THIRTY-THIRD CONQRESS, 1853-1855. 619 



posed of the most valuable works pertaining to all branches of human 

 knowledge, besides 10,000 parts of volumes, and pamphlets. Their 

 literary and scientific value is to be weighed, not counted. The money 

 value of our library is estimated by the officers of the Institution at 

 ^0,000. We have a museum, the money value of which is estimated 

 at $30,000. We have apparatus valued at $10,000. 



This is what the Regents have done in direct pursuance of the 

 objects prescribed b}' Congress; and the other things which the}' have 

 done — the publications they have made — they suppose not to be 

 incompatible with the expressed objects of an institution "for the 

 increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," not to be violative 

 of the letter or spirit of the law, but to be wholly consistent and in 

 harmony with it and auxiliary to the objects which are provided for 

 in the law. The publications not only diffuse knowledge among men, 

 but they bring Ijack to us in liberal abundance the transactions and 

 publications of learned societies in other countries, and thus furnish 

 us with valuable works pertaining to all branches of knowledge, many 

 of which are not to be purchased with money, and enable us to carry 

 out one requirement of the law — the gradual formation of a library. 



In regard to the resolutions of compromise, to which Mr. Choate 

 has referred, the repeal of which is the great ground of complaint, 

 here allow me to say — for I will not consent to detain the Senate much 

 longer — those resolutions were passed at the organization of the Insti- 

 tution. They proposed an equal, or nearly equal, division of the 

 funds of the Institution between the objects specified in the law and 

 the auxiliary objects which we are justified by the letter and the spirit 

 of the law, as I think I have shown, in pursuing. Well, sir, it 

 occurred to the Regents recently — for some time past it has been a 

 matter of consultation among them — that it would be well to repeal 

 those resolutions of compromise; that there was no propriety in the 

 Board of Regents, at the commencement of the organization of the 

 Institution, tying their own hands and those of their successors, so as 

 to compel a particular scale of appropriation throughout all time. It 

 has been supposed to be right to leave them unfettered, so that they 

 may ajinually make appropriations such as are in their judgment 

 according to the intrinsic importance of the objects appropriated for 

 and in fulfillment in good faith of the purposes of the law, for that 

 we have never lost sight of. Now let me read to the Senate one of 

 the resolutions adopted by the board, which are the cause of Mr. 

 Choate's resignation. One repeals the compromise resolutions which 

 1 have mentioned; the other is in these words: 



Resolved, That hereafter the annual appropriations shall be apportioned specifically 

 among the different objects and operations of the Institution in such manner as may, 

 in the judgment of the Regents, be necessary and proper for each, according to its 

 intrinsic importance and a compliance in good faith with the law. 



