peculiar establishment. Its operations are simple and few. Its contracts are such as can seldom form the subject of controversy. If the institution should find necessity for legal redress, there is nothing to prevent the President, who is a member of the establishment, from directing a suit in the name of the United States. If it denies legal rights to any officer or other person, the same remedy exists as in any other case of claim against the United States. No instance of a denial of legal right has been shown to the committee. An attempt to do so was indeed made on the part of an employee of the institution, who claimed to be entitled to larger compensation than had been paid to him. But the attempt was a signal failure. His own receipts contradicted his claims, and satisfied the committee that he had been paid all he could legally demand; and the assertion of extraordinary merit in his labors, alleged as an equitable ground of claim, failed when a resort was had to testimony other than his own.

The committee therefore conclude that there is no necessity for additional legislation.

4. Maladministration.

The first of Mr. Meacham's complaints under this head is "that the regents have made the secretary the organ of communication between them and the other officers of the institution, cutting off other officers from direct official intercourse with the Board, neglecting or refusing to procure or make by-laws defining the position and power of persons employed in the institution, and expressing the opinion that all the assistants are removable at the pleasure of the secretary."

This complaint seems to be founded on an entire misapprehension of the act of Congress creating the institution, and the proper relations of the secretary and his subordinates. By the act of Congress the secretary is the sole administrative officer of the institution. The other officers are not only his subordinates, but are nothing more than his assistants, who are employed to assist him in his duties because it is physically impossible for him to perform all of these duties himself. The law charges the secretary alone with the duties enumerated, and therefore devolves upon him the sole responsibility, unless when it is shared with the executive committee of the regents, whose functions are not precisely defined in the law, but who act as a Board of control or council to the secretary. We adopt on this subject the reasoning of the special committee of the Board of Regents, in their report of the 20th of May last, as follows:

"The law is declaratory and positive in charging the secretary with the enumerated duties, and therefore invests him, and him alone, with the corresponding powers. But as it must have been manifest that no secretary could be able of himself to perform personally everything required for the discharge of his enumerated duties, provision is made for aid to him in the clause which says that he may, with the consent of the Board, employ assistants,' &c

"The positions of the persons so employed are determined by the word which designates them in the clause authorizing their employment. They are called 'assistants.' To whom? Not to the regents, but to the secretary. Their position is necessarily subordinate; and, as their duties are those of assistants to their principal, they can no

more be independent of him than they can be superior to him. This construction is so manifestly proper that it would seem to require no argument to justify it. But if anything further were wanted, it may be found in the fact that the secretary is to employ them in and about that very business with which he is charged, and for which he alone is responsible. The character of this part of the section is permissive. He is not required to employ any one, but is permitted to employ persons to assist him, provided he satisfy the Board that their services are necessary as aids to him.

"In another part of the same section provision is made for the payment and, if need be, the removal of the secretary and his assistants, and in this connexion they are spoken of as officers, but by no ingenuity of construction can that word, in this connexion, be held to assign them special duties, or confer any separate authority.

"Thus careful has Congress been to provide an efficient system of operations, which can only come from harmony of purpose and unity

of action.

"This view of the intention of Congress, so clearly expressed in the law, would be directly contradicted by the plan which has been suggested, of organizing the institution definitely into several departments, placing at the head of these departments different assistants, establishing their relative positions, prescribing distinct duties for them, assigning certain shares of the income to be disbursed by them, and stating their authority, privileges, and remedies for infringement of their official rights, or of the interests intrusted to their care. All this would tend, not to secure a loyal and harmonious co-operation, to a common end, of the assistants with the secretary, but to encourage rivalry, to invite collision, to engender hostility, to destroy subordination, to distract the operations of the institution, to impair its efficiency, and to destroy its usefulness."

This view of the question has been made very clear to the committee in the course of the examination which they have made, and by the testimony taken for the purpose of supporting Mr. Meacham's charges. All the difficulties in the institution, which have resulted in the dismissal by the secretary of one of his assistants and of a person temporarily employed upon the meteorological computations, seem to have arisen from the desire of independent positions, engendering rivalry and hostility, producing collisions and insubordination utterly incompatible with the proper authority of the secretary and the harmonious action so necessary to the welfare of the institution. The facts developed in regard to those difficulties entirely satisfy your committee that it is not desirable to have such by-laws as Mr. Meacham thinks the regents should have made or procured.

If any just cause of complaint by the assistants against the secretary should arise, they can at all times resort for redress to the regents, by memorial or other proper form of application, and the patience with which such an application, although entirely without cause, has been heard by the executive committee, to which it was referred, and considered by the regents, is quite sufficient to show how needless for the purpose any by-laws are.

It may be proper to say, that the only section of the law in which

by-laws are mentioned is the 8th, which seems to confer the power of enacting them upon the members of the establishment, who are the President and Vice President of the United States, the members of the cabinet, except the Secretary of the Interior, (whose department was not created at the date of the act,) the Chief Justice of the United States, the Commissioner of Patents, and the mayor of Washington, with "such other persons as they may elect honorary members."

The regents have expressed the opinion that the secretary has power to remove the assistants. This opinion is expressed in the following resolution adopted in July last:

"Be it resolved, That while power is reserved in the said (7th) section to the Board of Regents to remove both the secretary and his assistants, in the opinion of the Board power, nevertheless, remains with the secretary to remove his said assistants."

In this opinion the Chief Justice of the United States and Mr. Berrien, who was absent when the resolution was passsed, afterwards expressed their full concurrence.

The committee cannot doubt that it was a sound opinion. The law, as before stated, makes the secretary the sole administrative officer of the institution. He, and he alone, is keeper of the museum and librarian. The law puts all the property of the institution into his charge, and authorizes him alone to appoint assistants to aid him in the discharge of the duties devolved upon him. Had the act made no further provision on this head, there could not be a doubt that the power of removal would be in him; because it is an established principle, that when the power to appoint is conferred, the power of removal is incident to it, unless restrained by some other provision. There is another clause in the same section (7th) which applies as well to the secretary as to his assistants, which provides, that "the said officers shall be removable by the Board of Regents, whenever, in their judgment, the interests of the institution require any of the said officers to be changed."

Under this clause, the question arises, whether it restrains the incidental power of the secretary to remove, or whether, in addition to that incidental power, it gives, as regards the assistants, the authority of the Board to make such removal. Your committee think the latter the sound construction. It does not restrain the power of the secretary by express words or by necessary implication. It is true that the clause gives to the Board superior power, inasmuch as they may remove an assistant without the concurence of the secretary, and even against his wish. But this power may well exist without conflict with the incidental authority of the secretary. The same reasons which cause the secretary to be invested with authority to appoint, justify, and require his power to remove. The Hon. George M. Dallas, late Vice President. of the United States, and chancellor of the institution, adopts this view, and, in an opinion upon this subject, says: "It is clear that the act of Congress does not confer upon the Board of Regents the power to appoint the assistants of the secretary, and for reasons too palpable to require mention. But if the secretary has not himself under his own mere motion a right to remove, it would be impossible to imagine

reasons why the power of original appointment was not given to the Board."

"In other words, the reasons which excluded the Board from appointing, are identically the reasons which preserve to the secretary the power of removing. It may, perhaps, render it more perspicuous to add that these reasons are the official responsibilities and practical personal intercourse of the secretary with his assistants."

Besides, it is very evident that the interests of the institution might often be in peril if the power of removal were denied to the secretary The Board of Regents are not in session during a great part of the year. Many of them reside at great distances from Washington, and could not be assembled without much inconvenience to themselves and heavy expense to the institution. During this period it might be of the utmost importance to remove an unfaithful assistant. He might cease to do that for which alone he was appointed, to assist the secretary in the affairs of the institution. He might refuse to deliver up to the secretary the property of the institution which the law puts in his charge. He might threaten and intend to destroy it, might treat the secretary with personal indignity, and insult and defame the regents, and spread insubordination throughout the institution. For such conduct there would be no prompt and adequate remedy unless the secretary possessed the power of removal. One case of this kind has already occurred. A person in the employment of the institution has refused to deliver up certain papers, the property of the institution, and threatened to destroy them. He has also written a letter, which was published over his own signature in a New York paper, vilifying the secretary and several of the regents, by name, in the most abusive language. For this and other causes during the last recess of Congress he was removed by the secretary, and, as the committee cannot doubt, most justly removed. This very individual was the principal witness against the secretary on the examination before your committee.

We think that the resolution of the regents, above quoted, while maintaining the superior authority of the Board, properly asserted the power of the secretary.

Your committee regret very much to say that the secretary was also justified in the removal of Mr. Jewett. His removal was not arbitrary, unjust, and oppressive. Mr. Jewett is a man of talent and scholastic attainments, but it is evident, from his own testimony, that he considered himself as holding an antagonistic position to the secretary, as "having charge of the library, and being considered by the public as the representative of that interest in the institution." He construed the law in one way; the secretary construed it differently. He thought and said that it would be treachery in him to co-operate with the secretary according to the latter's construction of the law. He told the secretary, in effect, that if he attempted to annul the compromise in the way he proposed, he would shake the institution to its centre. It is evident that he was impatient of the restraints of a subordinate position, and entertained feelings towards the secretary which made their harmonious co-operation impossible. In a paper which he submitted to the special committee of the regents he assailed the motives and honor of

the secretary and criticised harshly and unnecessarily the reports of that officer.

So the special committee of seven regents, with one exception, reported to the board, declaring that this paper disclosed feelings of excessive hostility and insubordination. After this, it was manifest that the common civilities of life could not be exchanged between them, and the interests of the institution required their separation. The Board of Regents accordingly passed a resolution, in January last, approving of Mr. Jewett's removal.

Mr. Meacham also charged the secretary with claiming and exercising the right to open and read letters directed to his subordinates. The evidence satisfied the committee that the secretary neither claimed nor exercised any improper authority in this respect. He expressly disclaimed any desire or authority to inspect the private letters of his subordinates. Their correspondence, in regard to the business of the institution, he properly claimed to be entitled to examine and control. In the absence of the subordinates he did consider himself at liberty to open letters addressed to them which were evidently of an official character; but it does not appear that he actually exercised this authority, the claim of which seems to have been misunderstood by one. of his assistants, and grossly perverted by another person, under the influence of hostile and unjustly suspicious feelings.

The charge of denying scientific right and refusing to take full measures for adjusting the claim of Mr. Blodget was entirely refuted, both by documentary evidence and the testimony of a disinterested party.

These latter charges of maladministration seemed to your committee not to come precisely within the scope of the instructions of the resolution under which the committee was appointed. The Board of Regents might properly have investigated them, and undoubtedly would have done so if asked by the parties concerned. But as testimony was taken in relation to them, the committee feel bound to say, that they have not been sustained; and that they consider the secretary as entirely relieved from the charge of maladministration in every particular. They believe that the regents and the secretary have managed the affairs of the institution wisely, faithfully, and judiciously; that there is no necessity for further legislation on the subject; that if the institution be allowed to continue the plan which has been adopted, and so far pursued with unquestionable success, it will satisfy all the requirements of the law, and the purposes of Smithson's will, by "increasing and diffusing knowledge among men."

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington city, January 26, 1855. DEAR SIR: I am instructed by the Select Committee of the House of Representatives, raised in conformity with the accompanying resolution, to request you to inform the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution that the committee is ready to proceed to the discharge of its duty, and that any communication the Board may think proper to make will be most respectfully entertained. The committee