From George Washington to the United States Senate and House of Representatives, 28 January 1790
To the United States Senate and House of Representatives
United States [New York] January 28th, 1790
Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives.
I have directed my Secretary to lay before you1 the copy of an Act of the Legislature of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, entitled “An Act for calling a Convention to take into consideration the Constitution proposed for the United States, passed on the 17th day of September A.D. 1787, by the General Convention held at Philadelphia,”—together with the copy of a letter accompanying said Act, from His Excellency John Collins Governor of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations to the President of the United States.2
The originals of the foregoing act and letter will be deposited in the Office of the Secretary of State.3
Go: Washington
LS, DNA: RG 46, First Congress, Records of Legislative Proceedings, President’s Messages; LB, DLC:GW; copy, DNA: RG 233, First Congress, Records of Legislative Proceedings, Journals.
1. On 28 Jan. the Senate ordered that GW’s message and its accompanying papers lie for consideration. The House referred the documents on the same day to congressmen Egbert Benson, Jonathan Grout, and Isaac Coles “with instruction that they do prepare and bring in a bill or bills for granting the suspension applied for by the Governor of the state of Rhode-Island and Providence plantations, in behalf of the said State” ( 1:230, 3:278; see also Jabez Bowen to GW, 17 Jan. 1790, n.3).
2. See Collins to GW, 18 Jan. 1790 and notes.
3. Lear transmitted Collins’s letter and the Rhode Island act calling for a ratification convention to Roger Alden for deposit in the office of the secretary of state (Lear to Alden, 28 Jan. 1790, DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters).