JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, February 23, 1824.

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

The House of Representatives on the 26th ultimo having “resolved that the President of the United States be requested to cause to be laid before the House an estimate of the expense which would be incurred by transporting 200 of the troops now at the Council Bluffs to the mouth of the Columbia or Oregon River,” I herewith transmit a report of the Secretary of War, which contains the information required.

JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, February 23, 1824.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I herewith transmit to Congress certain documents relating to a claim of Massachusetts for services rendered by the militia of that State in the late war, and for which payment was made by the State.  From the particular circumstances attending this claim I have thought it proper to submit the subject to the consideration of Congress.

In forming a just estimate of this claim it will be necessary to recur to the cause which prevented its admission, or the admission of any part thereof, at an earlier day.  It will be recollected that when a call was made on the militia of that State for service in the late war, under an arrangement which was alike applicable to the militia of all the States and in conformity with the acts of Congress, the executive of Massachusetts refused to comply with the call, on the principle that the power vested in Congress by the Constitution to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions was not a complete power for those purposes, but conditional, and dependent on the consent of the executives of the several States, and, also, that when called into service, such consent being given, they could not be commanded by a regular officer of the United States, or other officer than of the militia, except by the President in person.  That this decision of the executive of Massachusetts was repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, and of dangerous tendency, especially when it is considered that we were then engaged in a war with a powerful nation for the defense of our common rights, was the decided opinion of this Government; and when the period at which that decision was formed was considered, it being as early as the 5th of August, 1812, immediately after the war was declared, and that it was not relinquished during the war, it was inferred by the Executive of the United States that the decision of the executive of that State was alike applicable to all the services that were rendered by the militia of the State during the war.