Special Message

To the Senate of the United States.

GENTLEMEN: I submit to the Senate, in compliance with the request in their resolution of the 12th instant, all the communications found in the Department of State touching the character, conduct, and qualifications of John Hamm, which appear or are supposed to have been made while the said Hamm was an applicant for reappointment to the office of marshal of the district of Ohio, in the year 1822.

As that individual has been recently nominated to the Senate to be charge' d'affaires of the United States to the Government of Central America, I take advantage of the occasion to request the Senate to postpone a final decision on his nomination, upon the following grounds: That information, though not official, has just been received at the Department of State of a change having been lately effected in the Government of Central America, which, if confirmed, may make a correspondent change in the appointment necessary, or perhaps render it altogether unnecessary that this Government, under present circumstances, should send a diplomatic agent to that country at all.

ANDREW JACKSON