344 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



law. After they got associated in the public mind the idoji 

 of its nationality, they succeeded in getting a law passed 

 giving it a legal existence and then they began to enter into 

 the organization, and to claim a part in the administration 

 -of the Government. That institute came here with the 

 very instinct of all corporations, to get its hands into the 

 public Treasury of the country, by a process of induction. 

 It proceeded with that modesty and imposing humility 

 which characterize the movements of all corporations. It 

 began by obtaining the temporary charge of objects of sci- 

 ence belonging to the Government; and being intrusted 

 with the custody of that part of the public property, which 

 resulted from the exploring expedition, there was a motion 

 made towards the public Treasury. Having proceeded so 

 far, it proceeded a few years after, to ask Congress to pay 

 it moneys out of the public Treasury ; and for what? Km- 

 its care of these very articles of public property, which, as 

 a favor of the Government, it had asked to be intrusted 

 with the care of. 



The Senate, which sat here for its constituents, was nev- 

 ertheless so unjust, in his judgment, as to tempt this corpo- 

 ration to its present advances by the fatal step of making 

 for it a public office, and paying it $5,000 for the favor 

 which the institution had asked, in the privilege of taking 

 care of the articles resulting from the* exploring expedition. 

 He opposed that bill at the time it was upon its passage 

 through the Senate ; and he then said what was now seen 

 that the attraction of this corporation was towards the 

 public Treasury. 



We are now intrusted with a fund of some half a million 

 of dollars. It is intrusted to the care of the Congress of 

 the United States; whether by the constitution or by Mr. 

 Smithson, it is now immaterial. The money is obtained ; 

 and the question is decided that Mr. Smithson could extend 

 the limits of the constitution by a request in his will, and 

 place at the disposal of Congress moneys for objects which 

 the constitution knows not. You got the money ; it is now 

 in the public Treasury, or ought to be ; and was as much 

 subject to the constitutional action of Congress as any other 

 moneys of the Treasury ; and for that action alone, and in 

 the name of the Smithsonian Institution, this National In- 

 stitute comes here to ask Congress to give it the exclusive 

 administration of half a million of "the public money. 

 This could be answered by the general charge that no 

 moneys ought to be drawn out of the public Treasury ex- 

 cept by the appropriation of law, and that Congress has no 



