FORTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1873-1875. 713 



Protestant Episcopal Church, and at the head of the leading university 

 of m>" State, if not of the great Southwest. He is eminent for his 

 high literary and scientific attainments, and has been a scholar all his 

 life; and his head, like mine and that of my friend, begins to bleach 

 from the effect of j'ears. Man}^ gentlemen on this floor are acquainted 

 with him personally or by character, and there will be no controversy, 

 I am sure, about his fitness for this duty. But I have placed the dis- 

 cussion upon higher ground. The question is, whether it is not a 

 wiser, better, more politic arrangement, other things equal, to dis- 

 tribute these offices a little more, rather than to concentrate the whole 

 Regency within a few States upon the Atlantic coast. With these 

 remarks I leave the question. 



Mr. James Monroe. Mr. Speaker, I desire to say a word in regard to 

 what has been said of the action of the committee on this subject. It 

 is a matter of great delicacy to discuss this question here in the House 

 to any great extent, and to discuss the multitude of names that would at 

 once be offered here if the question of the claims of the several States 

 were to be fully examined on this floor; for their claims are all very 

 excellent and very valid. I am not without some sympathy with the 

 local feeling expressed by the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. May- 

 nard]. As a member of the committee I represent Ohio. Now, Ohio 

 is a State also; there is some land in Ohio; it is quite a piece of terri- 

 tory, and I could not help thinking of a large number of accomplished 

 gentlemen and dear friends of mine in that State, some of whom I 

 would be very glad to have named for these places, and men whom I 

 know would have filled them with credit to themselves and with high 

 usefulness to the objects of the Institution. But I saw at once that 

 this was just one of those questions in which we must give up local 

 preferences. In discussing a question of science, of all others, I 

 imagine on the whole a man will be most useful who can be most 

 capable, and who can yield most readily to local preference belonging 

 to his own district. I recognized the necessitj^ for that; and, although 

 I had no doubt I had even in my own Congressional district, where 

 there are four colleges of a very high order, the very best men in the 

 world to fill these vacancies, I thought it quite right to make the great 

 sacrifice of yielding up this question of the local claims of my Con- 

 gressional district. 



What is there of locality about these great names in science? Who 

 cares anj^thing about where their domicile is? How inferior any 

 question of that sort is in comparison with the high commission upon 

 which Grod has sent them into this world and the grand work they are 

 accomplishing! Will anybody who hears me tell me that Professor 

 Dana, of New Haven, is not a man in whom my own locality will be 

 interested? He belongs to my locality; he belongs to my vicinage; 

 he is my neighbor; he is one of the nearest and best of my neighbors; 



