512 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



Regents, which has been adopted, and is now about to l)e practically carried into 

 administration by a majority of the board. That act, it luvs seemed to me, per- 

 emptorily "directs a manner" and prescribes a plan according to which it intends 

 that the Institution shall accomplish the will of the donor. 



By the earlier law accepting the gift Congress engaged to direct such a manner 

 and to devise such a plan and pledged the faith of the United States that the funds 

 should be applied according to such plan and such manner. In fulfillment of that 

 pledge, and in the performance of its inalienable and incommunicable duty as tru.stee 

 of the charity, that body, after many years of deliberation — from which it never 

 sought to relieve itself by devolving the work upon the discretion of others — 

 matured its plan and established the actual Institution to carry it out. Of this 

 plan the general features are sketched with great clearness and great completeness 

 in the law. Without resorting for aid in its interpretation to its parliamentary his- 

 tory, the journals and debates, the substantial meaning seems to be palpable and 

 unequivocal in its terms. By such aid it is rendered quite certain. A Board of Regents 

 is created to administer it. Some discretionary powers, of course, are given to the 

 board in regard of details and in regard of possible surpluses of income which may 

 remain at any given time, while the plan of Congress is being zealously and judi- 

 ciously carried into effect; but these discretionary powers are given, I think, in trust 

 for the plan of Congress and as auxiliary to, cooperate with, and executory of, it. 

 They were given for the sake of the plan, simply to enable the Regents the more 

 effectually and truly to administer that very one, not to enable them to devi.se and 

 administer another of their own, unauthorized in the terms of the law, incom- 

 patible with its annomiced objects and its full development, not alluded to in it any- 

 where, and which, as the journals and the debates inform us, wlien presented to the 

 House under specific propositions, was rejected. 



Of this act an interpretation has now been adopted by which, it has seemed to me, 

 these discretionary means of carrying the will of Congress into effect are transformed 

 into means of practically disappointing that will and of building up an institution 

 substantially unlike that which it intended, which supersedes and displaces it, and 

 in effect repeals the law. Differences of opinion had existed in the board from its 

 first meeting in regard of the administration of the act; but they were composed by 

 a resolution of compromise, according to which a full half of the annual income was 

 to be eventually applied in permanence to what I deem the essential parts of the 

 plan of Congress. That resolution of compromise is now formally rescinded, and 

 henceforward the discretion of the Regents, and not the act of Congress, is to lie the 

 rule of appropriation, and that discretion has already declared itself for another 

 plan than what I deem the plan of Congress. It may be added that, under the same 

 interpretation, the ofiice and powers of secretary are fundamentally changed from 

 those of the secretary of the law, as I read it, and are greatly enlarged. 



In this interpretation I can not acquiesce; and with entire respect for the majority 

 of the board, and with much kindness and regard to all its members, I am sure that 

 my duty requires a respectful tender of resignation. I make it accordingly, and am 

 your obedient servant, 



RuFus Choatk. 



Washington, D. C, January IS, 1855. 



Mr. J. A. Pearce. Mr. President, 1 desire to make a suggestion in 

 regard to the disposition which shall be made of this paper. Before 

 I do so, however, I ask the indulgence of the Senate while 1 submit a 

 very few remarks. 



The paper, sir, is one of unusual character. It pttrports to be a 

 resignation by a gentleman holding a public trust under the appoint- 



