Part 66

To the Senate and House of Representatives.

GENTLEMEN: Herewith I transmit a report of the Postmaster-General, and recommend the passage of such laws and the making of such appropriations as may be necessary to carry into effect the measures adopted by him for resuming the business of the Department under his charge and securing the public property in the old Post-Office building.

It is understood that the building procured for the temporary use of the Department is far from being fireproof, and that the valuable books and papers saved from the recent conflagration will there be exposed to similar dangers. I therefore feel it my duty to recommend an immediate appropriation for the construction of a fireproof General Post-Office, that the materials may be obtained within the present winter and the buildings erected as rapidly as practicable.

ANDREW JACKSON.

POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT,

December 20, 1836.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR: On the morning of the 15th instant I performed the painful duty of reporting to you orally the destruction of the General Post-Office building by fire, and received your instructions to inquire into the cause and extent of the calamity, for the purpose of enabling you to make a communication to Congress.

A few hours afterwards I received, through the chairman of the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads of the House of Representatives, an official copy of a resolution adopted by that House, instructing the committee to institute a similar inquiry, and the chairman asked for such information as it was in my power to give. The investigation directed by you was thus rendered unnecessary.

The corporation of the city of Washington with honorable promptitude offered the Department the use of the west wing of the City Hall, now occupied by the mayor and councils and their officers and the officers of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. The proprietors of the medical college also tendered the use of their building on E street, and offers were made of several other buildings in the central parts of the city. An examination was made of such as promise by their magnitude to afford sufficient room for the force employed in the Department, but none were found equal in the commodiousness of their interior structure and abundant room to Fuller's Hotel, opposite the buildings occupied by the Treasury Department on Pennsylvania avenue. That building has been obtained on terms which the accompanying papers (marked 1 and 2) will fully exhibit. The business of the Department will be immediately resumed in that building.

The agreement with Mr. Fuller will make necessary an immediate appropriation by Congress, and upon that body will devolve also the duty of providing for the payment of the rent, if they shall approve of the arrangement.

In the meantime steps have been taken to secure all that is valuable in the ruins of the Post-Office building, and to protect from the weather the walls of so much of it as was occupied by the General Post-Office which stand firm.

The Department has no fund at command out of which the services necessary in the accomplishment of these objects can be paid for, nor has it the means to replace the furniture which has been lost and must be immediately obtained to enable the clerks to proceed with their current business.

These facts I deem it my duty to report to you, that you may recommend to Congress such measures thereupon as you may deem expedient.

With the highest respect, your obedient servant,

AMOS KENDALL.

WASHINGTON, December 20, 1836.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration and action of the Senate, treaties concluded with the Ioways and Sacs of Missouri, with the Sioux, with the Sacs and Foxes, and with the Otoes and Missourias and Omahas, by which they have relinquished their rights in the lands lying between the State of Missouri and the Missouri River, ceded in the first article of the treaty with them of July 15, 1830.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, December 20, 1836.

To the Senate of the United States:

I transmit herewith to the Senate, for their consideration in reference to its ratification, a treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Emperor of Morocco, concluded at Meccanez on the 16th of September, 1836, with a report of the Secretary of State and the documents therein mentioned.

ANDREW JACKSON.

WASHINGTON, December 21, 1836.

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

During the last session information was given to Congress by the Executive that measures had been taken to ascertain "the political, military, and civil condition of Texas." I now submit for your consideration extracts from the report of the agent who had been appointed to collect it relative to the condition of that country.

No steps have been taken by the Executive toward the acknowledgment of the independence of Texas, and the whole subject would have been left without further remark on the information now given to Congress were it not that the two Houses at their last session, acting separately, passed resolutions "that the independence of Texas ought to be acknowledged by the United States whenever satisfactory information should be received that it had in successful operation a civil government capable of performing the duties and fulfilling the obligations of an independent power." This mark of interest in the question of the independence of Texas and indication of the views of Congress make it proper that I should somewhat in detail present the considerations that have governed the Executive in continuing to occupy the ground previously taken in the contest between Mexico and Texas.