16 The Smithsonian Institution. 
tention of the donor, that it should be carried into execution by an Insti 
tution, or Establishment, as it is termed in his will. Congress has cre 
ated one, and given it ample powers, but directing its attention pars 
ticularly to the objects enumerated in the law; and it e duty o 
that Institution to avail itself of the lights of experience, aa chang 
its plan of operations when they are convinced that a different one wil 
better accomplish the objects of the trust. The Regents have done so 
and wisely, for the reasons above stated.” i 
But, secondly, Mr. Meacham contends that the pti 
sh fixing the maximum expenditure on the library at $25,00 
aving been introduced into the bill with the intention, avowe 
by its advocates in Congress, of making the Institution “ almos 
entirely a library,” therefore, “it seems impossible to doubt tha 
Congress in the charter of the Institution intended to indicate 
that the library ... should receive about $25,000, a year, and thai 
the ceesene diac and lectures should receive only about 
$6000 a year.” This argument, somehow, did not convince the 
Chief J oe and the rest of o lawyers ; who probably reflected 
—1, that the intention of these advocates might not be thi 
intention of the majority who voted for the clause, and still less 
the intention of Congress; many may have preferred to admit the 
clause, although involving the possibility of the diversion of th 
bequest toa library, rather than by its rejection to hazard aw 
passage of the otherwise satisfactory bill into which it was in 
serted :—2, that these advocates well knew how to express thei 
intention in the terms of the clause, had they been so minded 
the 8th section had they felt able to carry it ;—and, 3, that, sine 
it could no better be, they were content with the opportunity 
which Congress (we think nnadvisedly ) afforded them of accom- 
plishing their end in the Board of Regents, whenever they could 
convince this body that a library was a proper, and the best prac- 
ticable instrument for fulfilling the purpose of Smithson’s bequest. 
This they have not yet succeeded in doing. We cannot believe 
tory appropriating clause in the former bill, and the permissive 
one of the present act. But even if we suppose they did think 
that their intention was by some implication fixed upon the clause - 
in question, is that intention to override or qualify its terms? An 
exactly parallel case would have: arisen had the Board of Regents” 
be appropriated for a library ; the intent and meaning of which, 
in the mover’s mind, as expressed in the body of the report, eee 
