Читать книгу Ten Years in Washington: Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them - Mary Clemmer - Страница 17

Table of Contents

How a Library was Offered to Congress—Mr. King’s Proposal—An Eye to Theology—The Smithsonian Library Transferred—The Good Deeds of Peter Force—National Documents—“American Archives”—Congress Makes a Wise Purchase—Eliot’s Indian Bible—Literary Treasures—The Lawyers Want a Library for Themselves—Their “Little Bill” Fails to Pass—They are Finally Successful—The Finest Law Library in the World—First Edition of Blackstone—Report of the Trial of Cagliostro, Rohan and La Motte—Marie Antoinette’s Diamond Necklace—A Long Life-Service—The Law Library Building—An Architect Buried Beneath his own Design—“Underdone Pie-crust”—“Justice” Among the Books—Reminiscence of Daniel Webster and the Girard Will.

A little more than a month after the burning of the Library by the British in 1814, a letter was read in the Senate, from Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, tendering to Congress the purchase of his library of nine thousand volumes.

The collection of this library had been the delight of Mr. Jefferson’s life, and, long before, he had written of it as “the best chosen collection of its size probably in America.” Pecuniary embarrassments had already begun to cloud his closing years, and the double hope of relieving these, and of adding to the treasures of his beloved Republic, impelled him to this personal sacrifice. In his letter to the Committee he said:

“I should be willing indeed to retain a few of the books to amuse the time I have yet to pass, which might be valued with the rest, but not included in the sum of valuation until they should be restored at my death, which I would cheerfully provide for.”

The sum of $23,950 in Treasury notes, of the issue ordered by the law of March 4, 1814, was paid him. The actual number of volumes thus acquired was 6,700. Although a Mr. King, of Massachusetts, more burdened with zeal than knowledge, made a motion which called out a loud and long debate, that all books of an atheistical, irreligious, and immoral tendency should be extirpated from the Library and sent back to Mr. Jefferson, the department of Theology in his library was found to be large, sound, and valuable.

In 1866 the custody of the Library of the Smithsonian Institution, with the agreement of the Regents, was transferred to the Library of Congress. It brought forty thousand additional volumes to the Congressional Library.

When you come to Washington, you will see in the gallery of the Smithsonian Institution the bust of a noble man standing on a simple plaster column, bearing the name Peter Force. He, during his life, did more than any one American to rescue from oblivion the early documentary history of the United States. He came from his native city, New York, to Washington, as a printer, in 1815. In 1820 he began the publication of the National Calendar, an annual volume of national statistics, and also published the National Journal, the Administration organ during the Presidency of John Quincy Adams. In 1833 the Government entered into a contract with Mr. Force to prepare and publish a “Documentary History of the American Colonies.” Nine volumes subsequently appeared under the title of the “American Archives.” In preparing this work, Mr. Force gathered a collection of books, manuscripts, and papers relating to American History, unequalled by any private collection in the world. At the request of the Joint Library Committee of the Thirty-ninth Congress, Mr. Spofford, the Librarian, entered into a thorough examination of the Force Library. After spending from two to three hours per day on it for two months, he presented to Congress an exhaustive classified report of its treasures, which resulted in the purchase of the entire Force Library by the Joint Library Committee for the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, the sum offered by the New York Historical Society for the same collection. It occupies the South Hall of the Congressional Library.

Before this purchase, the largest and most complete collection of books relating to America was tucked away on the shelves of the British Museum. Among the treasures of the Force Library is a perfect copy of Eliot’s Indian Bible, the last copy of which sold brought $1,000; forty-one different works of Cotton and Increase Mather, printed at Boston and Cambridge, from 1671 to 1735; complete files of the leading journals of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other States, from 1735 to 1800, with 245 bound volumes of American newspapers printed prior to 1800; and these make but a small proportion of its priceless historical wealth.

February 18, 1816, a bill was introduced in the Senate to establish a Law Library at the Seat of Government, for the use of the Supreme Court of the United States. It passed that body, but never went into effect, from the non-action of the House of Representatives on the bill. July 14, 1832, [Andrew Jackson, President,] a bill was approved, entitled, “An Act to increase and improve the Law Department of the Library of Congress,” which, in its four sections, contained the following provisions:

“For the present year a sum not exceeding five thousand dollars, and a farther annual sum of one thousand dollars for the period of five years, to be expended in the purchase of law books.”

The number of law books owned by the Library at that time was 2,011; 639 of these belonged to the Jefferson collection. From this beginning, within forty years has grown the finest law library in the world. It contains every volume of English, Irish and Scotch reports, besides the American; an immense collection of case law, a complete collection of the Statutes of all civilized countries since 1649, filling one hundred quarto volumes. It includes the first edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries, an original edition of the report of the trial of Cagliostro, Rohan and La Motte, for the theft of Marie Antoinette’s diamond necklace—that luckless bauble which fanned to such fury the fatal flames of the Revolution. When Andrew Jackson became President, in 1829, he appointed John S. Meehan, a printer of Washington, the first editor and publisher of the Columbia Star and United States Telegraph, Librarian of Congress. He continued in that office till the accession of Mr. Lincoln—a period of thirty-two years. His son, Mr. C. H. W. Meehan, relinquished his boy pageship under his father, in 1832, to be transferred to the new Law Library. The lapse of forty years finds this gentleman still the special custodian of the Law Library. In 1835 he was entrusted with the choice of all books purchased for the Library, which trust he continues to hold. He adds another to the many faithful and learned lives whose entire span is measured by devoted service to the State, under the shadow of the Capitol. In December, 1860, the Law Library was removed into the basement room of the Capitol, just vacated by the Supreme Court. This room is unique and beautiful. Its vestibule is supported by pillars in clusters of stalks of maize, with capitals of bursting ears of corn, the design of Mr. Latrobe. The chamber itself is of semi-circular form seventy-five feet in length. The arches of the ceiling rest upon immense Doric columns. The spandrels of the arches are filled in with solid masonry—blocks of sandstone, strong enough to support the whole Capitol. Their tragic strength springs from the fact that the arch above fell once, burying and killing beneath it its designer, Mr. Lenthal. The plan of his arch in proportion to its height was pronounced unsafe by all who examined the drawing, except himself. To prove his own faith in his theory he tore away the scaffolding before the ceiling was dry. It fell, and he was taken out hours after, dead and mangled, from its fallen ruins. It will never fall again. The tremendous masonry which now supports a very light burden makes it impossible. The Doric columns diverge from the centre to the circumference like the radii of a circle. From this centre diverge the alcoves lined with books in the regulation binding, likened by Dickens to “underdone pie-crust.” On the western wall near the ceiling is a group in plaster, representing Justice holding the scales, and Fame crowned with the rising sun, pointing to the Constitution of the United States, the work of Franzoni, the sculptor of the History-winged clock, in the old Hall of Representatives. In this room, Daniel Webster made his great speech in the Dartmouth College case, and Horace Binney his argument in the case of the Girard Will. The Librarian’s semi-circular mahogany desk, with its faded green brocade draperies, once stood in the old Senate Chamber and re-echoed to the gavel of every Vice-PresidentVice-President who reigned in the Senate from 1825 to 1860.