544 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



This is what the regents have done in direct pursuance of 

 the objects prescribed by Congress ; and the other things 

 which they have done — the publications they have made — 

 they suppose not to be incompatible with the expressed ob- 

 jects of an institution "for the increase and diffusion of 

 knowledge among men," not to be violative of the letter or 

 spirit of the law, but to be wholly consistent and in harmony 

 with it, and auxiliary to the objects which are provided for 

 in the law. The publications not only difliise knowledge 

 among men, but they bring back to us, in liberal abundance, 

 the transactions and publications of learned societies in other 

 countries, and thus furnish us with valuable works pertain- 

 ing to all branches of knowledge, many of which are not to 

 be purchased with money, and enable us to carry out one 

 requirement of the law — the gradual formation of a library. 



In regard to the resolutions of compromise, to which Mr. 

 Choate has referred, the repeal of which is the great ground 

 of complaint, here allow me to say — for I will not consent 

 to detain the Senate much longer — those resolutions were 

 passed at the organization of the institution. They proposed 

 an equal, or nearly equal, division of the funds of the institution 

 between the objects specified in the law, and the auxiliary 

 objects which w^e are justified by the letter and the spirit of 

 the law, as I think I have shown, in pursuing. Well, sir, it 

 occurred to the regents recently — for some time past it has 

 been a matter of consultation among them — that it would 

 be well to repeal those resolutions of compromise; that there 

 was no propriety in the Boai'd of Regents, at the commence- 

 ment of the organization of the institution, tying their own 

 hands, and those of their successors, so as to compel a par- 

 ticular scale of appropriation throughout all time. It has 

 been supposed to be right to leave them unfettered, so that 

 they may annually make appropriations such as are, in their 

 judgment, according to the intrinsic importance of the ob- 

 jects appropriated for, and in fulfillment in good faith of the 

 purposes of the law, for that we have never lost sight of. 

 Now let me read to the Senate one of the resolutions adopted 

 by the board, which are the cause of Mr. Choate's resigna- 

 tion. One repeals the compromise resolutions which I have 

 mentioned. The other is in these words : 



Resolved, That hereafter the annual appropriations shall be apportioned 

 specifically among the diflerent objects and operations of the institution, in 

 euch manner as may, in the judgment of the regents, be necessary and 

 proper for each, according to its intrinsic importance, and a compliance in 

 good faith with the law. 



That is the resolution which is considered as subvertins: 



