No. 250]
Department of State,
Washington,
May 12, 1862.
C. F. Adams,
&c., &c., &c.
[Same to Mr. Dayton.]
A Proclamation.
Whereas, by my proclamation of the nineteenth of April, one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-one, it was declared that the ports of
certain States, including those of Beaufort, in the State of North
Carolina, Port Royal, in the State of South Carolina, and New
Orleans, in the State of Louisiana, were, for reasons therein set
forth, intended to be placed under blockade; and whereas the said
ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans have since been
blockaded; but as the blockade of the same ports may now be safely
relaxed with advantage to the interests of commerce:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth
section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July last,
entitled “An act further to provide for the collection of duties on
imports, and for other purposes,” do hereby declare that the
blockade of the said ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans
shall so far cease and determine, from and after the first day of
June next, that commercial intercourse with those ports, except as
to persons and things and information contraband of war, may, from
that time, be carried on, subject to the laws of the United States,
and to the limitations and in pursuance of the regulations which are
prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury in his order of this
date, which is appended to this proclamation.
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
twelfth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the independence of the
United States the eighty-sixth.[L.
S.]
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President: William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
