I invite your attention to two publications, which appeared in the New York Evening Post of the 28th of July, and were republished in the National Intelligencer of the 1st of August last, the one bearing the signature of Benjamin Tappan and the other that of Francis P. Blair . A short time Before1 I entered upon my duties of President of the United States, I addressed a letter to you, and invited you to accept a place in my cabinet. You signified your willingness to accept the position tendered to you, and arrived in Washington on the 5th of March 1845, (the day after my Inauguration) and on that day I nominated you to the Senate, as Secretary of War, and your nomination was confirmed by that body. I was from that period upon terms of confidential and unreserved intercourse with you. No opinions which I entertained upon any public subject, upon which we may have conversed were with-held from you. The subject of the annexation of Texas to the United States, in pursuance of a Joint Resolution which had been passed by Congress, at the preceeding session, was one of the first which was considered by me, in my Cabinet. As it may become proper that I should at some future period, take some notice of the publications of Mr Tappan and Mr Blair , I request that you will furnish me, with a statement of all you may know, of any opinions views or acts of mine, relating to the subject of the annexation of Texas to the United States. I desire that you will state any conversations which I may, at any time have held with you, and any opinions I may have expressed to you, either individually or in Cabinet on the subject of the Annexation of Texas; and also all that you may know, if any thing, in relation to the matters set-forth by Messrs Tappan and Blair in their publications. I desire that nothing I have ever said or done on the subject should be concealed from the public. The Annexation of Texas was a measure of the highest national importance, conceived and consummated with pure and patriotic motives, and it may become proper, and especially after the publications referred to, that the opinions, views and action, of all the public functionaries, interested at any stage of its progress, with its management should be fully known.

With this object in view I address you this letter.