THIRTY-THIKD CONGRESS, 1853-1855. 551 



consists of China, other countries, if indicated at all, occupying no 

 larger space than that usiiall}^ allotted to the smaller class of islands. 

 The wild Indians and the roving Tartars consider the customs of their 

 respective tribes or clans the perfection of human life, and regard 

 with savage suspicion all who do not judge of perfection by their 

 standard; and, in fact, ever}^ savage, and most all half -civilized people, 

 think that within the boundaries of their own country are to be found 

 all virtue, intelligence, heroism, and happiness. They are ever jeal- 

 ous of strangers (foreigners), deny them all political rights, and some- 

 times persecute them to the death. 



Sir, 1 have some place read an account of a visit paid by the officers 

 of a French vessel to an African chief in the wilds of his native coun- 

 try. His sable majesty, plentifully besmeared with grease, seated on 

 a log for a throne, and wonderfully impressed with the vast superiority 

 of evervthing and evervbody within his own dominions, eagerly 

 inquired of the officers whether he was much talked about in France. 

 I have met some men in this country^even the sons of foreigners — 

 equally puti'ed up in self-importance with the idea that America is the 

 world, and they the chief instruments in '"governing America." No 

 man can have a more exalted opinion of this Republic than I, for it is 

 my native land; but I shall not, therefore, be blinded to the merit of 

 those whose destiny it happened to be to come into the world else- 

 where, and especially those who from choice have selected this as their 

 permanent home; neither shall I forget how much our own career of 

 greatness and glory has been facilitated by emigration. Most sincerely 

 do I trust that narrow bigotry, sectional prejudice, and barbarian 

 exclusiveness will never control the destinies of the United States! 



Mr. Chairman, James Smithson was elevated far above all selfish, 

 narrow-contracted, sectional views. He is believed never to have set his 

 foot on our soil, and yet he passes the splendid monarchies of the Old 

 World and intrusts, with confidence unqualified, to the honor of repub- 

 lican America the dispensation of his bequest for the good of all men. 

 Of noble descent himself, and of ample fortune, his sympathies were 

 not alone with those of his own class, or his own country, but with 

 ""men,"' without limit or restriction. He declares in exalted language, 

 which deserves to be written in letters of gold, that "the man of science 

 is of no country; the w^orld is his country, and all men his countr}"- 

 men." Though he could boast that the best blood of England flowed 

 in his veins, yet he said that availed him not, for his name would live 

 in the memory of men when the titles of the Northumberlands and 

 Percies were extinct or forgotten. 



Sir, the language used in the bequest corresponds with what might 

 naturally be expected from one possessing the enlarged views of 

 Smithson. 



The great ideas of the will are those of increase and univeisal 



