state, which passed into a law.
Thus was this interesting part of the American constitution finally
settled.

[Footnote 54: The following is the message which he
delivered on this occasion.

_Gentlemen of the house of representatives--_

I have maturely considered the act passed by the two houses,
entitled "an act for the apportionment of representatives
among the several states according to the first
enumeration," and I return it to your house, wherein it
originated, with the following objections.

First. The constitution has prescribed that representatives
shall be apportioned among the several states according to
their respective numbers, and there is no proportion or
divisor which, applied to the respective numbers of the
states, will yield the number and allotment of
representatives proposed by the bill.

Secondly. The constitution has also provided, that the
number of representatives shall not exceed one for thirty
thousand, which restriction is by the context, and by fair
and obvious construction, to be applied to the separate and
respective numbers of the states, and the bill has allotted
to eight of the states more than one for thirty thousand.]

[Sidenote: Militia law.]

During this session of congress, an act passed for establishing a
uniform militia.

The President had manifested, from the commencement of his
administration, a peculiar degree of solicitude on this subject, and
had repeatedly urged it on congress.

In his speech at the opening of the present session, he again called
the attention of the legislature to it; and, at length, a law was
enacted which, though less efficacious than the plan reported by the
secretary of war, will probably, not soon, be carried into complete
execution.

[Sidenote: Defeat of St. Clair.]

In December, intelligence was received by the President, and
immediately communicated to congress, that the American army had been
totally defeated on the fourth of the preceding month.

Although the most prompt and judicious measures had been taken to
raise the troops, and to march them to the frontiers, they could not
be assembled in the neighbourhood of fort Washington until the month
of September, nor was the establishment even then completed.

The immediate objects of the expedition were, to destroy the Indian
villages on the Miamis, to expel the savages from that