1758 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
lands after the passage of the act of 1850 for cash. Under the acts of 
1855 and 1857 the money belonged to the State of Arkansas. 
3 * * * 
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Mr. Joun H. Gear. It is everywhere admitted and nowhere denied 
that on January 1, 1838, the State of Arkansas borrowed from the 
‘¢Smithsonian trust fund” the sum of $538,000 from the United States 
as the trustee of said fund, which was held in trust by the United 
States, to whom it was generously donated on condition that the prin- 
cipal so donated and the interest earned by a safe and judicious invest- 
ment of said principal should be sacredly dedicated to the [increase 
and] diffusion of knowledge among mankind [men]. 
To secure the full payment of said principal and the prompt pay- 
ment of said interest when due of said loan from said ‘‘ Smithsonian 
trust fund” so then held in trust by the United States for said pur- 
pose, the State of Arkansas deposited with the United States 538 of 
her $1,000 State 6 per cent coupon bonds, by her issued under the act 
of her legislature, an act entitled ‘‘An act to establish the Real Estate 
Bank of the State of Arkansas,” approved October 26, 1836, and the 
act amendatory thereof, entitled ‘‘An act to increase the rate of inter- 
est on the bonds of the State issued to the Real Estate Bank of the 
State of Arkansas,” approved December 19, 1837 (State Statutes of 
Arkansas, 1837, p. 51). Said bonds bore date January 1, 1838, and 
said coupons were payable on January and July 1 of each year. 
Five hundred of said State $1,000 bonds, it is alleged, matured on 
October 26, 1861, and the remaining 38 thereof, it is alleged, matured 
on January 1, 1868; and it is also everywhere admitted, and can not 
be anywhere successfully denied, that none of said bonds, nor any 
portion of any of said coupons representing interest so earned by any 
of said bonds, were ever paid by said State, either on said dates or on 
any other dates, but, on the contrary, that all of same, principal and 
interest, remain wholly unpaid by said State up to this date. 
It is true that between July 1, 1836, and December 31, 1845, said 
State earned the sum of $70,047.78 from the 5 per cent of the net 
proceeds of the sales of the public lands made therein by the United 
States; but between January 1, 1838, and December 31, 1845, the 
amount of interest due by said State on said $538,000, at 6 per cent 
per annum, aggregated the sum of $298,240, or more than four times 
the amount of said earnings from the 5 per cent of the net proceeds 
of the sales of the public lands in said State, the payment of which 5 
per cent earnings was not made to said State, but was withheld by the 
United States and applied to reduce pro tanto the amount of said 
unpaid interest due on said unpaid debt, as authorized to be done 
under the joint resolution of Congress of March 3, 1845 (5 U.S. Stats., 
801), which is as follows, to wit: 
Resolved, etc., That whenever any State shall have been or may be in default for 
the payment of interest or principal on investments in its stocks or bonds held by 
a a er ee 
