(][){) CONGRERSIONAR PROCEEDINGS. 



iiii institution that has the least claim under iuniven upon the Govern- 

 ment. They are the mere creatures of the Government, to enable them, 

 according to the purport of the will, to execute the trust that has been 

 confided to them. How can they come here and occupy the position 

 of creditors? The}^ are no creditors. They have no interest under 

 heaven, not the slightest; they are the mere agents appointed by law 

 to execute this trust for the United States in the use of a fund which 

 belongs to the United States. That is the whole of it. That being 

 the case, this being the property of the United States, managed for 

 their benefit through this instrumentality, it is contended that the 

 Government of the United States shall increase by a hundredfold the 

 appropriations for the Institution. I do not see the slightest claim in 

 the world. 



Let me state another fact. The honorable Senator from Iowa did 

 not state this thing exactly as it was. The fact was that about 1840, 

 or not far from that time — I do not know the exact time that this fund 

 was given to the United States — was a pretty hard time for the Dem- 

 ocratic party; they had had bad luck, and the Secretary of the Treas- 

 ury took the whole of this fund, every dollar of it, and gave it to 

 Arkansas, no doubt for highly patriotic purposes, and it was all sunk, 

 and there was an end of the bubble, or ought to have been. But 

 Congress were so much tickled with the idea of this bequest that thej^^ 

 assumed the debt. They did not make much ])y investing it in Arkan- 

 sas politics; everything went by default, and then Congress stepped in 

 and paid out of the Treasury that which they had wasted. 



I will not repeat what I have heretofore said in regard to this Insti- 

 tution; I will not say but that it is possibly a wise one, and a wise 

 appropriation of public money, because it is rather impertinent to the 

 question that is now 1)efore the Senate. It has been characterized, I 

 think by Greeley — and I do not often quote him — as a sort of lying-in 

 hospital for literary valetudinarians, and that is about the amount of it. 

 I remember once that some friends were here and had been visiting 

 about the places of interest in the city of Washington, and had got 

 pretty much through with them, when I asked them, "What are you 

 going to do to-day 'i " They said they were going to look at the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, and find out what it was. I told them I was exceed- 

 ingly glad they were going to start on such a mission, and I asked 

 them, if they did find out, to tell me when they got back. They did 

 not call on me when the}' got back. 



Now, sir, I know of no reason under heaven why, when we are pay- 

 ing in currency the men who are shedding their blood in defense of 

 the country, the men who are periling everything foi- the salvation of 

 the country, we should come in and pay this pet child we have created 

 in this manner in gold. I think it would shock the moral sense of the 

 nation to-day, if the}- knew that we jiropose to pay in gold the interest 



