APPENDIX. PROCLAMATION S. PROCLAMATIONSF No- 1. Respecting a Survey of and defining the Limits of the District of Columbia. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Jen. 24, 1791. A PROCLAMATION. WHEREAS the General Assembly of the State of Maryland, by an act passed pmambns M ou the twenty-third day of December, in the year one thousand seven hundred to cession by and eighty-eight, intituled “An act to cede to Congress a District of ten miles M“"Y1““d· square in this State, for the seat of the government of the United States," did enact, that the Representatives of the said State, in the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, appointed to assemble at New York, on the first Wednesday of March then next ensuing, should be and they were thereby authorized and required on the behalf of the said State, to cede to the Congress of the United States, any District in the said State, not exceeding ten miles square, which the Congress might fix upon and accept for the seat of Government of the United States. And the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, by an act Pmmb,8 ,,,,,0 passed on the third day of December, one thousand seven hundred and eirrhty- ces,,;,,,, by vg;. nine, and intituled "An act for the cession of ten miles square, or any lb er ginia. quantity of territory within this State, to the United States in Congress assembled, for the permanent seat of the General Government," did enact that a tract of country not exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser uantity to be located within the limits of the said State, and in any part thereé as Congress might by law direct, should be and the same was thereby forever ceded and relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil as of persons re °ding or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and effect of the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution of Government of the United States. And the Congress of the United States, by their act passed the sixteenth day Ac, of 1.,9,, of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety, and intituled “An act for cy,_2g_ establishing the temporary and permanent seat of the Government of the United States," authorized the President of the United States to aptpoint three V I i 130 commissioners to survey under his direction, and by proper metes an bounds to °' p' ' limit a district of territory, not exceedinv ten miles square, on the River Potomac, at some place between the moullis of the Eastern Branch and Connogochcque, which District, so to be located and limited, was accgted by the said act of Congress, as the District for the permanent seat of the overnment of the United States. Now, therefore, in pursuance of the powers to me conlided, and after duly Foqr lines of examining and weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the several °XP°¤m°¤*‘° l’° situations within the limits aforesaid, I do hereby declare an make known, that '““‘
* The original plan of the Statutes at Large did not contemplate the publication of Proclamations. See Joint Resolution of March 3, 1845, 5 Stats. at Large, p. 198. But many have been printed in the different volumes in an Appendix; and since some Proclamations have the force of law, and all of them are of historical interest, it has been thought best to print in a chronological order, in this Appendix, all those not already published.
