Surely this National Capitol, so beautiful and interesting, and already historic, should not be opened to the rude experiment of untried talent.

Only the finished artist should be admitted here.

The edifice itself is not unworthy of the situation.

It has beauty of form and sublimity in proportion, even if it lacks originality in conception.

But bad pictures and ordinary marbles warn us against adding to their number.

I never enter that room without feeling its presence.

These works have a merit of their own which will always justify the place they occupy.

If these pictures do not belong to the highest art, they can never fail in interest for the patriot citizen, while the artist will not be indifferent to them.

It is the portrait of Lafayette, by that consummate artist, who was one of the glories of France, Ary Scheffer.

He sympathized with our institutions; and this portrait of the early friend of our country was a present from the artist to the people of the United States.

Few who look at it, by the side of the Speaker’s chair, are aware that it is the production of the rare genius which gave to mankind the Christus Consolator and the Francesca da Rimini.

Near to this is a remarkable group by Greenough, where the early settler is struggling with the savage; while opposite in the yard is the statue of Washington by the same artist, which has found little favor because it is nude, but which…

There also are the works of Crawford,--the alto-rilievo which fills the pediment over the great door of the Senate Chamber, and the statue of Liberty which looks down from the top of the dome,--attesting a genius that must always command…

They belong to a class of which there are only a few specimens in the world, and I have sometimes thought they might vie with those famous doors at Florence, which Michel Angelo hailed as worthy to be the gates of Paradise.

Our artist has pictured the whole life of Columbus in bronze, while portraits of contemporary princes, and of great authors who have illustrated the life of the great discoverer, add to the completeness of this artistic work.

He deserves a statue, and it should be here in Washington.

Surely, whoever undertakes the work must be of ripe genius, with ample knowledge of art, and of unquestioned capacity,--the whole informed and inspired by a prevailing sympathy with the martyr and the cause for which he lived and died.

Are you satisfied that this youthful candidate, without ripeness of genius or ample knowledge of art or unquestioned capacity, and not so situated as to feel the full inspiration of his life and character, should receive this remarkable…

Anything short of this, even if through your indulgence it finds a transient resting-place here, will be removed whenever a correct taste asserts its just prerogative.

Suffice it to say that art throughout the whole country must suffer, if Congress crowns with its patronage anything which is not truly artistic.

By such patronage you will discourage where you ought to encourage.

President, I make these remarks with sincere reluctance; I am distressed in making them; but such an appropriation, engineered so vigorously, and having in its support such a concerted strength, must be met plainly and directly.

If you wish to bestow a charity or a gift, do it openly, without pretence of any patronage bestowed upon art, or pretence of homage to a deceased President.

But when you propose this large sum for a work of art in the National Capitol in memory of the illustrious dead, I am obliged to consider the character of the artist.

All who have the most moderate acquaintance with art know that it is one thing to make a bust and quite another to make a statue.