1. JM referred to the 6 May 1812 “Act to provide for designating, surveying and granting the Military Bounty Lands” (U.S. Statutes at Large, description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America … (17 vols.; Boston, 1848–73). description ends 2:728–30).

2. Subsequent to JM’s message, the Senate received documents forwarded by Secretary of War William Harris Crawford to James Barbour on 16 Feb. 1816. These included copies of letters sent to Josiah Meigs of the General Land Office by Surveyor General Edward Tiffin, dated 30 Nov. and 11 Dec. 1815, respectively, to the effect that the bounty lands in Michigan Territory consisted of “low wet land … intermixed with very bad marshes” as well as “poor barren sandy land” and that the country as a whole did not contain “more than one acre out of a hundred, if there would be one out of a thousand, that would in any case admit of cultivation.” Meigs, on 26 Jan. 1816, recommended alternative locations in response to a 22 Jan. 1816 request from Crawford that he do so (see ASP description begins American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States … (38 vols.; Washington, 1832–61). description ends , Public Lands, 3:143–45). On 29 Apr. 1816 Congress passed, and JM approved, “An Act to authorize the survey of two millions of acres of the public lands, in lieu of that quantity heretofor[e] authorized to be surveyed, in the territory of Michigan, as military bounty lands.” This act repealed the 6 May 1812 statute (see n. 1 above) and designated lands in the Illinois and Missouri territories to be surveyed as bounty lands, divided into townships, and provided for the establishment of public schools (U.S. Statutes at Large, description begins The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America … (17 vols.; Boston, 1848–73). description ends 3:332).