THIRTIETH CONGRESS, 1847-1849. 459 



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gentleman from Tennessee that his establishment of a standing com- 

 mittee was the very method of all others which was to give perma- 

 nency to this Institution, and attach it forever to the Government. 

 The only way to get rid of it was to let all the money be paid over to 

 these gentlemen the Regents, and the Government cut themselves 

 loose from it entirely. He was opposed to any committee, standing 

 or otherwise, which set up a Congressional supervision over the Regents 

 of this Institution, or over the Institution itself. He hoped, there- 

 fore, unless the House was determined to carry on this connection, to 

 perpetuate it, and be responsible for the acts of this Institution, that 

 this committee would not be appointed. On the contrary, if the 

 Regents thought proper, let the whole money be paid over to them, 

 and the Government be cut off entirely from all responsibility or con- 

 nection with it. 



Mr. ROBERT W. JOHNSON, of Arkansas, said he would take the lib- 

 erty of making a remark here for the purpose of setting himself and 

 the State which he had the honor to represent in some degree right, in 

 reference to this Smithsonian fund. The gentleman from Alabama 

 had said that the State of Arkansas had squandered all this fund. Now, 

 whether it was any enjoyment to the gentleman to assail his (Mr. John- 

 son's) State 



Mr. H. W. HILLIARD explained, disclaiming the slightest intention 

 to assail the gentleman's State, and saying that he had merely spoken 

 of the money as being lost or squandered by the General Government. 



Mr. JOHNSON, of Arkansas, said the gentleman ought to have been 

 aware of the fact that he might wound the feelings of some persons 

 on the floor in his rather loose and general style of speaking. He had 

 heard those who did not like some of the Yankees damn them all as 

 a class. He never thought they did exactly right to damn every 

 Yankee because the}" disliked some few whom they had met. There 

 were some very clever gentlemen amongst them; he wished there were 

 as good elsewhere. 



Now, he wished to say a few words in regard to his State and this 

 fund. The gentleman had said the whole of this Smithsonian legacy 

 had been squandered by the State of Arkansas. Squandered how? 

 Did the gentleman know anything about the disposal of this money by 

 the State of Arkansas ? If he did, he knew that it had been lost by 

 the adoption by that State of his loved system the banking system. 



He wished to state, in order that his State might stand free from 

 any unjust charge here, that there was not within the limits of that 

 State, and never had been, a respectable party, known as a party, who 

 would repudiate the first dollar of the debt she owed. If there were 

 such persons, he could only pledge himself, as an humble individual, 

 that he would always fight them. Small as she was, insignificant as 

 she was, there was no man within her limits who could live a political 



