WASHINGTON, _December, 1836_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
By the second section of the act "to establish the northern boundary
line of the State of Ohio, and to provide for the admission of the State
of Michigan into the Union upon the conditions therein expressed,"
approved June 15, 1836, the constitution and State government which the
people of Michigan had formed for themselves was ratified and confirmed
and the State of Michigan declared to be one of the United States of
America, and admitted into the Union upon an equal footing with the
original States, but on the express condition that the said State should
consist of and have jurisdiction over all the territory included within
certain boundaries described in the act, and over none other. It was
further enacted by the third section of the same law that, as a
compliance with the fundamental condition of admission, the boundaries
of the State of Michigan, as thus described, declared, and established,
should "receive the assent of a convention of delegates elected by the
people of said State for the sole purpose of giving the assent" therein
required; that as soon as such assent should be given the President of
the United States should announce the same by proclamation, and that
thereupon, and without any further proceeding on the part of Congress,
the admission of the State into the Union as one of the United States
of America should be considered as complete, and the Senators and
Representatives in the Congress of the United States entitled to
take their seats without further delay.
In the month of November last I received a communication inclosing
the official proceedings of a convention assembled at Ann Arbor, in
Michigan, on the 26th of September, 1836, all which (marked A) are
herewith laid before you. It will be seen by these papers that the
convention therein referred to was elected by the people of Michigan
pursuant to an act of the State legislature passed on the 25th of July
last in consequence of the above-mentioned act of Congress, and that it
declined giving its assent to the fundamental condition prescribed by
Congress, and rejected the same.
On the 24th instant the accompanying paper (marked B), with its
inclosure, containing the proceedings of a convention of delegates
subsequently elected and held in the State of Michigan, was presented
to me. By these papers, which are also herewith submitted for your
consideration, it appears that elections were held in all the counties
of the State, except two, on the 5th and 6th days of December instant,
for the purpose of electing a convention of delegates to give the
assent required by Congress; that the delegates then elected assembled
in convention on the 14th day of December instant, and that on the
following day the assent of the body to the fundamental condition
above stated was formally given.
This latter convention was not held or elected by virtue of any act of
the Territorial or State legislature; it originated from the people
themselves, and was chosen by them in pursuance of resolutions adopted
in primary assemblies held in the respective counties. The act of
Congress, however, does not prescribe by what authority the convention
shall be ordered, or the time when or the manner in which it shall be
chosen. Had these latter proceedings come to me during the recess of
Congress, I should therefore have felt it my duty, on being satisfied
that they emanated from a convention of delegates elected in point
of fact by the people of the State for the purpose required, to have
issued my proclamation thereon as provided by law; but as the authority
conferred on the President was evidently given to him under the
expectation that the assent of the convention might be laid before him
during the recess of Congress and to avoid the delay of a postponement
until the meeting of that body, and as the circumstances which now
attend the case are in other respects peculiar and such as could not
have been foreseen when the act of June 15, 1836, was passed, I deem
it most agreeable to the intent of that law, and proper for other
reasons, that the whole subject should be submitted to the decision of
Congress. The importance of your early action upon it is too obvious
to need remark.