TWENTY-NINTU CONGRESS, 1845-47. 445 



necessary from the Treasury of the United States to keep 

 it in operation. 



Mr. Rathbun said he knew very little about this subject. 

 He bad taken very little pains to examine the bill before 

 the committee. He had read no reports from previous 

 committees. He had heard what had been said in relation 

 to the project generally. And there were a few things con- 

 nected with facts known to everybody which would control 

 his vote. 



We had received a fund of half a million of dollars and 

 upwards, and had pledged the faith of the Government to 

 execute the trust in the manner directed by the will of the 

 testator — a solemn pledge in which every department of 

 the Government had united. The fund was received for a 

 particular and specified purpose — a purpose noble in its ob- 

 ject, and desirable to all men who had any regard for the 

 welfare of the human family. We had received this money, 

 he repeated, to be applied to a specific purpose. Had it 

 been so applied ? We were told that we were not in pos- 

 session of the money ; that it had been loaned out improp- 

 erly and improvidently to States that refused to pay. Were 

 we authorized to loan it to States, whether they would pay 

 or not? Was it given to us to be loaned out to any one ? 

 Was it not expressly designed by the person who gave it to 

 the Government that it should be applied to a particular 

 purpose, and none other ? And was it not received on the 

 condition that it should be so applied ? 



After yielding for an inquiry to Mr. A. Johnson, Mr. Rath- 

 burn proceeded. This Government had misapplied a fund 

 given for a specific purpose ; and when it was called upon, 

 through a respectable committee, to appropriate the money 

 to the object for which it was received, it was no answer to 

 say, " We have loaned it out to the States, and they cannot pay 

 us." It would not answer for an individual to say so — still 

 Jess for a nation like ours. We were bound to-day, and we 

 had been bound every day, when Congress was in session, 

 for eight years past, to appropriate the money honestly, 

 without undertaking to avoid the just responsibility b}' an 

 excuse which was one of our own creation. Arkansas, it 

 is said would not pay, and some other States refused to pay 

 the interest. That was a matter between this Government 

 and the State of Arkansas, and was no answer to the solemn 

 pledge given to apply this money to a specific purpose. 



The qaestion arose, how should the money be appropri- 

 ated ? What was the mode best calculated to produce the 

 most beneficial results ? One gentleman wanted a library ; 



