500 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



House was determined to carry on this connection, to per- 

 petuate it, and be responsible for the acts of this institution, 

 that this committee would not be appointed. On the con- 

 trary, if the Regents thought proper, let the whole money 

 be paid over to them, and the Government be cut off en- 

 tirely from all responsibility or connection with it. 



Mr. Johnson, of Arkansas, said he would take tlie liberty 

 of making a remark here, for the purpose of setting himself 

 and the State which he had the honor to represent in some 

 degree right, in reference to this Smithsonian fund. The 

 gentleman from Alabama had said that the State of Arkan- 

 sas had squandered all this fund. Now, whether it was any 

 enjoyment to the gentleman to assail his [Mr. Johnson's] 

 State- 

 Mr. HiLLiARD explained, disclaiming the slightest inten- 

 tion to assail the gentleman's State, and saying that he had 

 merely spoken of the money as being lost or squandered by 

 the General Government. 



Mr. Johnson, of Ark., said the gentleman ought to have 

 been aware of the fact that he might wound the feelings of 

 some persons on the floor, in his rather loose and general style 

 of speaking. He had heard those who did not like some of 

 the Yankees, damn them all as a class. He never thought 

 they did exactly right to damn every Yankee [laughter] be- 

 cause they disliked some few whom they had met. There 

 were some very clever gentlemen amongst them; he wished 

 there were as good elsewhere. 



Now, he wished to say a few words in regard to this State 

 and this fund. The gentleman had said the whole of this 

 Smithsonian legacy had been squandered by the State of 

 Arkansas. Squandered — liow ? Did the gentleman know 

 anything about the disposal of this money by the State of 

 Arkansas? If he did, he knew that it had been lost by the 

 adoption, by that State, of his loved system — the banking 

 system. 



He wished to state, in order that his State might stand 

 free from any unjust charge here, that there was not, within 

 the limits of that State, and never had been, a respectable 

 party, known as a party, w^ho would repudiate the first dol- 

 lar of the debt she owed. If there were such persons, he 

 could only pledge himself, as an humble individual, that he 

 would always fight them. Small as she was, insignificant as 

 she was, there was no man within her limits who could live 

 a political life for one day and espouse such a doctrine. 

 What was her condition ? She was poor; her population 

 was small ; the taxes upon her people would be increased 



