472 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



objects of art and curiosity whenever the Institution should appoint 

 some person to receive them. It is obligatory to deliver, but not to 

 receive. In some other countries there is a courtesy between the king 

 and his ministers that a minister shall never refuse a present. In 

 Siam whenever the King wishes to crush a minister he sends him the 

 present of an elephant. The minister can not refuse the present, 

 because it comes from the King, but the expense of keeping the pres- 

 ent crushes the minister. It is exactly such a present that the Senator 

 from Wisconsin wishes to force the Smithsonian Institution to receive. 

 It is a present the charge of which would deduct very greatly from 

 the means of the Institution to carry out the purposes of its donor a 

 foreigner who gave a fund for a special object enumerated in his will. 



If it were in the power of this Government to charge the Smith- 

 sonian Institution with the keeping of this museum, I should deem 

 it more than improper in the Government to transfer an extensive 

 collection which it holds, and fasten the charge of maintaining it upon 

 the fund given by a foreigner for the increase and diffusion of knowl- 

 edge among men, and the establishment of an institution for that pur- 

 pose, to be located at the city of Washington, in the United States. 

 But it is clearly not within the power of Congress to charge that fund 

 with the keeping up of any establishment which the Government may 

 choose either to create or which it may now have in its possession, 

 and which would pervert the trust from its proper use. 



If the Senator had examined the charter he would have found still 

 further that in the kindness which prevailed, and the anticipation of 

 a good understanding between that Institution and Congress, terms 

 so general were employed that a power was given to the Institution 

 to strip the Rotunda of the paintings which now adorn it, to take the 

 models from the Patent Office, not merely the museum which is col- 

 lected as the result of exploring expeditions, but everything which 

 that Institution, if they claim the strict letter of the law, might choose 

 to abstract from the various departments of the Government. But, 

 without going into this question, I wish to call the attention of the Sen- 

 ate to the fact that here is an institution founded by the bequest of a 

 foreigner, of which bequest the United States, properly or improp- 

 erly I will not now stop to consider, have taken charge as trustee, 

 and to administer which fund they have organized a Board of Regents. 

 Its active operations have already been encumbered by the Congress 

 of the United States requiring them to erect an expensive building 

 with apartments for a museum and gallery of art. Now it is pro- 

 posed to encumber them still further by charging them with keeping 

 a large museum of the United States with which that Institution has HO 

 proper connection. It is no part of the general plan of that Institu- 

 tion to collect a large museum. The object is, according to the will 

 of the founder, to increase and diffuse knowledge among men. They 



