530 CONGKESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



of Representatives should result in preferring- articles of impeachment, 

 for example, against the Chief Justice, it would be very indelicate and 

 improper for us in advance to form and deliver a solemn opinion upon 

 the question whether there was just cause for the impeachment. 



Then there is only one other respect in which this residue of the 

 paper can be supposed, as it seems to me, to be intended to have any 

 influence upon Congress, and that is that the honorable and dis 

 tinguished gentleman who writes this letter, knowing that we have no 

 judicial power over the interpretation of the law, and therefore can 

 not by any judgment of ours ascertain that what has been heretofore 

 done in its interpretation has been done wrongfully, in a judicial 

 sense, and knowing that it is not a proper subject for an investigation 

 with a vieAV to a criminal prosecution by impeachment, sends it to the 

 two Houses of Congress as a recommendation that they shall institute 

 an inquiry with a view to an amendment of the law. In this latter 

 view it strikes me as exceedingly inappropriate for any gentleman not 

 a member of these bodies, or one of them, and not coming here in the 

 character of a petitioner asserting a claim against the Gov^ernment, to 

 undertake to advise us of the propriety of further legislation. 



I say, therefore, Mr. President, that I regret very nuich that this 

 truly distinguished gentleman, of whom the American people have 

 reason to be proud as one of their sons, gifted as he is and distin- 

 guished as he has been in his past course, did not content himself with 

 resigning his position for the very ample and sufficient reason which 

 he first gives — that he is unable to discharge the duties required of him. 

 I regret it also because, if I collected the scope of that letter accu- 

 rately from its reading — for 1 had not seen it before — it seems in any 

 view to present this state of the case: The writer meets with his 

 brother Regents; a certain question arises. What shall be done in the 

 management of the institution? That inquiry involves a question as 

 to the just interpretation of the law; the best and the legal means of 

 carrying out the great purpose of the donor. That matter is the sub- 

 ject of discussion and debate among them. The majority of the 

 Regents decide against him, and immediately he retires from the Insti- 

 tution and interposes an appeal to Congress against the majority of the 

 body of which he is a member. 



Again, sir, it seems to imply this: Distinguished and elevated as that 

 gentleman is, and high and important as are the services which he has 

 rendered to his country, and which he is now able to render in this 

 or any other station to which the voice of his countrymen or the pub- 

 lic authorities may call him, I think the whole tone of that part of 

 the letter slightly exaggerates the importance to the public of the 

 event which it communicates, namely, his retiring from the Board of 

 Regents. 



Besides, considering also — for I think my friend from Illincjis did 



