536 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



adopted, and is now about to be practically carried into administration by 

 a majority of the board. That act, it has seemed to me, peremptorily 

 "directs a manner " and prescribes a plan according to which it intends 

 that the institution shall accomplish the will of the donor. 



By the earlier law accepting the gift. Congress engaged to direct such a 

 manner and to devise such a plan, and pledged the faith of the United 

 States, that the funds should be applied according to such plan and such 

 manner. In fulfillment of that pledge, and in the performance of its in- 

 alienable and incommunicable duty as trustee of the charity, that body, 

 after many years of deliberation — from which it never sought to relieve 

 itself by devolving the work upon the discretion of others — matured its 

 plan, and established the actual institution to carry it out. Of this plan, 

 the general features are sketched with great clearness and great complete- 

 ness in the law. Without resorting for aid in its interpretation to its par- 

 liamentary history, the journals and debates, the substantial meaning seems 

 to be palpable and unequivocal in its terms. By such aid it is rendered 

 quite certain. A Board of Regents is created to administer it. Some dis- 

 cretionary powers, of course, are given to the board in regard of details, 

 and in regard of possible surpluses of income which may remain at any 

 given time, while the plan of Congress is being zealously and judiciously 

 carried into effect; but these discretionary powers are given, I think, ira 

 trust for the plan of Congress, and as auxiliary to, cooperate with, and execu- 

 tory of, it. They were given for the sake of the plan, simply to enable the 

 regents the more effectually and truly to administer that very one — not to 

 enable them to devise and administer another of their own, unauthorized 

 in the terms of the law, incompatible with its announced objects and its full 

 development, not alluded to in it anywhere, and which, as the journals and 

 the debates inform us, when presented to the House under specific proposi- 

 tions, was rejected. 



Of this act an interpretation has now been adopted, by which, it has 

 Beemed to me, these discretionary means of carrying the will of Congress 

 into effect are transformed into means of practically disappointing that will, 

 and of building up an institution substantially unlike that which it in- 

 tended, which supersedes and displaces it, and in effect repeals the law. 

 Differences ot opinion had existed in the board from its first meeting, in 

 regard of the administration of the act; but they were composed by a reso- 

 lution of compromise, according to which a full half of the annual income 

 was to be eventually applied in permanence to what I deem the essential 

 parts of the plan of Congress. That resolution of compromise is now for- 

 mally rescinded, and henceforward the discretion of the regents, and not 

 the act of Congress, is to be the rule of appropriation, and that discretion 

 has already declared itself for another plan than what I deem the plan of 

 Congress. It may bo added that, under the same interpretation, the office 

 and powers of secretary are fundamentally changed from those of the sec- 

 retary of the law, as I read it, and are greatly enlarged. 



In this interpretation, I cannot acquiesce; and with entire respect for 

 the majority of the board, and with much kindness and regard to all its 

 members, I am sure that my duty requires a respectful tender of resigna- 

 tion. I make it accordingly, and am your obedient servant, 



RUFUS CHOATE. 



Washington, (D. C.,) January 13, 1855. 



Mr. Pearce. Mr. President, I desire to make a sugges- 

 tion in regard to the disposition which shall be made of this 

 paper. Before I do so, however, I ask the indulgence of the 

 Senate while I submit a very few remarks. 



The paper, sir, is one of unusual character. It purports 

 to be a resignation by a gentleman holding a public trust 



