JOHN TYLER.

To the Senate of the United States: 

In my annual message at the commencement of the present session of Congress I informed the two Houses that instructions had been given by the Executive to the United States envoy at Berlin to negotiate a commercial treaty with the States composing the Germanic Customs Union for a reduction of the duties on tobacco and other agricultural productions of the United States, in exchange for concessions on our part in relation to certain articles of export the product of the skill and industry of those countries.  I now transmit a treaty which proposes to carry into effect the views and intentions thus previously expressed and declared, accompanied by two dispatches from Mr. Wheaton, our minister at Berlin.  This is believed to be the first instance in which the attempt has proved successful to obtain a reduction of the heavy and onerous duties to which American tobacco is subject in foreign markets, and, taken in connection with the greatly reduced duties on rice and lard and the free introduction of raw cotton, for which the treaty provides, I can not but anticipate from its ratification important benefits to the great agricultural, commercial, and navigating interests of the United States.  The concessions on our part relate to articles which are believed not to enter injuriously into competition with the manufacturing interest of the United States, while a country of great extent and embracing a population of 28,000,000 human beings will more thoroughly than heretofore be thrown open to the commercial enterprise of our fellow-citizens.

Inasmuch as the provisions of the treaty come to some extent in conflict with existing laws, it is my intention, should it receive your approval and ratification, to communicate a copy of it to the House of Representatives, in order that that House may take such action upon it as it may deem necessary to give efficiency to its provisions.

JOHN TYLER.

APRIL 29, 1844

WASHINGTON, April 29, 1844.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I herewith transmit to the Senate, with reference to my message of the 22d instant, the copy of a recent correspondence[124] between the Department of State and the minister of Her Britannic Majesty in this country.

JOHN TYLER.

[Footnote 124:  With reference to the annexation of Texas.]

WASHINGTON, April 29, 1844.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit to the Senate a report of the Secretary of War, prepared in compliance with the request contained in a resolution of the 10th instant.[125]

JOHN TYLER.

[Footnote 125:  Proceedings under act of March 3, 1843, for the relief of the Stockbridge tribe of Indians in the Territory of Wisconsin.]

WASHINGTON, May 1, 1844.