MEMOIRS OF JOUN QUINCY ADAMS. 785 



my own defence that I can attend to nothing else. Mr. 

 Smith said that he should not be here at the next weekly 

 meeting, being obliged to go home to Connecticut on busi- 

 ness. 



February 16, 1842. 



Committee on the Smithsonian bequest. Adams, Haber- 

 sham, Underwood, Randall — no quorum. No report yet 

 from the Secretary of the Treasury on the present condition 

 of the funds. 



February 23, 1842. 



Committee on the Smithsonian bequest. Present, Adams, 

 Underwood, Habersham — no quorum. 



March 2, 1842. 



Committee on the Smithsonian bequest. Present, Adams, 

 Underwood, Randall — no quorum. 



March 9, 1842. 



Weekly meeting of the Committee on the Smithsonian 

 bequest. Present, Adams and Truman Smith. Haber- 

 sham was in an adjoining committee room. No quorum. 



March 19, 1842. 



The meeting of the Committee on the Smithsonian be- 

 quest was fixed for ten this morning, but it was eleven when 

 I reached the chamber of the committee, and found there 

 Underwood, Habersham, Truman Smith, Benjamin Randall, 

 and Charles J. IngersoU ; absent, Bowne, Houston, and 

 Hunter. Of my tardiness I failed not to be reminded. We 

 took up the old bill and debated it from the third to the 

 sixth section inclusive. Every provision of every section 

 was contested, and the only sound principle settled was 

 that the principal sum of the bequest should be preserved 

 unimpaired as a perpetual fund, from which no appropria- 

 tion shall be made. 



Habersham, of Georgia, opposed the parts of the bill 

 providing for the establishment of an astronomical obser- 

 vatory. His argument was the danger and difficulty of 

 carrying it through Congress ; and he said that only yester- 

 day one of the members from the South urged, in conver- 

 sation with him, that Congress had no constitutional power 

 to accept the bequest, and that the money ought to be sent 

 back to England. 



I saw the finger of John C. Calhoun and of nullification, 

 and said that the objection against the power of Congress 

 50 



