Special Message

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

I invite the attention of Congress to the peculiar situation of this District in regard to the exposure of its inhabitants to contagious diseases from abroad, against which it is thought that adequate provision should now be made. The exposure being common to the whole District, the regulation should apply to the whole, to make which Congress alone possesses the adequate power. That the regulation should be made by Congress is the more necessary from the consideration that this being the seat of the Government, its protection against such diseases must form one of its principal objects.

JAMES MONROE.