WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1836_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith to Congress copies of my correspondence with Mrs.
Madison, produced by the resolution adopted at the last session by the
Senate and House of Representatives on the decease of her venerated
husband. The occasion seems to be appropriate to present a letter from
her on the subject of the publication of a work of great political
interest and ability, carefully prepared by Mr. Madison's own hand,
under circumstances that give it claims to be considered as little
less than official.
Congress has already, at considerable expense, published in a
variety of forms the naked journals of the Revolutionary Congress
and of the Convention that formed the Constitution of the United
States. I am persuaded that the work of Mr. Madison, considering the
author, the subject-matter of it, and the circumstances under which
it was prepared--long withheld from the public, as it has been,
by those motives of personal kindness and delicacy that gave tone
to his intercourse with his fellow-men, until he and all who had
been participators with him in the scenes he describes have passed
away--well deserves to become the property of the nation, and can not
fail, if published and disseminated at the public charge, to confer
the most important of all benefits on the present and all succeeding
generations--accurate knowledge of the principles of their Government
and the circumstances under which they were recommended and embodied
in the Constitution for adoption.