I have heretofore indicated to our representatives abroad the approach of
a change in the organization of society in the insurrectionary States.
That change continues to reveal itself more distinctly every day. In the
judgment of the President the time has come for setting forth the great
fact distinctly for the serious consideration of the people in those
States, and for giving them to understand that if they will persist in
forcing upon the country a choice between the dissolution of this
necessary and beneficent government or a relinquishment of the
protection of slavery, it is the Union, and not slavery, that must be
maintained and preserved. With this view the President has issued a
proclamation in which he gives notice that slavery will be no longer
recognized in any State which shall be found in armed rebellion on the
first of January next. While good and wise men of all nations will
confess that this is just and proper as a military proceeding for the
relief of the country from a desolating and exhausting civil war, they
will at the same time acknowledge the moderation and magnanimity with
which the government proceeds in a transaction of such great solemnity
and importance.
By the President of the United States of
America.
A PROCLAMATION.
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and
commander-in-chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim
and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be
prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the
constitutional relation between the United States and each of the
States and the people thereof, in which States that relation is or
may be suspended or disturbed.
That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again
recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary
aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so
called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the
United States, and which States may then have voluntarily adopted,
or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual
abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the
effort to colonize persons of African descent with their consent
upon this continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained
consent of the governments existing there, will be continued.
That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves
within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof
shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then,
thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the
United States, including the military and naval authority thereof,
will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do
no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any
efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by
proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in
which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion
against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the
people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in
the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at
elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State
shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong
countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such
State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the
United States.
That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled “An
act to make an additional article of war,” approved March 13, 1862,
and which act is in the words and figure following:
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That hereafter the following shall be
promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of
the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as
such:
“Article —. All officers or persons in the
military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from
employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the
purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor who may have
escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to
be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial
of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.
“Sec. 2. And be it
further enacted. That this act shall take effect from and
after its passage.”
Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled “An act to
suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and
confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes,” approved
July 17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures
following:
[Page 197]
“Sec. 9. And be it
further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall
hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the
United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto,
escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the
army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them,
and coming under the control of the government of the United States;
and all slaves of such persons found on [or]
being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards
occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed
captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and
not again held as slaves.
“Sec. 10. And be it
further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State,
Territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other State, shall
be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty,
except for crime, or some offence against the laws, unless the
person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person
to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due
is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United
States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and
comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval
service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever,
assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the
service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such
person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the
service.”
And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the
military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey,
and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and
sections above recited.
And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the
United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the
rebellion shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation
between the United States and their respective States and people, if
that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated
for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of
slaves.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto
set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed. Done at the city of Washington
this
twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the
Independence of the United States the
eighty-seventh.[l.s.]
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President: William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.