400 CONGRESSIONAL PEOCEEDINGS. 



houses in the skies had grown into popular favor, he should presume 

 that the gentleman would find no diificulty as to the question of power. 



Mr. Adams said he was very glad to hear that it had grown into 

 popular favor. The appropriation for this astronomical observatory, 

 he repeated, had been clandestinely smuggled into the law, under the 

 head of a depot for charts, when a short time before a provision had 

 been inserted in a bill passed, that no appropriation should be applied 

 to an astronomical observatory. He claimed no merit for the erection 

 of the astronomical observatory; but in the course of his whole life, 

 no conferring of honor, of interest, of office, had given him more 

 delight than the belief that he had contributed, in some small degree, 

 to produce these astronomical observatories, both here and elsewhere. 

 He no longer wished any portion of this fund applied to an astronomical 

 observatory. 



Nor did he think it important to the people that an}^ provision of 

 this bill should be carried into effect immediately', but rather that 

 measures should be taken to induce the States to pay the interest on 

 their bonds, and then let the money be appropriated to any purpose 

 on which Congress could agree more unanimously than on this bill. 



He noticed among the objections made, that against making of this 

 Institution an incorporation. He urged that it was indispensably 

 necessary to form the board into an incorporation ; that unless it were 

 done, the funds would be wasted in five years; that there would be no 

 power in the Institution, not even the power of succession; that it 

 would fall into the hands of a joint committee of Congress, who would 

 dispose of it as faction, party spirit, or caprice should dictate. He 

 scouted the idea of the unconstitutionality of the establishment, by 

 Congress, of the corporations in the District of Columbia, as in con 

 travention of the uniform legislation of the country, in the incorpora- 

 tion of colleges, benevolent societies, the National Institute, etc. 



In conclusion, believing that they could not agree very well on this 

 bill, and that, by the time we got this money of Arkansas and the 

 other States, they could agree better, he sent up to the clerk's table, 

 where it was again read, the amendment of which he gave notice last 

 week. 



On the faith (he said) of observations of the gentleman from Michi- 

 gan, that Michigan had regularly paid the interest on her bonds, he 

 modified his amendment, by striking out the word "Michigan," 

 wherever it occurred therein. 



[While Mr. Adams was speaking, the Speaker resumed the chair 

 informall}', to receive a message from the President of the United 

 States, by the hands of J. K. Walker, esq., his private secretary, 

 informing the House that the President had yesterday approved and 

 signed the joint resolution of notice to Great Britain, to annul and 

 abrogate the convention of 1827 respecting the Oregon Territory. 



