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Mr. Foor, of Connecticut, knew of no power but delegated power, and would not participate in the exercise of any other. He also entered his protest against legislating by precedents; whenever we shall be governed by them, he said, we shall be in the fair road to despotism. But, even on the principle of precedent, the present bill could not be decided by the example of the donation to the Hartford Asylum. That was the first institution of the kind established in the country; they had sent to Europe for professors to introduce the system of teaching the deaf and dumb, and to instruct others, who might carry the benefits of the art into other parts of the Union; it was on this account that the grant was made. In the Hartford Asylum, too, not a third part of the pupils belonged to the State of Connecticut; its benefits embraced the afflicted of many other States; and it had peculiar claims to the aid of the Government.

Mr. LIVERMORE, of New Hampshire, made a few remarks against the bill. He expressed great respect for the object of the bill, but he did not feel himself at liberty to bestow on it the property of the nation.

Mr. WARFIELD, of Maryland, was also opposed to the bill, not being willing to appropriate the public land to such objects. If it was proper to divert the public funds to such a purpose, let it be done by a vote of money out of the Treasury, and not in this way. He respected the institution for which this donation was asked; he rejoiced that the asylum of Connecticut had succeeded even beyond the expectations of its friends; but it was no reason for going on and bestowing the property of the nation on all who asked it.

• Mr. HOLMES, of Massachusetts, said that, when humanity called, it was a credit to the House to listen; but his object now was to inquire what was his duty. At the last Congress, either from gratitude for being sent here, and from joy at having got well out of a war, or from some other impulse, we made a grant to the surviving soldiers of the Revolution; like sailors from a long voyage, just paid off, who give money to every one they meet, with this difference-they give their own money, we the money of the people. He, like others, had been led away, and gave his vote to the relief of the Revolutionary soldiers. He had, however, voted against the grant to the Hartford Asylum, because he saw it would lead to other applications for similar grants. This was one of them. It would be better, he thought, to attend to replenishing the Treasury than to vote away the public funds on every object that asks them. If we go on in this way, said Mr. H.-if we are not deaf to calls like this, our constituents will be struck dumb at such conduct.

And deaf, I hope, to all our apologies for it, said Mr. RANDOLPH, who rose for the purpose of extending a remark of Mr. HOLMES; and would take the liberty to insinuate to Mr. MEIGS, that it was very easy to be wise and generous at other people's expense. In reference to the afflicted beings for whose benefit this bill was urged, Mr. R. said he should be sorry if any gentleman had the misfortune to possess the same experience as himself. If

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there was any thing which he understood, it was this. But he asked if this case came within the Constitution. The Committee had been told of armies, and the expense lavished on the pomp and circumstance of war. On looking at the Constitution, he found power given to raise and support armies, but discovered nothing about supporting the deaf and dumb. Mr. R. asked the friends of this bill to show him the authority for it from the States-point it out in the deed of gift from the people. Was it necessary-not according to the old-fashioned meaning of that word, but according to the modern acceptation-was it necessary to carry into effect any other power? They had just as much right to make the office of President hereditary; to pass a septennial act for the meeting of Congress; or do any other unauthorized act, as to make this grant, if not found in the Constitution. As to being ashamed to refuse this grant, after passing others which Mr. MEIGS had referred to, let the galled jade wince. Mr. R. said his withers were unwrung; he had nothing to do with it. But, because the House had been betrayed into one act which the Constitution did not justify, were they, for that cause, to go on in the same course? Was it any reason why they should not attempt reform, or look at the Constitution for authority on any other occasion? Mr. R. repeated that this was a Government of delegated powers and of limited authority; and it was the bounden duty of every member to inquire if there was any authority for this grant, either expressly or as necessary to carry other powers into execution, &c. If there was not, it would be just as proper for a jury to give a verdict contrary to the evidence, as to vote for this bill without authority from the Constitution.

Mr. BARBOUR, of Virginia, expressed his satisfaction that the motion had been made by the Speaker. He felt certainly no hostility towards an institution which must, in its nature, excite the sensibility of every man. But was that to induce the House to vote this grant? The public domain, Mr. B. argued, was a public fund, intended to relieve the burden of taxation on the people. He adverted to the probability that the Government would have to borrow money this year; pass this bill, and it would present the spectacle of a Governnment borrowing with one hand and giving away with the other. By granting the public lands to the institutions of one State, Mr. B. maintained that it operated an injustice on the other States, inasmuch as it diminished their proportions in the public lands, which belonged equally to all. It was time to make a pause, a solemn pause, in voting away these gratuities. He referred to the immense expenditure which had become necessary by yielding to feeling, and passing the act for the relief of the Revolutionary soldiers; that act was the offspring of feeling, and it had involved the nation in an expense of three millions of dollars a year-a sum more than half the interest of the whole national debt for one year. That act, however, heavily as it pressed on the Treasury, was the more justifiable on account of the important services and the sufferings of the objects of it

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Should the present grant be made to the New York asylum, it must be given to charitable institutions in other States. If all the States received equally, it would diminish the proportion of all alike in the public lands, and it would be no peculiar benefit to either; the House must therefore act unequally or act uselessly. Mr. B. said feeling and sympathy were bad guides in public conduct; when any thing was asked in the name of justice, there were rules by which to decide correctly and uniformly; but, when they legislated on the score of charity, they would act according to impulse; one Congress would be guided by feeling, and another perhaps by precedent, &c. This was a dangerous mode of proceeding. But this grant was advocated in the name of knowledge, which is the basis of liberty. If for the promotion of knowledge, Mr. B. said, why did New York apply to this House; why not rely on her own resources? Virginia, with less resources than New York, had established a system of public education, for which she might with as much propriety, ask of this House a similar donation of public land. Mr. B. said he felt, as a man, for the unhappy class of beings who were the objects of the bill; he would drop tears for their affliction, but he could not give his support to this bill; it would be inconsistent with his ideas of public duty; he could not give to one what he could not to all; it would not be right to do so.

Mr. MEIGS again rose. He had flattered himself, he said, it would be utterly unnecessary for him to trouble the Committee again upon this occasion. But, when he found that this bill had had the misfortune to call forth the hostility of such able and eloquent gentlemen as the Speaker of this House and the gentlemen from Virginia, it became his duty, feeble as he was, to speak for those whose mouths God had shut. Would to Heaven, said he, that this necessity did not exist! Would to Heaven, that each of the silent innocents whose cause I am thus called on to advocate was able to speak in the fine and commanding tones of the honorable Speaker. Sir, I have no intention to appeal to the humanity of this Committee; I mean to move them, if I can, by far different considerations. Knowledge is power; and I call upon this Government to afford, for purposes of instruction in all that constitutes knowledge to a most interesting portion of the community, some small pittance of those vast resources which heretofore have been consecrated, if I may so express myself, to the naval, military, and domestic expense; to the destroying arts of war, and the maintenance of civil splendor. And I now hope that the Speaker, whose talents have done his country much service in one war, in its conduct, and still more eminently in the happy peace, in concluding which he had the far greater glory to be instrumental; and that the honorable gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. BARBOUR,) who, with the Speaker, may have recorded a hundred votes for warlike purposes, will now, for once at least, record their votes for an appropriation in aid of the propagation of knowledge. He said that, when he cast his eyes upon the architectural splendor by

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which he was surrounded; when he saw that even a thing to hold candles had cost this nation treasure enough to give, perhaps, one whole year's tuition to the unfortunate persons who were the objects of this bill; when he remarked the beautiful but expensive marble figure of History just erected in this Hall, he could not refrain from hoping that she would not, among her first acts, have to record that this nation rejected the silent prayer of the deaf and dumb for a few acres of our boundless territories to enable them to know, while she votes the lavishment of millions for devastating war and domestic pomp. Let it be now determined, said he, that it is the opinion of this honorable body that knowledge is power, and that for such an end as its universal diffusion, there is no expense which could be deemed profusion. I wish, with profound sincerity, that, instead of one or two statesmen, eloquent and able, like the SPEAKER and the honorable gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. RANDOLPH,) there were one hundred thousand; and, instead of a handful of philosophers, holding all science within a small and mysterious bound, a hundred thousand of these, too, in our free land.

Mr. M. said he had declared that he would not make any appeal to the humane feelings of the Committee; but he had a right to say that, although France had reaped many a triumph by battle upon the land, and England many upon the sea, yet it might be possible their benevolent institutions would outlast, in the memory and affections of mankind, every military or naval glory which they had gained; for who was ignorant of, who was there that did not admire the mild benevolence of the Paris institution for the teaching and protecting the deaf and dumb? Society everywhere adopted them as its children; they were everywhere pitied, and ought, if they did not, to find every power their friend and guardian. Sir, if I wished to make an attempt upon the feelings of this House, instead of lifting my voice, I would bring here in front of the Speaker's seat the sixty children, and I should be then sure that, without voices, their intelligent features, their sparkling eyes, and their amiable demeanor, would command, irresistibly, the hardest heart in this House to lean to their cause. The honorable member from Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH) has discovered that, in truth, we have no power, under the Constitution of these United States, to make a grant for the purposes contained in this bill. I regret that, under that clause of the Constitution upon which he has just commented: "that Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary for the purpose of carrying into execution," &c., we really have no authority to establish and maintain systems of instruction. I have seen that the learned Judges of the Supreme Court of this land have maintained the Constitutional existence of a bank; and that Hortensius, by most able and conclusive reasoning, although in a different line of direction, has arrived at the same happy conclusion; and I must express my regret and astonishment together, that this famous clause of the Constitution has the magical strength to bear so vast a bank, and is yet too feeble to raise a common school.

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I have wished that it might be considered necessary and proper to spread instruction, and diffuse far and wide knowledge, without which our Constitution itself, and still less our statutes, could not long be maintained. I feel, said Mr. M., that, under the powerful opposition of such gentlemen as the Speaker of this House, whose talents alone are sufficient, if exerted, to destroy mightier matters than this poor little bill; of the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. RANDOLPH,) whose genius and experience are always ready to be poured out by his eloquence; and of the other gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. BARBOUR,) whose abilities also are competent to greater things-this bill will fail of its passage. If this must be its fate, I at least shall have the satisfaction to record my vote, among the first which I give in this House, for a grant of a few acres of our immense public estate for the noble purpose of instruction. And I shall at least not be alarmed at the idea of exhausting our resources upon the deaf and dumb; for, thank God, the number is small, perhaps not exceeding one thousand in the whole United States. I was pleased to hear the gentleman from Virginia last up, (Mr. BARBOUR,) declare the wise munificence of his native State in endowments for literary purposes; for he has enabled me to enjoy the proud satisfaction of stating to this committee the fact, that the State of New York has likewise been nobly munificent to learning; that she has appropriated to that end more than two millions of dollars; that eleven hundred thousand dollars of this sum constitute the fund for the support of common schools; and that, last year, more than two hundred thousand children received the benefit of .this admirable fund. Glorious rivalry, said Mr. M., in which even these who are last and least must rejoice in the success of the other members of the Confederacy.

Mr. CLAY rose again to remark, that the whole of the deaf and dumb in the United States, at least all those incompetent to support themselves at an asylum by their own estates, might be educated at the Connecticut asylum, now in successful operation. He therefore did not think an additional asylum for the deaf and dumb necessary; but even supposing that another institution were necessary for the American community, was it proper that it should be fixed at New York, which was not more than one hundred miles from the asylum at Hartford; and least of all would it be proper to locate it in a place so expensive as New York? If another institution was to be encouraged, let it go, Mr. C. said, into the interior, among a class to which the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. FORREST, a member of the Society of Friends,) belongs, whose frugal, regular, and industrious habits, and simplicity of character, suited them to the management of such things; but not, he repeated, establish it in a large city remarkable for its expensive and luxurious habits, &c. These reasons, Mr. C. thought, might fairly be adduced in addition to the others which had been justly urged against the bill; and he must still hope, notwithstanding the eloquent manner in which the bill had been supported by the gentleman from

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New York, (Mr. MEIGS,) that his own motion would prevail, and the first section be stricken out.

Mr. GROSS, of New York, said he clearly perceived that the Committee was prepared to reject the bill; but he could not resist the inclination which he felt to make some remarks on the extraordinary objections which gentlemen had raised against its passage. The bill, he said, had called forth not only the wit, but also the acrimony of gentlemen, to a degree quite unexpected, and in his opinion altogether unjustified by any circumstances which had attended its progress. Gentlemen might with some show of propriety call the prayer of the petitioners selfish, but he could not perceive in what point of view it appeared ridiculous. They asked a portion of the public lands for the purpose of aiding them in the education of the deaf and dumb. Was this a proper subject of merriment? The honorable gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. FooT) thought we had no Constitutional right to be generous. This, Mr. G. said, might be true or false, without throwing much light on the subject before the Committee. The only important inquiry is, has Congress the power to dispose of the public lands? The gentleman saw no evil in the donation to Connecticut; but he seemed to apprehend the destruction of our liberties by the proposed grant. Wherein, Mr. G. asked, consists the wonderful difference between the two cases in point of principle or result? Why, sir, in the Connecticut asylum were to be found some pupils from without the State. But, unfortunately for the honorable gentleman, the difference was only imaginary, and did not exist in point of fact.

The honorable Speaker, said Mr. G., thinks that the city of New York is an expensive place, and consequently not well calculated for the education of persons of any description. He paints the splendor of the drawing-rooms of the merchants of that great city with the hand of a master and with the accuracy of one well acquainted with his subject. But, sir, said Mr. G., although extravagance is visible among the rich and gay, economy may also be found among its inhabitants. We are not to inquire into the customs of the fashionables, but into the prices of rents and provisions, in order to decide on the propriety of the location. For the cheapness and variety to be found in its markets, New York has no rival. It is also said that it is partiality to grant lands to one State and not to another. For my part, said Mr. G., I am willing that a similar grant should be made, for a similar purpose, to every State in the Union. He doubted, he said, whether we could apply the public lands to a better purpose, and he believed he was not alone in so thinking.

The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. HOLMES,) Mr. G. said, could not restrain his propensity to be witty on this occasion. He had fancied the people of the United States struck dumb at the enormity of the unheard of provisions of this bill. It would be well for the honorable gentleman, said Mr. G., if his constituents were both deaf and dumb; for, if they spake at all, they