US Presidency
1805

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: At a moment when the nations of Europe are in commotion and arming against each other, and when those with whom we have principle intercourse are engaged in the general contest, and when the countenance of some of them toward our peaceable country threatens that even that may not be affected by what is passing on the general theater, a meeting of the representatives of the nation in both Houses of Congress has become more than usually desirable. Coming from every section of our country, they bring with them the sentiments and the information of the whole, And will be enabled to give direction to the public affairs which the will and the wisdom of the whole will approve and support. In taking a view of the state of our country we in the first place notice the late affliction of two of our cities under the fatal fever which in latter times has occasionally visited our shores.