206 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



of all their provisions for the disposal of the funds ; and^ 

 finally, to organize an establishment which, by its ultimate 

 results, would, in the impartial judgment of mankind, our 

 own contemporaries, and of future ages, at once accomplish 

 the glorious purpose of the testator — the increase and dif- 

 fusion of knowledge among men ; and justify to the eyes of 

 posterity the confidence reposed in these United States by 

 the testator, in selecting them for his agents and trustees to 

 accomplish, when he should be no more on earth, his great 

 design for the improvement of the condition of man. 



A variety of projects for disposing of the funds had been 

 presented by individuals, in memorials to the House, which 

 were referred to the committee for consideration. Xo one 

 of them appeared to the committee adapted to accomplish 

 the purpose of the testator. They generally contemplated 

 the establishment of a school, college, or university. They 

 proposed expenditures, absorbing, in the erection of build- 

 ings, the capital of the fund itself, or a very large portion 

 of it, leaving little or nothing to be invested as a perpetual 

 annuity for I'uture and continual appropriations, contribut- 

 ing to the improvement of future ages, as well as of the 

 present generation ; and in most of the projects there might 

 be perceived purposes of personal accommodation and emol- 

 ument to the projector, more adapted to the promotion of 

 his own interest than to the increase and difiusion of knowl- 

 edge among men. 



The committee, from the earliest of their meetings, had 

 agreed that, in the report to be made to the House, it should 

 be recommended that no part of the funds should be applied 

 to the establishment or support of any school, college, uni- 

 versity, or ecclesiastical establishment. They had also 

 agreed to recommend, as a fundamental principle for the or- 

 ganization of the institution and the management of its 

 funds, that the capital amount of the bequest should be pre- 

 served entire and unimpaired, so invested as to yield an in- 

 come of six per cent, a year ; which income only should be 

 annually appropriated by Congress, and a considerable por- 

 tion even of those appropriations be constituted as funds, 

 from the interest of which expenditures applicable to the 

 purposes of the bequest might be provided for, and the cap- 

 ital of the bequest itself be annually rather increased than 

 diminished. 



While the committee of the House were engaged in de- 

 liberating upon the means of carrying into effect these prin- 

 ciples by special enactment, to be proposed in their report, 

 on the 12th of January, 1839, the subject was taken up for 



