and California. But the inconsistency is superficial and apparent only, and disappears on a short scrutiny of the facts and conditions. Indeed, his course seems to have been the only one congruous and possible to a man who is characterized by one authority as having preeminently a legal mind, and who further, as Blaine says, was "an intense partisan of the democratic school," strongly indoctrinated with their exaltation of the sacredness of States' rights.

Where slavery existed in Wilmot's time, it was a legalized institution written into the constitution and the laws of the States or the territorial governments-even recognized and protected in the Constitution of the United States. It represented property rights and vested interests which an "able and impartial jurist" could not consent to have swept away by an ex parte motion. The several States, and Texas as a formerly independent republic and a nascent State, were sovereign powers with absolute authority to determine their internal affairs and policies. Much as he deplored and condemned slavery, he could not countenance the proposition that Congress should invade and undertake to regulate these sovereignties for the abatement of this, or any other, evil. If they were reformed, as presumably he hoped they might be, it must be by their own act and not by assumption of overlordship on the part of the Federal Government. Texas had adopted slavery of her own choice, as a sovereign power. Congress could not override that choice and dictate another course. But his party had been elected on a platform pledging the annexation of Texas; it was written in the bond, and he might have said, as John Quincy Adams did in a similar case some time before, that much as he might regret that it was so written, he must faithfully perform it. In the District of Columbia, also, slavery existed under a compact with the States of Maryland and Virginiapart of the consideration when the District was ceded. Congress could not abrogate this agreement of its own motion.

When, however, the schemes of the slavery advocates extended to previously undeclared projects for adding huge terri

tories toward the southwest-territories on which slavery had never been legally fastened-territories as yet unorganized into sovereign States, and, therefore, still subject to control by Congress-neither legal nor States'-rights inhibitions prevented his free expression, and it found itself in the Proviso distinguished by his name.

This, however, is a glance into chapters that had not yet been reached. In the drama of the early months of the Twenty-ninth Congress, as it is told in the literal and formal language of the Congressional Globe, David Wilmot had not much action and but few lines. Indeed, he seems to have been a good deal offstage; for while he is recorded as present and voting on most of the important business that came up during the session, he seems to have had but scant interest in routine. and minor matters, and to have taken little of the time of the House with the special and private bills over which some members busied themselves. He introduced, of such measures, only the petition of John C. Van Cise, a Revolutionary soldier, asking for an increase of pension (referred to the Committee on Revolutionary Pensions) and a resolution "that the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads be instructed to inquire into the expediency of establishing a mail route direct between Montrose and New Milford, in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania; and, also, to inquire into the expediency of establishing a mail route direct between the towns of Athens and Troy, in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, through the towns of Smithfield and Springfield, in said last mentioned county," which resolution was adopted.

He was diligent in the business committed to him or the attention asked of him by his district and his constituents. The comment of a Washington correspondent about this time is that "Mr. Wilmot's time is required every moment he is out of the House. To my personal knowledge, he has not been out of an evening, but has been occupied until midnight, and still his correspondence increases." He kept up with the affairs of his home in politics also, and served as their delegate

to the State convention at Harrisburg, March 4, 1846. But he was not heard in the debates until the Oregon Bill came up in February, nor after that until the tariff question was before the House, in July; while one more speech, supporting the President's veto of the River and Harbor Bill, completes his extended remarks on the floor prior to the introduction of the Proviso.

He served, however, on two "select committees" of much more than ordinary interest: one, on "the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men;" the other, "to inquire into the truth of charges made in this House by Mr. C. J. Ingersoll against Mr. Daniel Webster, with a view to founding an impeachment against said Daniel Webster." The work of these committees was concurrent with the main business of the House of Representatives, but it may be most convenient to dispose of it before taking up topically Wilmot's part in the important legislation of the session, following the resolution for the admission of Texas.

Smithson's bequest of his entire fortune to the United States had been made some sixteen years previously, and the money had been in the hands of the Government for eight years. The principal sum was a little more than a half-million of dollars, then a much larger fund, relatively, than it would be to-day; larger, indeed, than the endowment of any American university at that period with the one exception of Harvard. The accumulated interest amounted to some two hundred thousand more. Several futile attempts had been made to secure Congressional action, but nothing tangible had been done toward carrying out the purpose of the testator. December 19, 1845, Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, introduced a bill on the subject, and on his motion it was referred to a select committee of seven on the Smithsonian Bequest and Institution. The Chair appointed Messrs. Owen, John Quincy Adams, Timothy Jenkins, of New York; George P. Marsh, of Vermont; A. D. Sims, of South Carolina; Jefferson Davis,

of Mississippi; and David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania.' This committee came before the House, January 9, with a bill and resolution that it be printed, and on February 28 reported back the House Bill (No. 5) with a substitute and a prayer that it be made the special order for a definite day: "let some day be fixed when we may know that the subject will be taken up, so that we may escape the just reproach of receiving money for one of the best purposes on earth and then doing nothing with it." "So the bill was made the special order of the day for the second Tuesday in April next." (1846) It actually came up on Wednesday, April 22, and remained before the House in active discussion until the 29th.

Mr. Owen, as chairman of the committee in charge of the bill, spoke for his colleagues, sketching the high character and purpose of the donor, and the neglect (amounting almost to laches) of the American Government in handling the trust. He outlined the more important proposals that had been made for effecting the object indicated by Smithson's words, such as "a botanical garden, a cabinet of natural history, a museum of mineralogy, conchology or geology, a general accumulating library, a normal branch, provision for scientific research and for free lectures;" and stated that they were all embodied in the bill reported to the House, pointing out its advantages over any former attempts to frame or secure legislation establishing the institution.

The reactions to the proposal in the minds of some of the members were curious. George W. Jones, of Tennessee, was on his feet forthwith, with a motion to return the money at once to the heirs at law or next of kin of James Smithson. With a prudent eye on the doubtful character of some of the investments that had been made for the fund since it came into the Treasury of the United States, he specified that any State bonds or stocks that had been purchased should be delivered in lieu of the money with which they had been bought. was no part of the Government's functions to establish or

It

7 Cong. Globe, p. 86

administer such an institution, and, if the precedent were once set, where might it end? Jefferson Davis, ardent opponent of centralization of government as he later showed himself to be, answered Mr. Jones with the argument that this would be "an institution which would gather young men from the remotest parts of the country, at the common point where every facility for practical instruction would be afforded. The taste of the country would be refined, and he did not consider this as antidemocratic. Knowledge was the common cement that was to unite all the heterogeneous material of this Union into one mass."

Isaac E. Morse, of Louisiana, saw "nothing in the learning or science of Europe comparable to the discovery of the steam engine by an American (sic) or of the cotton gin or of the magnetic telegraph." Mr. Smithson was a practical man and would not have wanted a library. Mr. Morse offered a substitute bill doing away with the committee's plan and establishing a series of prizes for "the best written essays on ten subjects, the most practical and useful the majority of the board shall determine upon." John S. Chipman, of Michigan, was indignant that an Englishman should offer a halfmillion of dollars to enlightened Americans. He could not understand how it happened that the Government "accepted such a boon from a foreigner-an Englishman, too. He looked upon it as a stain on the history of the country, as an insult to the American nation." Orlando B. Ficklin, of Illinois, "regarded this bill as one of the most odious and abominable ever presented here. He He... would rather see ten millions sunk to the bottom of the Potomac than see this bill pass." Allen G. Thurman "was opposed to the erection of an immense institution at the City of Washington, that would ultimately become a charge upon its treasury." Andrew Johnson objected to the entire scheme and "would send the money back to the source from which it came." 8

These were samples of the minds opposed to the work of 8 Cong. Globe, pp. 714-716, 718-720, 738-741.