The question was put on suspending the rules, and the motion was disagreed to.

Notices of motions for leave to introduce bills being in order, the following notice was given:

By Mr. JOHNSON, of Tennessee: Of a bill to change the title of an act approved on the 10th day of August, 1846, entitled "An act to establish the Smithsonian Institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," to that of the "Washington University for the benefit of the indigent children of the District of Columbia," in memory of and out of respect to George Washington, the Father of his Country.

December 11, 1848-House.

Mr. ANDREW JOHNSON, of Tennessee, moved to amend the resolution of Mr. Truman Smith, so as to provide for the appointment of a standing committee to be called the Committee on the Smithsonian Institution.

Mr. W. L. GOGGIN rose, and was understood to express his desire to offer an amendment providing that no member should have the right to call the previous question on any proposition presented to the House until the same should have been distinctly stated by the Chair or the Clerk.

Mr. Goggin desired, if in order, to offer this as an amendment to the amendment of the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson].

The Speaker (Mr. R. C. WINTHROP) was understood to say that the proposition of the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Goggin] would be in order after the amendment of the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson] had been disposed of. The question now was, on ordering the appointment of an additional committee on the Smithsonian Institution.

The question was accordingly put by the Chair, but before the decision had been announced

Mr. ANDREW JOHNSON hoped, he said, that the House would adopt his amendment. The subject involved the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he could see no substantial reason why opposition should be made to the appointment of such a committee. The Regents were prepared, as he understood, to make a report. This Congress had the supervision of the fund, and had the appointment of some of its Regents, and he could not see why this body, or incorporation, or Institution, upon which so much money had been expended, should not be reported upon as to its proceedings and conditions to this House. Congress had received the fund and had become responsible for it. They were the trustees. Were they to act before a committee of the House had reported upon the manner in which the funds had been disposed of, and upon other matters of that kind? He was utterly astonished that his amendment should find any opponent on this floor.

Did gentlemen wish to exclude all light upon the subject-to prevent the country receiving such information as it was in their power to give to keep from public view the facts connected with the expenditure of the money? It was strange that any gentleman should be found willing to say that he did not want a committee which might ascertain all the facts and report them to the country. Various complaints had been made as to the expenditure of the money, the structure of the building, and the material of which it was composed. Were gentlemen willing to exclude all those facts which it was requisite should be known in order to arrive at correct conclusions, and intelligently to direct the future operations of the Institution? If all was going on well, if the building was properly constructed, and the money had been properly expended, let the country understand it. He trusted that the House would adopt his proposition and that a committee would be appointed.

Mr. ROBERT MCCLELLAND, of Michigan, said that he was not opposed to the appointment of the committee contemplated by the amendment of the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson]. At the same time, if he had no other reasons than those which had been assigned by the gentleman from Tennessee, he (Mr. McClelland) should be radically opposed to such an appointment. Reports had been sent in by the Board of Regents that were very full and ample in regard to all the facts that the people throughout the country could desire to know concerning this Institution. One very full report of all facts touching the Institution had been laid before the House at the last session of Congress. The House had refused to print it. That report, his friend from Tennessee [Mr. Johnson] would find, had set forth, in a simple and lucid manner, everything connected with the Institution since its organization-everything that had been done under the law passed by Congress down to that time. He (Mr. McClelland), for one, as a member of the Board of Regents, would say that it was not afraid of any investigation by a committee of this House or otherwise. He would go as far as any reasonable man in favor of economy and retrenchment; and he would say that the Board of Regents, so far as his knowledge extended, had acted upon both these principles in every step they had taken. He was astonished, on entering upon his official duties, to find that almost every report which had been put in circulation in regard to the Institution was entirely false and groundless. He hoped that every gentleman here who was a friend to the Institution would permit a committee to be appointed, and that it might be composed of members who were radically opposed to the Institution, so that no barrier should be interposed to the most rigorous and searching scrutiny. And (continued Mr. McClelland) if that committee shall give to the country such a report as I know they will give, for none other can they make, the effect will be to raise the Institu

tion to a higher point in public estimation than any which it has ever yet attained.

Mr. H. W. HILLIARD rose, as a member of the Board of Regents in this House, to make no opposition to the amendment of the gentleman from Tennessee, if it should be the deliberate opinion of the House that such a committee should be appointed. But he wished the House to mark the spirit in which the motion was made. When the report was brought forward by him (Mr. Hilliard) from the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, at the last session of Congress, and a motion was made to print it, the gentleman from Tennessee was the very one who interposed his objection to the printing. They had been reproached with not being willing to exhibit their doings to the country. It had been said that there had been improper expenditures of money, an indiscreet distribution of funds authorized by them. Here was an ample report setting forth all the facts, making everything plain, and when he had moved the printing of the report, for the information of the country, to his amazement that very gentleman objected to the printing on the simple ground of expense. But now the gentleman came forward with a proposition. to form a standing committee whose business it should be to supervise the action of the three members of this House and the three members of the Senate who were already charged with directing the affairs of this Institution. He should offer no objections to the proposition; he left it to the taste and judgment of the House. For one, he gave way, and yielded any objections which he had hitherto offered to the proposition.

Mr. ANDREW JOHNSON, of Tennessee, said the gentleman from Alabama seemed to have stepped off upon the wrong track when he said that the simple objection which he (Mr. Johnson) had had to the printing at the last session of Congress was that it would involve an expenditure of money.

Mr. HILLIARD (in his seat) said he had so understood it.

Mr. JOHNSON continued. The gentleman from Alabama had wholly misconceived his opposition to the printing of this report at the last session of Congress. It would be remembered by the gentleman from Alabama and by the whole House that he (Mr. Johnson) was striving the whole session, that he had made effort after effort, to procure the appointment of a committee before this report should be printed, that they might ascertain whether this was the report which should be printed or not. This was the objection he had to the printing of the report. He wanted it referred to a committee, with instructions to inquire into the expediency of printing this report, and also of printing a work which they desired to have printed upon architecture-a kind of mongrel report prepared by some of the Regents. He wanted a committee appointed to inquire into all the facts about the Institu

tion, and to report them to this House, as well as to inquire into the expediency of printing this long, voluminous report of the Regents.

Mr. HILLIARD said he believed he had understood the gentleman's remarks correctly, so far as his objections went to the expenses of the printing. The gentleman now chose to assume other ground, that he desired to examine whether it was such a report as the House ought to receive. Now, it would have been far better for the gentleman to have allowed it to be printed, and then this House would have been better enabled at this session to ascertain the fact whether it was such a report as they would receive.

But there was no concealing the fact that the spirit in which the gentleman made his motion did not grow out of any desire to have the affairs of this Institution better conducted, or to make its action more efficient, or to relieve it of a single burden, but, on the contrary, from the uncompromising hostility which the gentleman from Tennessee and a few others he was happy to say they were but few-felt against this Institution. The gentlemen would be for destroying its organızation, for razing its structure to the very foundations, and for returning to the British Government, or to the trustees of the donor, the munificent sum which had been received from that quarter. He asked the gentleman if it was not so and if he was not opposed to any use whatever being made of the fund for the establishment of an institution in this country called the Smithsonian Institution.

Mr. JOHNSON said as the question had been asked him he would very cheerfully answer it. The gentleman wanted to know if his hostility was not fixed to this Institution.

Mr. TRUMAN SMITH, of Connecticut, rose to a question of order. He wished to know of the Speaker whether it was in order to discuss the general merits of the Smithsonian Institution upon a mere proposition to appoint a committee.

The SPEAKER replied that the House had adopted no rules of proceeding, and that the parliamentary law allowed a very wide range of debate.

Mr. JOHNSON proceeded in his explanation. He was satisfied that the gentleman from Alabama with no unkind spirit asked if he (Mr. Johnson) was not fixed in his hostility to the very organization of this Institution. He could inform the gentleman from Alabama that he misconceived his relation to the Smithsonian Institution. He had no fixed hostility to it. The hostility (if it could be so called)-the opposition which he had to this Institution-rested upon other and different grounds from a mere hostility to the design of such an institution. One of the principal reasons why he wanted this committee appointed was not out of opposition to the Smithsonian Institution; but, taking into consideration the peculiar crisis of the country at that time, and the continuation of that crisis at this time, and the burdens which this

Institution was imposing upon the Government, he wished to see its affairs thoroughly investigated and brought before the public. That this fund had been received from the United States; that the United States had discharged its duty as trustee with fidelity; that this fund had been sunk and lost-these were all true; and, according to his construction of the Constitution and of the duties of a trustee, he considered that the Government was exonerated from any further responsibility in connection with this fund. It was well known that the original fund had been lost, and it was known, too, that the law establishing the Smithsonian Institution took the money out of the Treasury of the Government-out of the people's pocket. When the Smithsonian Institution was founded every dollar of the money received from Mr. Smithson was gone-not a dollar of it was available. He had opposed an institution of this kind being established with funds taken out of the Treasury; not that he was opposed to an institution established upon the Smithsonian fund-not that he disapproved of the object of the donor-but he was opposed in time of war, when we were incurring a very heavy public debt, to going into the Treasury and establishing an institution of this description, at an expense to the people of some five or six hundred thousand dollars.

Another reason was that he believed under the law itself the money had been improperly withdrawn from the Treasury of the United States. The House had been informed by the able and eloquent gentleman from Alabama that the Regents had withdrawn money from the Treasury to the amount of $242,000, and by an extraordinary process of financiering were doubling and compounding it. They had.been informed also that none of the principal had been expended. How had this been done? Why, when the law was passed every gentleman here at all familiar with the subject knew that this fund was gone-that not one dollar of it was left. He had the documents before him to show that this was the fact. But the law placed that in the Treasury which was not there; it was a legal fiction. It said that a certain amount had been placed in the Treasury in 1836 and had remained there and been drawing interest from 1836, and that the interest on that sum (which was not in the Treasury) was $242,000; and this amount was appropriated to the erection of this institution called the Smithsonian Institution. He had believed it wrong; he still believed it so. But under this law how this amount of money had been drawn out of the Treasury he had never been able to ascertain. He was in hope, now that a running discussion had arisen on the subject, that they would be informed how this large amount of money had been drawn out of the Treasury. He could find no authority for it in the act establishing the Institution— no authority for drawing out of the Treasury this large amount of money and placing it in the hands of their secretary, or at interest, or making any other disposition of it.