James Monroe

Special Message

March 08, 1824

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

On the 3d March, 1819, James Miller was first commissioned as governor of the Territory of Arkansas for the term of three years from that date.

Before the expiration of that time, and in the winter of 1821-22, a nomination of him for reappointment was intended, and believed by me to have been made to the Senate, and to have received the confirmation of that body.

By some accident, the cause of which is unknown, it appears that this impression was erroneous, and in December, 1822, it was discovered that Mr. Miller had not then been recommissioned, though in the confidence that he had been he had continued to act in that capacity. He was then renominated to the Senate, with the additional proposal that his commission should take effect from 3d March, 1822, when his first commission had expired.

The nomination was confirmed by the Senate so far as regarded the appointment, but without concurrence in the retrospective effect proposed to be given to the commission.

His second commission, therefore, bears date on the 3d January, 1823 and the interposition of the Legislature becomes necessary to legalize his official acts in the interval between 3d March, 1822, and that time, a subject which I recommend to the consideration of Congress.

JAMES MONROE.

James Monroe, Special Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/207443

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