ensible that in the details of
instructions for negotiating a treaty and in the correspondence and
conferences respecting it matters will occur which interest sometimes
and sometimes respect or other proper motives forbid to be made public.
To reconcile my duty in this particular with my desire of letting
Congress know everything which can give them a full understanding of the
subjects on which they are to act, I have suppressed in the documents
of the other message the parts which ought not to be made public and
have given them in the supplementary and confidential papers herewith
inclosed, with such references as that they may be read in their
original places as if still standing in them; and when these
confidential papers shall have been read to the satisfaction of the
House, I request their return, and that their contents may not be made
public.

TH. JEFFERSON.

MARCH 25, 1808.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

In proceeding to carry into execution the act for fortifying our forts
and harbors it is found that the sites most advantageous for their
defense, and sometimes the only sites competent to that defense, are in
some cases the property of minors incapable of giving a valid consent to
their alienation; in others belong to persons who may refuse altogether
to alienate, or demand a compensation far beyond the liberal justice
allowable in such cases. From these causes the defense of our seaboard,
so necessary to be pressed during the present season, will in various
parts be defeated unless a remedy can be applied. With a view to this
I submit the case to the consideration of Congress, who, estimating its
importance and reviewing the powers vested in them by the Constitution,
combined with the amendment providing that private property shall not
be taken for public use without just compensation, will decide on the
course most proper to be pursued.

I am aware that as the consent of the legislature of the State to the
purchase of the site may not in some instances have been previously
obtained, exclusive legislation can not be exercised therein by Congress
until that consent is given. But in the meantime it will be held under
the same laws which protect the property of individuals and other
property of the United States in the same State, and the legislatures
at their next meetings will have opportunities of doing what will be
so evidently called for by the particular inter