TH.  JEFFERSON.

MARCH 22, 1808.

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

In a separate message of this date I have communicated to Congress so much as may be made public of papers which give a full view of the present state of our relations with the two contending powers, France and England.  Everyone must be sensible that in the details of instructions for negotiating a treaty and in the correspondence and conferences respecting it matters will occur which interest sometimes and sometimes respect or other proper motives forbid to be made public.  To reconcile my duty in this particular with my desire of letting Congress know everything which can give them a full understanding of the subjects on which they are to act, I have suppressed in the documents of the other message the parts which ought not to be made public and have given them in the supplementary and confidential papers herewith inclosed, with such references as that they may be read in their original places as if still standing in them; and when these confidential papers shall have been read to the satisfaction of the House, I request their return, and that their contents may not be made public.

TH.  JEFFERSON.

MARCH 25, 1808.

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

In proceeding to carry into execution the act for fortifying our forts and harbors it is found that the sites most advantageous for their defense, and sometimes the only sites competent to that defense, are in some cases the property of minors incapable of giving a valid consent to their alienation; in others belong to persons who may refuse altogether to alienate, or demand a compensation far beyond the liberal justice allowable in such cases.  From these causes the defense of our seaboard, so necessary to be pressed during the present season, will in various parts be defeated unless a remedy can be applied.  With a view to this I submit the case to the consideration of Congress, who, estimating its importance and reviewing the powers vested in them by the Constitution, combined with the amendment providing that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation, will decide on the course most proper to be pursued.

I am aware that as the consent of the legislature of the State to the purchase of the site may not in some instances have been previously obtained, exclusive legislation can not be exercised therein by Congress until that consent is given.  But in the meantime it will be held under the same laws which protect the property of individuals and other property of the United States in the same State, and the legislatures at their next meetings will have opportunities of doing what will be so evidently called for by the particular interest of their own State.