454 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



tion, and to report them to this House, as well as to inquire into the 

 expediency of printing this long, voluminous report of the Regents. 



Mr. HILLIARD said he believed he had understood the gentleman's 

 remarks correctly, so far as his objections went to the expenses of 

 the printing. The gentleman now chose to assume other ground, that 

 he desired to examine whether it was such a report as the House ought 

 to receive. Now, it would have been far better for the gentleman to 

 have allow r ed it to be printed, and then this House would have been 

 better enabled at this session to ascertain the fact whether it was such 

 a report as they would receive. 



But there was no concealing the fact that the spirit in which the 

 gentleman made his motion did not grow out of any desire to have the 

 affairs of this Institution better conducted, or to make its action more 

 efficient, or to relieve -it of a single burden, but, on the contrary, from 

 the uncompromising hostility which the gentleman from Tennessee and 

 a few others he was happy to say they were but few felt against 

 this Institution. The gentlemen would be for destroying its organi- 

 zation, for razing its structure to the very foundations, and for return- 

 ing to the British Government, or to the trustees of the donor, the 

 munificent sum which had been received from that quarter. He asked 

 the gentleman if it was not so and if he was not opposed to any use 

 whatever being made of the fund for the establishment of an institu- 

 tion in this country called the Smithsonian Institution. 



Mr. JOHNSON said as the question had been asked him he would 

 very cheerfully answer it. The gentleman wanted to know if his hos- 

 tility was not fixed to this Institution. 



Mr. TRUMAN SMITH, of Connecticut, rose to a question of order. 

 He wished to know of the Speaker whether it was in order to discuss 

 the general merits of the Smithsonian Institution upon a mere propo- 

 sition to appoint a committee. 



The SPEAKER replied that the House had adopted no rules of pro- 

 ceeding, and that the parliamentary law allowed a very wide range of 

 debate. 



Mr. JOHNSON proceeded in his explanation. He was satisfied that 

 the gentleman from Alabama with no unkind spirit asked if he (Mr. 

 Johnson) was not fixed in his hostility to the very organization of this 

 Institution. He could inform the gentleman from Alabama that he 

 misconceived his relation to the Smithsonian Institution. He had no 

 fixed hostility to it. The hostility (if it could be so called) the oppo- 

 sition which he had to this Institution rested upon other and different 

 grounds from a mere hostility to the design of such an institution. 

 One of the principal reasons why he wanted this committee appointed 

 was not out of opposition to the Smithsonian Institution; but, taking 

 into consideration the peculiar crisis of the country at that time, and 

 the continuation of that crisis at this time, and the burdens which this 



