JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, February 17, 1825.

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

I herewith transmit to the House a report from the Secretary of State, with copies of the correspondence with the Government of France, requested by the resolution of the House of the 25th of January last.

JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, February 17, 1825.

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

I invite the attention of Congress to the peculiar situation of this District in regard to the exposure of its inhabitants to contagious diseases from abroad, against which it is thought that adequate provision should now be made.  The exposure being common to the whole District, the regulation should apply to the whole, to make which Congress alone possesses the adequate power.  That the regulation should be made by Congress is the more necessary from the consideration that this being the seat of the Government, its protection against such diseases must form one of its principal objects.

JAMES MONROE.

WASHINGTON, February 21, 1825.

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

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with a report to him from the Third Auditor, of the settlement in the amount stated of the claims of the State of Massachusetts for services rendered by the militia of that State in the late war, the payment of which has hitherto been prevented by causes which are well known to Congress.  Having communicated my sentiments on this subject fully in a message bearing date on the 23d of February, 1824, it is unnecessary to repeat in detail here what I there advanced.  By recurring to that message and to the documents referred to in it it will be seen that the conduct of the executive of that State in refusing to place the militia thereof at that difficult conjuncture under the direction of the Executive of the United States, as it was bound to do by a fair construction of the Constitution, and as the other States did, is the great cause to which the difficulty adverted to is to be ascribed.  It will also be seen on a view of those documents that the executive of the State was warned at the time if it persevered in the refusal that the consequences which have followed would be inevitable; that the attitude assumed by the State formed a case which was not contemplated by the existing laws of the United States relating to militia services; that the payment of the claims of the State for such services could be provided for by Congress only and by a special law for the purpose.  Having made this communication while acting in the Department of War to the governor of Massachusetts, with the sanction and under the direction of my enlightened and virtuous predecessor, it would be improper in any view which may be taken of the subject for me to change