with the coordinate body itself, but with a committee of that body; and although both branches of the Legislature may be too numerous to hold conveniently a conference with committees, were they to be appointed by either to confer with the entire body of the other, it may be fairly presumed that if the whole number of either branch were not too large for the purpose the objection to such a conference, being against the principle as derogating from the coordinate relations of the two Houses, would retain all its force.

I add only that I am entirely persuaded of the purity of the intentions of the Senate in the course they have pursued on this occasion, and with which my view of the subject makes it my duty not to accord, and that they will be cheerfully furnished with all the suitable information in possession of the Executive in any mode deemed consistent with the principles of the Constitution and the settled practice under it.

JAMES MADISON.

WASHINGTON, July 20, 1813.

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

There being sufficient ground to infer that it is the purpose of the enemy to combine with the blockade of our ports special licenses to neutral vessels or to British vessels in neutral disguises, whereby they may draw from our country the precise kind and quantity of exports essential to their wants, whilst its general commerce remains obstructed, keeping in view also the insidious discrimination between the different ports of the United States; and as such a system, if not counteracted, will have the effect of diminishing very materially the pressure of the war on the enemy, and encouraging a perseverance in it, at the same time that it will leave the general commerce of the United States under all the pressure the enemy can impose, thus subjecting the whole to British regulation in subserviency to British monopoly, I recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency of an immediate and effectual prohibition of exports limited to a convenient day in their next session, and removable in the meantime in the event of a cessation of the blockade of our ports.

JAMES MADISON.

PROCLAMATION.

[From Niles’s Weekly Register, vol. 4, p. 345.]

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by a joint resolution of the two Houses, have signified a request that a day may be recommended to be observed by the people of the United States with religious solemnity as a day of public humiliation and prayer; and

Whereas in times of public calamity such as that of the war brought on the United States by the injustice of a foreign government it is especially becoming that the hearts of all should be touched with the same and the eyes of all be turned to that Almighty Power in whose hand are the welfare and the destiny of nations: