540 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



apprehend it will be found, on an examination of the instru- 

 ment, that the discretionary powers conferred upon the re- 

 gents are far larger than those ascribed by the retiring 

 regent. The Board of Regents have recognized fully and 

 constantly the obligation upon them of every requisition 

 contained in that law, and I think they have faithfully ful- 

 filled those requisitions. They have erected the building 

 required bylaw; they have designed and completed it upon 

 a large and liberal scale. They have made provision for the 

 collection and arrangement of objects of natural history. 

 They have made appropriations for a library, and have made 

 a beginning with a gallery of art. The}' have established a 

 chemical laboratory, which is one of the objects enjoined iu 

 the act; and they have provided lecture rooms, specified in 

 the law. They have not appropriated a very large portion 

 of the funds of the institution for the library, though, in this 

 respect, the amount applied has been far greater than is 

 generally supposed; and that is, after all, the real gist of the 

 con trovers} 7 . 



It is singular, that, in the act of Congress there is a limi- 

 tation upon the appropriations for a library, and no limit to 

 the appropriations which may be made for any other of the 

 designated objects. The limitation in the library expendi- 

 ture was rather inappropriately added to one of the sections 

 of the bill, to which it was not germane. It forbids the 

 application of more than 25,000 per annum to that pur- 

 pose; but the act does not, anywhere, require the regents 

 to expend annually that amount. It establishes no mini- 

 mum below which they shall not fall in their appropria- 

 tions; but it simply establishes a maximum, beyond which 

 they shall not go. That has been done by Congress, in re- 

 gard to the library, but in regard to no other object of 

 expenditure. Well, sir, the regents, in their discretion, 

 have not thought it necessary or expedient to expend the 

 whole amount of the sum to which they were limited by 

 that provision of the act, and hence, I think, all the difficul- 

 ties in regard to this matter. They could not understand 

 the words " not exceeding $25,000," to mean not less than 

 25,000, or to mean nearly 25,000, or to signify anything 

 else than that such was the utmost limit of expenditure 

 authorized by the act for this purpose. The words neces- 

 sarily imply that the regents might expend less than that 

 sum, and the question, how much less, was one purely for 

 their discretion. 



The regents supposed that, when the act of Congress made 

 it their imperative duty to provide a suitable building, with 



