involved in the aggregate of the cases in the
Supreme Court of any State for a like period.

I was a member of the Committee on the Library for several
years. For two or three years I was its acting Chairman
during the summer, and in that capacity had to approve the
accounts of the Congressional Library, and the National Botanic
Garden.

To that Committee were referred applications for the erection
of monuments and statues and similar works throughout the
country, including the District of Columbia, and the purchase
of works for art for the Government. They used to have a
regular appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars annually,
to be expended at their discretion, for works of art. That
appropriation was stopped some years ago.

My service on that Committee brought me into very delightful
relations with Mr. Sherman and Mr. Evarts. I introduced and
got through a bill for a monument and statue to Lafayette
and, as acting Chairman of the Library Committee was, with
the Secretary of War and the Architect of the Capitol, a member
of the Commission who selected the artists and contracted
for the statue and monument. A resolution to build the monument
passed the Continental Congress, but was not carried into
effect by reason of the poverty of the Confederacy in that
day. In Washington's first Administration somebody called
attention to the fact that the monument had not been built,
to which my grandfather, Roger Sherman, answered: "The vote
is the monument." I was led by the anecdote to do what I could
to have the long-neglected duty performed. The statue and
monument, by two French artists of great genius, now stands
at one corner of Lafayette Square. The statue of Rochambeau
has just been placed at another corner of that square.

I was also fortunate enough, when I was on the Library Committee,
to secure the purchase of the Franklin Papers for the Department
of State. William Temple Franklin, the Doctor's son, died
in London, leaving at his lodgings a mass of valuable correspondence
of his father, and other papers illustrating his life, especially
in France. They were discovered in the possession of the
keeper of his lodgings, many years after, by Henry Stevens,
the famous antiquary and dealer in rare books. Stevens had
got into difficulties about money, and had pledged the collection
for about twenty-five thousand dollars. It had been offered
to the Government. Several Secretaries of State, in succes