Colum- 

 bia to accept donations from them. 



The committee had misconceived the facts ; the bequest 

 was to the United States of America to found an university 

 in the District of Columbia, under the title of the " Smith- 

 sonian University," and the execution of the terms of the 

 legacy was to redound to the purposes of the donation, 



