JOHN TYLER.

WASHINGTON, January 9, 1843.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I have received a resolution of the Senate of the 27th of December, in the following terms: 

Resolved, That the President be requested to inform the Senate, if compatible with the public interest, whether the quintuple treaty for the suppression of the slave trade has been communicated to the Government of the United States in any form whatever, and, if so, by whom, for what purpose, and what answer may have been returned to such communication.  Also to communicate to the Senate all the information which may have been received by the Government of the United States going to show that the “course which this Government might take in relation to said treaty has excited no small degree of attention and discussion in Europe.”  Also to inform the Senate how far the “warm animadversions” and the “great political excitement" which this treaty has caused in Europe have any application or reference to the United States.  Also to inform the Senate what danger there was that “the laws and the obligations” of the United States in relation to the suppression of the slave trade would be “executed by others,” if we did not “remove the pretext and motive for violating our flag and executing our laws” by entering into the stipulations for the African squadron and the remonstrating embassies which are contained in the eighth and ninth articles of the late British treaty.  Also that the President be requested to communicate to the Senate all the correspondence with our ministers abroad relating to the foregoing points of inquiry.  Also that the President be requested to communicate to the Senate all such information upon the negotiation of the African squadron articles as will show the origin of such articles and the history and progress of their formation.

I informed the Senate, in the message transmitting the treaty with England of the 9th of August last, that no application or request had been made to this Government to become a party to the quintuple treaty.  Agents of the Government abroad, regarding the signature of that treaty as a political occurrence of some importance, obtained, unofficially, copies of it, and transmitted those copies to the Department of State, as other intelligence is communicated for the information of the Government.  The treaty has not been communicated to the Government of the United States from any other quarter, in any other manner, or for any other purpose.

The next request expressed in the resolution is in these words: