Another member, to wit, Matthew Lyon, from Vermont, appeared, and took his seat in the House.
Mausoleum to Washington.
The House went into a Committee of the Whole on the bill for erecting a Mausoleum to the memory of George Washington.
Mr. Alston was in hopes, when he first made the motion now under consideration, that a question would have been taken upon the amendment without debate; but, as his wish upon that subject had not been complied with, he held it to be his duty to give to the House the reasons which actuated him.
He said that he by no means wished to detract any thing from the merit of that illustrious character whose memory we were now about to perpetuate; that it was his wish that his character might be handed to the latest posterity unimpaired, and that he really thought the amendment equally calculated to effect that desirable purpose with the bill; that the difference of expense was a matter of importance to the people of this country; that the expense of a mausoleum, from the best information he had been able to collect, would amount to at least 150 or $200,000; that a monument, such as was contemplated by the amendment, would not cost more than one tenth as much as a mausoleum, as contemplated by the bill as it now stood. Indeed, he believed that the bare expense of interring the remains of General Washington in a mausoleum would cost as much as the proposed monument.
Mr. A. said he considered Congress pledged, as far as the resolution of the last session went; that the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Otis,) who was up a few day ago upon this subject, had requested information; in answer to which he had only to observe that if that gentleman would have given himself the trouble to have examined the proceedings of the last session of Congress he would have been better informed than he appeared to be; that a committee equally respectable with that which had reported the bill at the present time, had then fully investigated the subject, and had made a report, which was to be found upon the journals of the last session of Congress, recommending a monument such as was contemplated by the proposed amendment, and that the request made by the President of the United States to Mrs. Washington, in conformity to the report of that committee, was for a monument; to which request she had consented; he, therefore, considered Congress as pledged thus far and no farther; that a motion was made in this House to change the monument to a mausoleum; that the recent death of General Washington at that time, prevented any person from opposing any measure which was offered, let the expense be what it would; but that the time which had elapsed since, had enabled the public mind the better to judge.
The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Lee) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Griswold) had dwelt a great deal upon the subject of public gratitude. It was by no means his wish or intention to lessen that sentiment, but he said that he could not give his consent to an expensive measure like that contemplated in the bill, when a measure far less expensive, in his opinion, would answer every purpose as well.
Mr. Alston was followed by Mr. Huger, who advocated the erection of a mausoleum.
Mr. Smilie replied. He considered the erection of a mausoleum as productive of unnecessary expense, as a monument would answer every rational purpose contemplated in the bill.
Mr. H. Lee next spoke at some length in favor of a mausoleum, and read a letter received from Mr. King, our Ambassador at London enclosing a plan, presented to him by an eminent foreign artist, for a mausoleum of one hundred and fifty feet base, and the same height, the expense of which was estimated at $170,000.