TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGEESS, 1843-45. 337 



To strike out those portions of the new bill providing 

 for the constitution of a board of managers, and insert : 



" The National Institute, through its officers, not to exceed their present 

 number, and associate with them four other scientific gentlemen, from dif- 

 ferent portions of the Union, to bo selected by the Joint Committee on the 

 Library ; and said committee to exercise, from time to time, a supervision 

 and control over this board, in behalf of Congress, and see that its directions, 

 as expressed in this act, or in any future act, be duly carried into effect; 

 and to prescribe safe rules to bo adiiered to in drawing from the Treasury 

 and auditing all moneys whatever expended from the Smithsonian fund ; 

 and none of the said bcvird, nor any of said committee, shall receive any 

 compensation for their personal services on this subject from the fund afore- 

 said, but be paid only their traveling expenses." 



Mr. Buchanan would be very glad, if it could be accom- 

 plished, (and ho thought at lirst it might be on this amend- 

 ment,) to get a test vote of the Senate on the question 

 whether Congress or the National Institute shall have the 

 management and control of the Smithsonian Library. But 

 the amendment contained some things not necessarily in- 

 volved in that test, which might be advantageously consid- 

 ered. He could not move an amendment, or he would, so 

 as to separate these things. 



Mr, Choate said the amendment of the Senator from 

 New Hampshire raised the precise question the Senator 

 from Pennsylvania wished to have tested. 



,Mr. Buchanan looked upon it as a compound amend- 

 ment. 



Mr. Tappan hoped the amendment would not prevail. 

 Although the chairman of the Library Committee some 

 sessions back, [Mr. Preston,] then a Senator from South 

 Carolina, made a report accompanied by a bill, in conformity 

 with this amendment, it was with the express understand- 

 ing of the committee that not one member of it but him- 

 self was in favor of that plan, or would sustain it. 



Mr. Choate did not know that the amendment offered 

 by the Senator from New Hampshire would not make a very 

 good board of management; indeed he felt nothing but re- 

 spect in the highest degree for that Senator and his associates 

 of the National Institute ; as co-laborers in the advancement 

 of science and the difi'usion of knowledge among men, they 

 had already done a good deal. But he had ascertained, 

 through various conferences in the Library Committee, that 

 the Senator's proposition was not likely to meet that favor 

 or support necessary to insure the success of the bill this 

 session ; on the contrary, that it would make enemies of 

 many who would otherwise sustain the measure. Now, on 

 this subject of constituting a board of managers — for the 

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