402 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



received for a particular and specified purpose — a purpose noble in its 

 object and desirable to all men who had any regard for the welfare of 

 the human family. We had received this money, he repeated, to be 

 applied to a specific purpose. Had it been so applied? We were told 

 that we were not in possession of the money; that it had been loaned 

 out improperly and improvidently to States that refused to pay. Were 

 we authorized to loan it to States, whether the}^ would pav or not? 

 Was it given to us to be loaned out to anyone ? Was it not expressly 

 designed by the person who gave it to the Government that it should 

 be applied to a particular purpose, and none other? And was it not 

 received on the condition that it should be so applied? 



After yielding for an inquiry to Mr. A. Johnson, Mr. Rathbun pro- 

 ceeded. This Government had misapplied a fund given for a specific 

 purpose; and when it was called upon, through a respectable commit- 

 tee, to appropriate the money to the object -for which it was received, 

 it was no answer to say, "We have loaned it out to the States, and 

 they can not pay us." It would not answer for an individual to say 

 so — still less for a nation like ours. We were bound to-day, and we 

 had been bound every day when Congress was in session for eight 

 years past, to appropriate the money honestly, without undertaking 

 to avoid the just responsibility by an excuse which was one of our own 

 creation. Arkansas, it is said, would not pay, and some other States 

 refused to pay the interest. That was a matter between this Govern- 

 ment and the State of Arkansas, and was no answer to the solemn 

 pledge given to apply this money to a specific purpose. 



The question arose, How should the money be appropriated? What 

 was the mode best calculated to produce the most beneficial results ? 

 One gentleman wanted a library; another, an observatory; a third, 

 common schools; a fourth, farming schools; a fifth, some other par- 

 ticular object; and among the number was that proposed by the bill 

 under consideration. For his own part, he did not feel disposed to 

 object to any plan bearing plausibility on its face. He was in favor 

 of expending the money in some way, and upon some scheme, faith- 

 fully and honestly; but above all he was in favor of appropriating and 

 expending the money whether the final result should be good or not. 

 He wished to wipe out the stain which rested on the character of this 

 Government of withholding the money because we were not able to 

 discover the best mode of expending it. Let us take one step, let us 

 do something; and if any blunder should be committed, experience 

 would enable us to correct it. In his judgment a library was the least 

 plausible of the schemes proposed. The plan proposed in the bill 

 was, in his opinion, one of the best that had been suggested. 



The gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. A. Johnson] had asked whether 

 an}^ gentleman here would take the money from the pockets of the 

 people for this purpose. He (Mr. Rathbun), for one, answered, ' ' Yes. " 



