596 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



where the power of removal is lodged. " Said officers- 

 shall be removable by the Board of Regents." Can any- 

 thing be plainer ? In defence of the idea that the secretary 

 can remove his assistants, a practice is cited in certain de- 

 partments of the Government where the power of removal 

 is exercised by intermediate officials. But there is no anal- 

 ogy, inasmuch as the Constitution of the United States is 

 silent in reference to the removal of such officers. But the 

 constitution of the Smithsonian Institution is not silent, but 

 expressly defines in whom the power to remove the assist- 

 ants of the secretary resides namely, in the Board of Re- 

 gents. They have no more right to delegate, or pass over 

 to another that power, than they have to transfer any of 

 their other functions. 



The concluding sentence of the eighth section of the act 

 is as follows : 



" And the said regents shall make, from the interest of said fund, an ap- 

 propriation not exceeding an average of twenty-five thousand dollars annu- 

 ally, for the gradual formation of a library, composed of valuable work* 

 pertaining to all departments of human knowledge." 



The expression, "not exceeding," is inconstant use in 

 the legislation of Congress, and in all legislation every- 

 where, in which appropriations are made, and it will not be 

 disputed that, in all instances, the expectation and general 

 understanding of the legislature is, that about the amount 

 thus specified will be expended the word " average " ean 

 only be considered as indicating the expectation of the 

 legislature that the sum expended in some years might ex- 

 ceed twenty -five thousand dollars the word was used in 

 order to give the managers authority, in case a sum less 

 than $25,000 were expended one year, to expend just so 

 much more the next, and rice versa. No doubt, we think, 

 can be entertained that the framers and enactors of the law 

 expected that about $200,000 would be expended " for the 

 gradual formation of a library, composed of valuable works 

 pertaining to all departments of human knowledge," in 

 eight years. If the law does not contemplate that the an- 

 nual expenditure for the formation of a library shall be- 

 something like $25,000, any other figures might as well 

 have been used. If the administrators of the law are at 

 liberty to spend as little as they please for a library, in the 

 face of the sum thus indicated in the law, they would have 

 been equally at liberty whatever sum might have been 

 named, whether $30,000 or $40,000. In other words, if 

 the clause of the act under consideration can be construed 

 as justifying an annual average expenditure for the gradual 



