TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS, 1843-1845. 299 



Mr. Choate argued that this limitation was not only unnecessary, 

 but would most certainly prove injurious. It was unnecessary because 

 no national library such as he contemplated and such as he hoped the 

 Senate would authorize could be made complete without every one of 

 the works on science and the arts which the Senators for Ohio and 

 Kentucky could possibly desire. The proviso would operate injuri- 

 ously by raising a constitutional question of disputation among the 

 managers as to the quantity of money to be applied to this special 

 description of liooks and to general literature. If it was stated that 

 out of a given sum two-thirds should be devoted to these books and 

 one-third to other books, they could easily agree, but indefinitel}'^ 

 directing a preference would be to limit exceedingly in effect the por- 

 tion to be devoted to works of general literature. 



This point was debated at great length by Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Choate, 

 and Mr. Woodbury, Mr. Choate being opposed to any proviso and Mr. 

 Crittenden and Mr. Woodbury in favor of one sufficiently explanatory 

 to show a preference for the w^orks indicated without putting an undue 

 restriction on the purchase of all other books suitable to a general 

 library. 



Mr. W. C. Rives said he should feel very great repugnance to any 

 provision in this bill which should assume to recognize any important 

 distinction between the different branches of human knowledge. The 

 general object of this bequest — of which we are constituted the trus- 

 tee — is described to be the "increase and diffusion of knowledge among 

 men." Now, if we were to have a library at all to carry out this great 

 object, it really seemed to him that that library ought to be coexten- 

 sive with the limits of human knowledge. Some of his honorable 

 friends on both sides of the House had dropped observations in the 

 course of this debate — and he had heard them with surprise — which 

 would seem to imply that moral science is not knowledge and that 

 nothing but what are regarded as the natural sciences — astronomy, 

 mathematics, and others of that class — is knowledge. The great field 

 of modern inquiry relating to the moral and political sciences is not to 

 be considered at all as a branch of human knowledge! Was this so? 

 And was this the country, or this the age, in which we were to recog- 

 nize such a doctrine ? It did seem to him that the most important of 

 all the branches of human knowledge is that which relates to the moral 

 and political relations of man. It is intimately connected with the 

 rights and duties and privileges of citizens, whether in public or in 

 private life. How would gentlemen designate that great branch of 

 human science, which is of very modern origin, and even now in its 

 infancy — political economy ? Is it not a most important part of human 

 knowledge ? And are the legislators of this country, who are so deeply 

 concerned in the destinies and progressive civilization of the human 

 race, to regard the science of government and legislation as no part of 

 human knowledge? It really seemed to him that, as representatives 



