From George Washington to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, 3 March 1792
To the United States Senate and House of Representatives
United States [Philadelphia] March 3d 1792.
Gentlemen of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives.
I lay before you a copy of the return of the number of Inhabitants in the District of South Carolina, as made to me by the Marshal thereof; and the copy of a letter which accompanied said return.1
Go: Washington
DS, DNA: RG 46, Second Congress, 1791–1793, Records of Legislative Proceedings, President’s Messages; LB, DLC:GW.
For GW’s personal interest in the results of the U.S. census of 1790, see GW to Gouverneur Morris, 28 July 1791, note 3.
1. For Isaac Huger’s accompanying letter to GW of 5 Feb. 1792 and the S.C. census return that it covered, see GW to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, 1 Nov. 1791, note 1. On 18 April, Lear informed Richard Harrison that GW had received the South Carolina return on 2 Mar. (DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters), one day after the expiration of the extension given to Huger in “An Act granting farther Time for making Return of the Enumeration of the Inhabitants in the District of South Carolina,” which GW had signed into law on 8 Nov. 1791 ( 226). Tobias Lear transmitted the South Carolina return to Thomas Jefferson earlier in the day, noting “The President is desireous of having a copy of the aggregate of each description of persons mentioned in the return from So. Carolina, to be laid before the House of Representativs which meets today” (DLC: Jefferson Papers). Lear also forwarded to Jefferson, on 7 Mar., the census return made by Samuel McDowell, Jr., the federal marshal for Kentucky (DLC:GW).