e decided in
its favor, by a vote of _one hundred and six_ to _ninety-three_. The
petition from Haverhill was then taken up and refused to be received;
one hundred and sixty-six in the affirmative to forty in the negative.

On the 12th of April, 1842, Mr. Adams, as chairman of the committee on
the Smithsonian fund, made a report in the form of a bill, the object of
which was to settle three fundamental principles for the administration
and management of the fund in all after time. The bill provided, First,
that the principal fund should be preserved and maintained unimpaired,
with an income secured upon it at the rate of six per cent. a year, from
which all appropriations for the purposes of the founder should be made.
Second, that the portions of the income already accrued and invested in
state stocks should be constituted funds, from the annual income of
which an astronomical observer, with suitable assistants, should be
supported. Third, that in the future management of this fund no part of
it should be applied to any institution of education, or religious
establishment.

To the persevering spirit with which Mr. Adams on every occasion urged
upon Congress and the people of the United States the observance of
those fundamental principles which he had first asserted and which he
afterwards uninterruptedly maintained, notwithstanding a local and
interested opposition to them, may be justly attributed the preservation
of that fund, and its subsequent application to the objects of the
founder's bequest, although in his prevailing desire that an
astronomical observatory should be one of them, he did not succeed.
Connected with this report, all the previous proceedings in relation to
it were again published, for the information of Congress and the public.

On the 14th of the same month, a bill making appropriations for the
civil and diplomatic expenses of government being under consideration,
Mr. Linn, of New York, moved to strike out so much of it as related to a
minister to Mexico, expressing his belief that the object of this
mission was to bring about the annexation of Texas. A debate ensued,
which was desultory and declamatory on the part of those advocating the
appropriation. Mr. Wise, of Virginia, said that the tyrant of Mexico was
now at war with Texas; that he threatened to invade her territory, and
never stop until he had driven slavery beyond the Sabine; and that the
gentlemen opposed to the mission would let h