THIKTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1853-1855. 579 



bling those who had mastered its contents to do Avhat the board is 

 now doing, namely, to prosecute researches for the increase of knowl- 

 edge. But the terms of the bequest require not merely that it should 

 be applied to the increase of knowledge, but also to its diffusion, and 

 to its diffusion among men. 



The benevolent purposes of Mr. Smithson were not limited to the 

 citizens of Washington, nor yet to the people of the United States. 

 They had a far wider scope. A man of science belongs exclusivel}- to 

 no particular country. He is in one sense a cosmopolite, at home in 

 all places where the votaries of science dwell, and under ev^ery clime 

 they are the oV)jects of his benevolence. The}^ are men among whom 

 he desires the increase and diffusion of knowledge. 



And he has provided for this in his will. How could a vast library 

 established here accomplish this object? At most it w^ould be access- 

 ible to the people of Washington, to casual visitors, and for those who 

 came here for the purpose of consulting its volumes. How infinitelj'^ 

 short would this fall of the purpose of the testator, which was first 

 the increase and then the diffusion of knowledge among men of what- 

 ever country or whatever clime. 



If a national library be a national want, who should supply it? Can 

 not Congress, which represents a population of 25,000,000, with 

 resources almost incalculable, and with a treasury not exhausted or 

 impoverished, but overflowing with revenue? Can it not spare out of 

 this abundance whatever may be necessar}"? Is it not now supplying 

 that want in the great library of Congress, to which in the last three 

 years the3^have appropriated more than $90,000? It is accessible now 

 to every scholar who may be at Washington, and will in a few 3'ears be 

 so increased under the policy of its present administration as to supply 

 many of the wants of the student and the scientific investigator. Shall 

 a nation such as ours depend for this national want upon the bounty 

 of a stranger? The generous impulse of the American heart will 

 quickly prompt the answer — no. 



The resolutions of compromise, as they were called, to which the 

 committee have before alluded, were repealed by the Board of 

 Regents before the period when by their terms they were to go into 

 operation. What has been already said will show that the committee 

 think that they were properly repealed. Their effect was to tie up 

 the hands of the Board of Regents, to deny to the successors of those 

 who passed them the exercise of that discretion with which the law 

 invested the board, and thus to defeat the act of Congress by taking 

 away that discretion in regard to the disposal of the fund which the 

 law made it not only the right but the duty of the Regents to exercise. 

 Nor can there be any breach of faith in this repeal. The faith which 

 the Regents owe is to the law and to the purpose of the will of Smith- 

 son, and any arrangement of their own which should restrain them 



