Chapter 31

I would remark that the fourth article of each treaty provides for the appointment of a commissioner and the payment of the debts due by the Indians. There is no limitation upon the amount of these debts, though it is obvious from these instructions that the commissioner should have limited the amount to be applied to this object; otherwise the whole fund might be exhausted and the Indians left without the means of living. I therefore recommend either that the Senate limit the amount at their discretion or that they provide by resolution that the whole purchase money be paid to the Indians, leaving to them the adjustment of their debts.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _May 21, 1836_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit herewith two treaties concluded with bands of Pottawatamies in the State of Indiana, with accompanying papers, for the consideration and action of the Senate.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _May 26, 1836_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I transmit, in conformity with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 21st instant, a report of the Secretary of War, containing the information called for on the subject of the causes of the hostilities of the Seminoles and the measures taken to repress them.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _May 27, 1836_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In further compliance with so much of the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 21st instant as calls for an account of the causes of the hostilities of the Seminole Indians, I transmit a supplementary report from the Secretary of War.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _May 28, 1836_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration and action of the Senate, a treaty concluded on the 24th instant with the Chippewa Indians of Saganaw.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _May 31, 1836_.

_To the Senate_:

I transmit herewith the response of Samuel Gwin, esq.,[18] to the charges affecting his official conduct and character which were set forth in the evidence taken under the authority of the Senate by the Committee on Public Lands, and which was referred to the President by the resolution of the Senate bearing date the 3d day of March, 1835. This resolution and the evidence it refers to were officially communicated to Mr. Gwin by the Secretary of the Treasury, and the response of Mr. Gwin has been received through the same official channel.

ANDREW JACKSON.

[Footnote 18: Register of the land office for the northwestern district of Mississippi.]

WASHINGTON, _June 1, 1836_.

_To the Senate_:

I transmit herewith to the Senate a communication which has been received from Mr. B.F. Currey[19] in answer to a call made upon him by the President, through the War Department, in consequence of the serious charges which were preferred against him by one of the honorable members of the Senate. It seems to be due to justice that the Senate should be furnished, agreeably to the request of Mr. Currey, with the explanations contained in this communication, particularly as they are deemed so far satisfactory as would render his dismissal or even censure undeserved and improper.

ANDREW JACKSON.

[Footnote 19: Agent for the removal of the Cherokee Indians.]

WASHINGTON, _June 3, 1836_.

_To the Senate_:

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 27th ultimo, requesting the President to inform the Senate "whether any increase or improvement of organization is needed in the Ordnance Corps," I have to state that I entertain no doubt of the propriety of increasing the corps, and that I concur in the plan proposed for this purpose in the accompanying report from the Secretary of War.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _June 3, 1836_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a supplemental report from the War Department, in answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 21st ultimo, calling for information respecting the causes of the Seminole hostilities and the measures taken to suppress them.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _June 3, 1836_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I herewith transmit a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, in relation to the injuries sustained by the bridge across the Potomac River during the recent extraordinary rise of water, and would respectfully recommend to the early attention of Congress the legislation, therein suggested.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _June 14, 1836_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit a report of the Secretary of State, prepared in compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 11th instant, upon the subject of the depredations of the Mexicans on the property of Messrs. Chouteau and Demun.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _June 15, 1836_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I communicate to the Senate a report from the Secretary of State, with a copy of the correspondence requested by a resolution of the 21st ultimo, relative to the northeastern boundary of the United States.

At the last session of Congress I felt it my duty to decline complying with a request made by the House of Representatives for copies of this correspondence, feeling, as I did, that it would be inexpedient to publish it while the negotiation was pending; but as the negotiation was undertaken under the special advice of the Senate, I deem it improper to withhold the information which that body has requested, submitting to them to decide whether it will be expedient to publish the correspondence before the negotiation has been closed.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _June 23, 1836_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 18th instant, I transmit a report[20] from the Secretary of State, with the papers therewith presented. Not having accurate and detailed information of the civil, military, and political condition of Texas, I have deemed it expedient to take the necessary measures, now in progress, to procure it before deciding upon the course to be pursued in relation to the newly declared government.

ANDREW JACKSON.

[Footnote 20: Relating to the political condition of Texas, the organization of its Government, and its capacity to maintain its independence, etc.]

JUNE 28, 1836.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of War, conveying the information called for by the House in its resolution of yesterday, concerning the Cherokee treaty recently ratified.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _June 28, 1836_.

_To the Senate_:

As it is probable that it may be proper to send a minister to Paris prior to the next meeting of Congress, I nominate Lewis Cass, now Secretary for the Department of War, to be envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to France, not to be commissioned until notice has been received here that the Government of France has appointed a minister to the United States who is about to set out for Washington.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _June 30, 1836_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

It becomes my painful duty to announce to you the melancholy intelligence of the death of James Madison, ex-President of the United States. He departed this life at half past 6 o'clock on the morning of the 28th instant, full of years and full of honors.

I hasten this communication in order that Congress may adopt such measures as may be proper to testify their sense of the respect which is due to the memory of one whose life has contributed so essentially to the happiness and glory of his country and the good of mankind.

ANDREW JACKSON.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit to Congress copies of a treaty of peace, friendship, navigation, and commerce between the United States and the Republic of Venezuela, concluded on the 20th of January, and the ratifications of which were exchanged at Caracas on the 31st of May last.

ANDREW JACKSON.

JUNE 30, 1836.

WASHINGTON, _June 30, 1836_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I return to the House of Representatives the papers which accompanied their resolution of the 6th of May last, relative to the claim of Don Juan Madrazo, together with a report of the Secretary of State and copies of a correspondence between him and the Attorney-General, showing the grounds upon which that officer declines giving the opinion requested by the resolution.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, _July 1, 1836_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 21st January last, I transmit a report[21] of the Secretary of War, containing the copies called for so far as relates to his Department.

ANDREW JACKSON.

[Footnote 21: Relating to frauds in sales of public lands or Indian reservations.]

VETO MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, _June 9, 1836_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

The act of Congress "to appoint a day for the annual meeting of Congress," which originated in the Senate, has not received my signature. The power of Congress to fix by law a day for the regular annual meeting of Congress is undoubted, but the concluding part of this act, which is intended to fix the adjournment of every succeeding Congress to the second Monday in May after the commencement of the first session, does not appear to me in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution provides, Article I, section 5, that--

Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Article I, section 7, that--

Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States, and before the same shall take effect shall be approved by him. ...

Article II, section 3, that--

He [the President] may, on extraordinary occasions convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them with respect to the time of adjournment he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper. ...

According to these provisions the day of the adjournment of Congress is not the subject of legislative enactment. Except in the event of disagreement between the Senate and House of Representatives, the President has no right to meddle with the question, and in that event his power is exclusive, but confined to fixing the adjournment of the Congress whose branches have disagreed. The question of adjournment is obviously to be decided by each Congress for itself, by the separate action of each House for the time being, and is one of those subjects upon which the framers of that instrument did not intend one Congress should act, with or without the Executive aid, for its successors. As a substitute for the present rule, which requires the two Houses by consent to fix the day of adjournment, and in the event of disagreement the President to decide, it is proposed to fix a day by law to be binding in all future time unless changed by consent of both Houses of Congress, and to take away the contingent power of the Executive which in anticipated cases of disagreement is vested in him. This substitute is to apply, not to the present Congress and Executive, but to our successors. Considering, therefore, that this subject exclusively belongs to the two Houses of Congress whose day of adjournment is to be fixed, and that each has at that time the right to maintain and insist upon its own opinion, and to require the President to decide in the event of disagreement with the other, I am constrained to deny my sanction to the act herewith respectfully returned to the Senate. I do so with greater reluctance as, apart from this constitutional difficulty, the other provisions of it do not appear to me objectionable.

ANDREW JACKSON.

PROCLAMATION.

[From Statutes at Large (little, Brown & Co.), Vol. XI, p. 782.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by an act of Congress of the United States of the 24th of May, 1828, entitled "An act in addition to an act entitled 'An act concerning discriminating duties of tonnage and impost' and to equalize the duties on Prussian vessels and their cargoes," it is provided that, upon satisfactory evidence being given to the President of the United States by the government of any foreign nation that no discriminating duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the said nation upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country, the President is hereby authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the said foreign nation and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into the United States in the same from the said foreign nation or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from the time of such notification being given to the President of the United States and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer; and

Whereas satisfactory evidence has lately been received by me from the Government of His Imperial and Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, through an official communication of Baron Lederer, the consul-general of His Imperial and Royal Highness in the United States, under date of the 6th day of August, 1836, that no discriminating duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of Tuscany upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country:

Now, therefore, I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into the United States in the same from the said Grand Dukedom or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from the 6th day of August, 1836, above mentioned, and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer. Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 1st day of September, A.D. 1836, and of the Independence of the United States the sixty-first.

ANDREW JACKSON.

By the President: JOHN FORSYTH, _Secretary of State_.

EXECUTIVE ORDER.

HERMITAGE, _August 7, 1836_.

C.A. HARRIS, Esq.,

_Acting Secretary of War_.

SIR: I reached home on the evening of the 4th, and was soon surrounded with the papers and letters which had been sent here in anticipation of my arrival. Amongst other important matters which immediately engaged my attention was the requisition of General Gaines on Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Believing that the reasons given for this requisition were not consistent with the neutrality which it is our duty to observe in respect to the contest in Texas, and that it would embarrass the apportionment which had been made of the 10,000 volunteers authorized by the recent act of Congress, I informed Governor Cannon by letter on the 5th instant that it could not receive my sanction. The volunteers authorized by Congress were thought competent, with the aid of the regular force, to terminate the Indian war in the South and protect our western frontier, and they were apportioned in a manner the best calculated to secure these objects. Agreeably to this apportionment, the volunteers raised in Arkansas and Missouri, and ordered to be held in readiness for the defense of the western frontier, should have been called on before any other requisition was made upon Tennessee, who has already more than her proportion in the field. Should an emergency hereafter arise making it necessary to have a greater force on that frontier than was anticipated when the apportionment was made, it will be easy to order the east Tennessee brigade there. All the volunteers under the act are engaged for one year's service, unless sooner discharged. Taking this view of the subject, I regret that as soon as the War Department had information of the requisition made by General Gaines it had not at once notified the governors of the States that the apportionment of the volunteers at first communicated to them would not be departed from, and that of course those in the States nearest to the scene of threatened hostility would be first called on.

I had written thus far when your letter of the 26th of July last, accompanied by one from General Wool of the 15th of July and one from General Towsen of the 25th of July last, was handed to me. The letter from General Wool was unexpected. His guide was the requisition on the State, and I can not well imagine how he could suppose that the Department would authorize a greater number of troops to be mustered and paid than he was specially directed to receive. He was apprised fully of the apportionment which had been made of the 10,000 volunteers, and of the considerations which induced us to require 1,000 from Florida, 2,000 from Georgia, 2,000 from Alabama, and 2,500 from Tennessee. This force was designated in this manner because it was in the country nearest to the Seminoles, Creeks, and Cherokees, and in like manner near the force designated for the western frontier, except a fraction of about 430 men to be hereafter selected when it should be ascertained where it would be most needed. It is therefore unaccountable to me why General Wool would receive and muster into the service a greater number than has been called for and placed under his command, particularly as he knew that Tennessee had already been called upon for more volunteers than her proportion in the general apportionment. He knows that the President can only execute the law, and he ought to have recollected that if the officers charged with the military operations contemplated by the law were to use their own discretion in fixing the number of men to be received and mustered into the service there could be no certainty in the amount of force which would be brought into the field. His guide was the requisition upon Tennessee for 2,500, and he should never have departed from it.

The brave men whose patriotism brought them into the field ought to be paid, but I seriously doubt whether any of the money now appropriated can be used for this purpose, as all the volunteers authorized by the act of Congress have been apportioned, and the appropriations should be first applicable to their payment if they should be ordered into the field. All that we can do is to bring the subject before the next Congress, which I trust will pass an act authorizing the payment. Those men obeyed the summons of their country, and ought not to suffer for the indiscretion of those who caused more of them to turn out than could be received into the service. The excess would have been avoided had the governor of Tennessee apportioned his requisition to each county or regiment, so as to make the proper number. This, however, can now only be regretted. I can not approve the mustering or reception into the service of the excess further than it may have been done to secure them hereafter the justice which it will be in the power of Congress to extend to them. They ought to be paid for their travel and expense to, at, and from the place of rendezvous, and Congress will doubtless pass the necessary law. Their promptness in tendering their services and equipping themselves for the field is a high evidence of patriotism, and the thanks of their country.

I shall inclose a copy of this letter to General Wool, and write to the governors of Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana to withhold for the present the quota called for under General Gaines's requisition, and if they are concentrated to muster and discharge them and wait for further orders.

I am, yours, respectfully,

ANDREW JACKSON.

EIGHTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, _December 5, 1836_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:

Addressing to you the last annual message I shall ever present to the Congress of the United States, it is a source of the most heartfelt satisfaction to be able to congratulate you on the high state of prosperity which our beloved country has attained. With no causes at home or abroad to lessen the confidence with which we look to the future for continuing proofs of the capacity of our free institutions to produce all the fruits of good government, the general condition of our affairs may well excite our national pride.

I can not avoid congratulating you, and my country particularly, on the success of the efforts made during my Administration by the Executive and Legislature, in conformity with the sincere, constant, and earnest desire of the people, to maintain peace and establish cordial relations with all foreign powers. Our gratitude is due to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, and I invite you to unite with me in offering to Him fervent supplications that His providential care may ever be extended to those who follow us, enabling them to avoid the dangers and the horrors of war consistently with a just and indispensable regard to the rights and honor of our country. But although the present state of our foreign affairs, standing, without important change, as they did when you separated in July last, is flattering in the extreme, I regret to say that many questions of an interesting character, at issue with other powers, are yet unadjusted. Amongst the most prominent of these is that of our northeastern boundary. With an undiminished confidence in the sincere desire of His Britannic Majesty's Government to adjust that question, I am not yet in possession of the precise grounds upon which it proposes a satisfactory adjustment.

With France our diplomatic relations have been resumed, and under circumstances which attest the disposition of both Governments to preserve a mutually beneficial intercourse and foster those amicable feelings which are so strongly required by the true interests of the two countries. With Russia, Austria, Prussia, Naples, Sweden, and Denmark the best understanding exists, and our commercial intercourse is gradually expanding itself with them. It is encouraged in all these countries, except Naples, by their mutually advantageous and liberal treaty stipulations with us.

The claims of our citizens on Portugal are admitted to be just, but provision for the payment of them has been unfortunately delayed by frequent political changes in that Kingdom.

The blessings of peace have not been secured by Spain. Our connections with that country are on the best footing, with the exception of the burdens still imposed upon our commerce with her possessions out of Europe.

The claims of American citizens for losses sustained at the bombardment of Antwerp have been presented to the Governments of Holland and Belgium, and will be pressed, in due season, to settlement.