exing the necessary appropriations for its support to the bill for
civil and diplomatic service. We spoke to them, in reply, of the
unfitness, the irregularity, the incongruity, of this forced union of
such dissimilar subjects; but they told us it was a case of absolute
necessity, and that, without resorting to this mode, the appropriation
could not get through. We acquiesced, Sir, in these suggestions. We went
out of our way. We agreed to do an extraordinary and an irregular thing,
in order to save the public business from miscarriage. By direction of
the committee, I moved the Senate to add an appropriation for the
Military Academy to the bill for defraying civil and diplomatic
expenses. The bill was so amended; and in this form the appropriation
was finally made.

But this was not all. This bill for the civil and diplomatic service,
being thus amended by tacking the Military Academy to it, was sent back
by us to the House of Representatives, where its length of tail was to
be still much further increased. That house had before it several
subjects for provision, and for appropriation, upon which it had not
passed any bill before the time for passing bills to be sent to the
Senate had elapsed. I was anxious that these things should, in some way,
be provided for; and when the diplomatic bill came back, drawing the
Military Academy after it, it was thought prudent to attach to it
several of these other provisions. There were propositions to pave the
streets in the city of Washington, to repair the Capitol, and various
other things, which it was necessary to provide for; and they,
therefore, were put into the same bill, by way of amendment to an
amendment; that is to say, Mr. President, we had been prevailed on to
amend their bill for defraying the salary of our ministers abroad, by
adding an appropriation for the Military Academy, and they proposed to
amend this our amendment by adding matter as germane to it as it was
itself to the original bill. There was also the President's gardener.
His salary was unprovided for; and there was no way of remedying this
important omission, but by giving him place in the diplomatic service
bill, among _charges d'affaires_, envoys extraordinary, and ministers
plenipotentiary. In and among these ranks, therefore, he was formally
introduced by the amendment of the House, and there he now stands, as
you will readily see by turning to the law.

Sir, I have not the pleasure to know this use