carried out the wishes of the testator by creating the Smithsonian Institution. To analyze the legislation during this period, to describe the many extraordinary schemes proposed, to merely name the Congressmen who were active in the prolonged discussion, would occupy more space than can be given to this entire article. Presidents Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, and Polk came and went, each urging Congress to action, but the legislators suffered from the "embarrassment of riches" in a new sense. Among the plans prominently brought forward and considered at length were the following: Senator John Quincy Adams advocated an astronomical observatory; Senator Asher Pobbins, of Rhode Island, favored the establishment of a National University; Senator Benjamin Tappan, of Ohio, proposed a botanical garden and an agricultural farm; Senator Rufus Choate, of Massachusetts, urged a grand library; Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, preferred a normal school with lectureships on scientific subjects; Mr. Isaac H. Morse, of Louisiana, wanted the prizes awarded for the best written essay on ten subjects; and some legislators, wise in their own conceit, opposed every plan suggested. Mr. George W. Jones, of Tennessee, proposed that the whole fund be returned to any heirs at law or next of kin of James Smithson; and a similar disposition of the fund was advocated by Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, and Mr. A. D. Sims, of South Carolina. It is interesting, in the light of later national events, to note the names of some of those who took part in these discussions: we find side by side the names of Jefferson Davis and Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson and Alexander H. Stephens, Howell Cobb and Stephen A. Douglas.
Meanwhile memorials from persons and institutions outside of Congress poured in, urging expedition, advocating particular bills and suggesting new plans. At least two societies of citizens sought to gain control of the magnificent fund which Congress was so slow in appropriating; the Agricultural Society of the United States, formed in the District of Columbia, memorialized Congress to apply the Smithsonian fund to its objects; and the National Institution for the Promotion of Science, organized in 1840 by representative men in Washington, sought union with or control of the embryonic establishment bearing Smithson's name. Dr. G. Brown Goode, in his Genesis of the United States National Museum (Report of the United States National Museum, 1891), points out that the President of this National Institution, Joel R. Poinsett, of South Carolina (Secretary of the Navy in 1840), deserves credit for introducing the feature of a national museum into the scheme for the Smithsonian Institution. Indeed, the organization of the Smithsonian Institution finally adopted bears marked resemblance to that of the National Institution both as regards the cast of officers and the objects of the establishment.
