1To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled.
The undersigned Memorialists represent that one third of the present population and more than half of the organized
Territory of the United States depend upon the navigation of the Mississippi, and the Northern Lakes, and their tributary waters, for the exportation of the products and manufactures
of the vallies of the Missisippi and Lakes.
This navigation reaching into the interior of the Union for the supplies that feed
the general commerce, and replenish the Treasury of the U. States, ought to be viewed
and protected as essential parts of our whole commercial navigatio[n]
The unhealthiness and accidents of this interior navigation, especially of the Missisippi and its tributaries, occasion a greater loss of human life, than is caused by that
portion of our national commerce prosecuted upon the Ocean. The number of Marine
Hospitals actually existing on the Missisippi and its tributaries, and the Northern Lakes, is so small; their endowments and resources so limited, and they are so sparcely scattered, that their existence rather reminds of the necessity of a system based
on more enlarged and liberal principles, than supplies the growing wants of the increasing
commerce of those regions.
They suggest for the consideration of Congress, that the contemplated system of Hospitals in the interior ought to constitute a
separate system of Internal complete within itself, ^&^ unconnected with the general system of U. States Marine Hospitals.
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The regular troops of the U. States and the Militia when called into service, upon
those waters would be equally benefitted and preserved by the Establishment of Hospitals
at proper points along them with the commercial community; and among the incidental
advantages such Hospitals might become the best practical primary schools for learning
the nature and treatments of the diseases of the Western Countries.
The local government^s^ of the States and Territories, being deprived by our Constitution, and laws of the
principal and productive sources of revenue, have not the means of establishing such
Hospitals upon a scale commensurate with the occasion; nor would they, each acting
for its separate part, be likely too agree upon the points most proper for such establishments with a view to the whole.
They therefore, suggest the propriety of appointing a suitable commission to select
the proper points along those Rivers, and Lakes, for the establishment of such Hospitals, and pray Congress to cause a suitable number of them to be erected, upon principles commensurate with
the object, upon such provisions as may seem best adapted to that end.
Therefore
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives ^of the State of Illinois ^ That our Senators in Congress be instructed and and our Representatives requested to use their best exertions to accomplish the objects
of this Memorial.2
Adoption concurred in by the Senate
11th Decr 1834 Leod White Sec Senate
11th Decr 1834 Leod White Sec Senate
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4.
Gregory’s Memorial and Resolution on the subject of Hospitals in the interior of the U.S.
Gregory’s Memorial and Resolution on the subject of Hospitals in the interior of the U.S.
1Charles Gregory introduced this petition in the House of Representatives, and the House adopted it and the joint resolutions attached thereto, on December
10, 1834. The Senate concurred on December 11. On December 19, the House and Senate delivered the petition
and resolutions to Governor Joseph Duncan for his signature.
Illinois House Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 92-93, 101, 128, 138; Illinois Senate Journal. 1835. 9th G. A., 1st sess., 80, 83, 111, 114.
2On January 5, 1835, Democratic Senator John M. Robinson of Illinois presented this memorial and resolution to the U.S. Senate. The legislatures of Indiana and Kentucky also sent petitions to Congress in support
of the same goal. The legislature of Ohio forwarded a recommendation from the Medical
Convention of Ohio to the same effect and requested its favorable consideration.
Prior to the receipt of this petition from Illinois, the 23rd Congress had considered
two bills that provided $4,000 for the construction of a marine hospital in Illinois,
but neither bill was successful. In 1836, Secretary of the Treasury Levi Woodbury reported that the federal government operated only three marine hospitals—in Boston, Norfolk, and Charleston. In 1837, Congress passed legislation authorizing the president to select up to
three sites on the Mississippi River, three sites on the Ohio River, and one site on Lake Erie for marine hospitals.
Senate Journal, 23rd Congress, 5 January 1835, 72; 20 May 1835, 644; “A Bill Making Appropriations
for the Erection of Marine Hospitals in the City of Baltimore, and other Places, H.
R. 487, 23rd Congress (1834); “A Bill Making Appropriations for the Erection of Marine
Hospitals in the City of Baltimore, and other Places,” H. R. 562, 23rd Congress (1834);
R. M. Woodward, “Historical Sketch of the United States Marine-Hospital Service at
Cleveland, Ohio,” Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of
the United States for the Fiscal year 1896 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1896), 291; Act of March 3, 1837, Statutes at Large of the United States, 5:189.
Handwritten Document, 4 page(s), Folder 311, GA Session: 9-1,
Illinois State Archives (Springfield, IL)