duated according to the degree
and nature of the offense, and is often rendered more unequal by the
different modes of imprisonment or penitentiary confinement in the
different States.

Many laws of a permanent character have been introduced into
appropriation bills, and it is often difficult to determine whether the
particular clause expires with the temporary act of which it is a part
or continues in force. It has also frequently happened that enactments
and provisions of law have been introduced into bills with the title or
general subject of which they have little or no connection or relation.
In this mode of legislation so many enactments have been heaped upon
each other, and often with but little consideration, that in many
instances it is difficult to search out and determine what is the law.

The Government of the United States is emphatically a government of
written laws. The statutes should therefore, as far as practicable, not
only be made accessible to all, but be expressed in language so plain
and simple as to be understood by all and arranged in such method as
to give perspicuity to every subject. Many of the States have revised
their public acts with great and manifest benefit, and I recommend that
provision be made by law for the appointment of a commission to revise
the public statutes of the United States, arranging them in order,
supplying deficiencies, correcting incongruities, simplifying their
language, and reporting them to Congress for its action.

An act of Congress approved 30th September, 1850, contained a provision
for the extension of the Capitol according to such plan as might be
approved by the President, and appropriated $100,000 to be expended
under his direction by such architect as he should appoint to execute
the same. On examining the various plans which had been submitted by
different architects in pursuance of an advertisement by a committee
of the Senate no one was found to be entirely satisfactory, and it
was therefore deemed advisable to combine and adopt the advantages
of several.

The great object to be accomplished was to make such an addition as
would afford ample and convenient halls for the deliberations of the two
Houses of Congress, with sufficient accommodations for spectators and
suitable apartments for the committees and officers of the two branches
of the Legislature. It was also desirable not to mar the harmony and
beauty of the present structure, which, as a sp