_To the House of Representatives_:

On the 9th day of December, 1876, the following resolution of the House
of Representatives was received, namely:

_Resolved_, That the President be requested, if not incompatible with
the public interest, to transmit to this House copies of any and all
orders or directions emanating from him or from either of the Executive
Departments of the Government to any military commander or civil officer
with reference to the service of the Army, or any portion thereof, in
the States of Virginia, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida since the
1st of August last, together with reports by telegraph or otherwise from
either or any of said military commanders or civil officers.

It was immediately or soon thereafter referred to the Secretary of War
and the Attorney-General, the custodians of all retained copies of
"orders or directions" given by the Executive Departments of the
Government covered by the above inquiry, together with all information
upon which such "orders or directions" were given.

The information, it will be observed, is voluminous, and, with the
limited clerical force in the Department of Justice, has consumed the
time up to the present. Many of the communications accompanying this
have been already made public in connection with messages heretofore
sent to Congress. This class of information includes the important
documents received from the governor of South Carolina and sent to
Congress with my message on the subject of the Hamburg massacre; also
the documents accompanying my response to the resolution of the House
of Representatives in regard to the soldiers stationed at Petersburg.

There have also come to me and to the Department of Justice, from time
to time, other earnest written communications from persons holding
public trusts and from others residing in the South, some of which I
append hereto as bearing upon the precarious condition of the public
peace in those States. These communications I have reason to regard as
made by respectable and responsible men. Many of them deprecate the
publication of their names as involving danger to them personally.

The reports heretofore made by committees of Congress of the results of
their inquiries in Mississippi and Louisiana, and the newspapers of
several States recommending "the Mississippi plan," have also furnished
important data for estimating the danger to the public peace and order
in those States