before the war, members of the great American Union, and the people thereof are citizens-all subject to the Constitution and laws of the United States.

4. That the inaugural address and message of Gov. Bramlette (see ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA, 1863) to the present General Assembly, so far as the same treat of our Federal relations, reflect truly the sentiments of the Union people of Kentucky, are approved by the present General Assembly, and are recommended to the patriotic consideration of the American people.

On Feb. 24th Congress passed an act directing that all able-bodied male colored persons between twenty and forty-five, resident in the United States, should be enrolled and form a part of the national forces. When a slave of a loyal master should be drafted, his master should have a certificate and the bounty of one hundred dollars, and the slave should be free. Under this act of Congress the enrolment was commenced in the State, and the Governor, on March 16th, issued the following proclamation: FRANKFORT, March 15th, 1864.

To the People of Kentucky: FELLOW-CITIZENS: In view of the disturbance of the popular mind, produced by the enrolment of slaves for the army in Kentucky, it is deemed prudent to make the following suggestions for the benefit and guidance of the loyal people of Kentucky: Your indignation should not move you to commit acts of violence, nor to unlawful resistance. Standing as we have stood, and will ever stand, "for the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws," we must repel the efforts of rebellion to overthrow our Government, by our gallant soldiers in the field, and meet and correct unjust or unconstitutional legis. lation by legitimate appeals to the constituted tribunals of the Government; and through the ballotbox displace, in the constituted modes, those who pervert or abuse the trusts committed to them. This is the only true mode of maintaining "the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the laws."

The mere act of enrolling the names of slaves does not affect any right of the citizen. No draft has been ordered, nor do we know that a draft will be ordered. It may or it may not. We should abide by and maintain the law, and pursue in the modes provided the remedy it affords. If any violence or wrong to the person or property of the citizen be committed by any officer or soldier, against the known laws of the land, make your "accusation" in the mode prescribed by law; and, if the commanding officer refuses or neglects to use his utmost endeavors to arrest the officer or soldier under his command so accused, and hand him or them over to the civil magistrate for trial, when officially advised of the facts, the Executive of the State will prefer charges and demand a court-martial. In the Union, under the Constitution, and in accordance with law, assert and urge your rights. It is our duty to obey the law until it is declared, by judicial decision, to be unconstitutional. The citizen, whose property may be taken under it for public use, will be entitled, under the imperative mandate of the Constitution, to a just compensation for his private property so taken for public use. though the present Congress may not do us justice, yet it is safe to rely upon the justice of the American people; and an appeal to them will not be unheeded or unanswered. Peace restored, and the unity of our Government preserved, will drive to ignominious disgrace those who, in the agony of our conflict, perverted their sacred trusts to the base uses of partisan ends and fanatical purposes. Uphold and maintain your Government as constituted, and obey and enforce its just demands as the only hope of perpetuating free institutions.

THOMAS E. BRAMLETTE.

Al

At the same time the Union State Central Committee issued a call for a State Convention, to meet at Louisville on May 25th, to nominate an electoral ticket, and appoint delegates to the Chicago Convention.

On the 22d of March the Governor proceeded to Washington. The object of his mission he thus states, in a letter dated April 22d, addressed to Col. Hodges:

The object of my mission to Washington was to have the quota of militia called into service from Ken tucky assigned upon the basis of enrolment, and not of population; and to obtain relief to the citizens of Kentucky against the unauthorized and offensive interference of officers, soldiers, and recruiting brokers, with the slaves in Kentucky; and to have the enlistment and draft of slaves confined within the purview of the act of Congress for enrolment and draft, &c.

He was quite successful in the objects of his visit, and further says:

It is a source of gratification to me to add, that the President and Secretary of War manifested the most cordial readiness to bestow upon the people of Kentucky every favor which, under the existing laws, could reasonably be demanded; and expressed the most earnest sympathy for them, and a desire to avert, so far as may be, the recurrence of those ca lamities to which, as a Border State, they have been subjected.

In the interviews between the authorities at Washington and the Governor, it was agreed that, when any county filled its quota, in any Way, no further recruiting of negroes should be permitted in such county, except in such cases as where the master and slave both concurred in the application for enlistment. When the draft was necessary to fill the quota, all subject to draft had to take their chances of such involuntary service. It was agreed that all recruiting should be strictly limited to the regularly appointed officers for that service; and that those engaged without authority, or in the offensive and unlawful modes of sending out bodies of troops to gather up negroes by force and otherwise, and put them in camps, should be arrested and summarily punished. It was further agreed, that all negroes recruited by enlistment or draft should be removed to camps outside of the State, for organization and instruction. This was to prevent the entire demoralization and destruction of what might be left of that class of labor. Maj.-Gen. Burbridge, then in command in Kentucky, was selected, and charged with carrying out these points.

While at Washington, Gov. Bramlette, Senator Dixon, and Mr. A. G. Hodges, had an interview with President Lincoln, at the close of which the President remarked "that he was apprehensive that Kentuckians felt unkindly toward him in consequence of not properly understanding the difficulties by which he was surrounded," &c. It was subsequently suggested to the President, by Mr. Hodges, to write out his remarks at this interview for publication, as likely to reed to be created against him in Kentucky. The move much of the prejudice which was attemptfollowing is his letter:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 4. A. G. Hodges, Esq., Frankfort, Ky.

MY DEAR SIR: You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said, the other day, in your presence to Gov. Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judg ment and feeling. It was in the oath I took, that I would to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration, this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery, I had publicly declared this many times and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery.

I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that Government-that Nation, of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the Nation, and yet preserve the Constitution?

By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I feel that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might be come lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that to the best of my ability I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of Government, country, and Constitution, all together. When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emanci pation, I forbade it because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come.

When, in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming the blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition, and I was in my best judgment driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and with it the Constitution, or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss; but of this I was not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations; none in our home popular sentiment; none in our white military force; no loss by it anyhow, anywhere. On the contrary, it shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no cavilling. We have the men, and we could not have had them without the measure.

And now, let any Union man who complains of the measure, test himself, by writing down in one line, that he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms, and in the next that he is for taking these hundred and thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing them where they would be, but for the measure he condemns. If he cannot face his cause so stated, it is only because he cannot face the truth.

I add a word, which was not in the verbal conversation. In telling this tale, I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled VOL. IV.-29 A

events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition, is not what either party or any man devised or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North, as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God. Yours truly, A. LINCOLN.

The Governor stated in his message to the Legislature, in January, 1865, relative to the agreements made with the authorities at Washington, and which Gen. Burbridge was appointed to carry out, as follows:

It was not contemplated by me that this was to save slavery in Kentucky, nor did any such idea occur to the President. It was not sought thereby either to perpetuate slavery or to exterminate it, of a loyal people, by securing them exemption from but solely with the view of protecting the interests unlawful and offensive courses; from insults and unnecessary injuries; the State from the loss of its proper credits, and the country from the unnecessary destruction of a large amount of productive labor.

Having uniformly held and continuously anrebellion, that secession was the worst form of abolinounced the conviction, from the commencement of tion, that it would abolish slavery in blood, it never entered my mind that any thing I might do to relieve my people from suffering on account of it, could working its destruction. The object of this arrangeeither prevent or stay the hand of rebellion from ment was to benefit and protect the loyal white man, and prevent him being subjected to wanton and uncalled-for injury and unprovoked insult and outrage, by lawless acts, on account of the negro.

ferent state of feeling would have existed in KenHad these agreements been carried out, a very dif offensive and injurious modes were adopted to viotucky. But, instead of carrying them out, the most late them, by him who was selected and charged with their fulfilment.

The Governor then proceeds in the same message to lay before the Legislature his views as to the manner in which military affairs were conducted in the State:

In Western Kentucky, Brigadier-General E. A. Paine, confederated with other officers and some citizens, ran a career of shameful criminality. Though brief it was terrible. Hearing that wrongs were being perpetrated in that section, but that the citizens were afraid to speak out and make them known, I sent Lieut.-Col. J. J. Craddock, of the "Capital Guards," to Paducah, to inquire into and report to me the facts. Upon getting his report, I preferred charges against Gen. Paine and others to the President of the United States. By order of Lieut.-Gen. Grant, Gen. Paine was promptly relieved by Gen. Meredith, whose soldierly bearing and just administration have given peace and confidence in that section.

A commission, composed of Brigadier-Gen. S. S. Fry and Col. John M. Brown, 45th Kentucky mounted infantry, was appointed to investigate the conduct of Gen. Paine, etc. I send with this communication a copy of their report, with my letter to the President, and also letter of the 3d of September, touching other subjects.

The commandant of the District of Kentucky established a system of trade permits in violation of law and to the detriment of the public interests.

The Secretary of the Treasury, under the law, had fixed regulations; the military, without law, and in violation of law, assumed to organize Boards of Trade, who, for certain fees, were to pass upon and

determine who should buy and sell, not only in the ordinary course of trade, but for family supplies. As administered in Kentucky, it was a most shame. ful and corrupt system of partisan political corruption and oppression. This machinery of fraud and corrupt oppression is still retained, and the facts showing its corrupt use, should be collected and presented, by the authority of the Legislature of Kentucky, to the national authorities, in such form as to secure the abolishment and future prohibition of all such interferences with the lawful and necessary trade of the country.

An attempt was also made, under cover of these military trade regulations, through the Commissary Department, to perpetuate a most extensive swindle upon the farmers of Kentucky in the purchase of their hog crop. Under the trade orders none could ship or drive to market without a permit; and all were prohibited from shipping across the Ohio River, thus closing the Cincinnati and other markets to our farmers. The buyers and packers of Louisville and elsewhere were warned off under threats of arrest and confiscation, etc. Agents, who were assigned to this wholesale swindle, went actively to work, notifying the farmers that the Government had determined to take their hogs, and had fixed the price which they must take-a price greatly below the market value. To have a stop put to this swindle, which was being carried on through the Commissary Department, under the patronage of the commandant of the District of Kentucky, I sent a communication to the President, borne by reliable messengers, to explain the details of the matters of my letter.

The hog swindle was promptly ended, but not until the farmers had sustained losses to at least $300,000, yet in time to save them the loss of over one million dollars. I suggest that it is due to the honest farmers of the State that you collate, or provide for so doing, the facts bearing upon this attempted and partially-executed fraud, and present them also in connection with the "military trade regulations."

The gravest matter of military outrage has been, and yet is, the arrest, imprisonment, and banishment of loyal citizens without a hearing, and without even a knowledge of the charges against them. There have been a number of this class of arrests, merely for partisan political vengeance, and to force them to pay heavy sums to purchase their liberation. How the spoils, so infamously extorted, are divided, has not transpired to the public information. For partisan political ends Gen. John B. Huston was arrested at midnight, preceding the election, and hurried off under circumstances of shameful aggravation. He was, however, released in a few days; but that does not atone for the criminality of his malicious arrest and false imprisonment. The battle-scarred veteran, Col. Frank Wolford, whose name and loyal fame is part of his country's jewelled memories, and whose arrest, for political vengeance, should put a nation's cheek to the blush, is yet held in durance vile, without a hearing and without an accusation, so far as he or his friends can ascertain.

Lieut.-Governor Jacobs, whose yet unclosed wounds, received in battle for his country, was victimized to partisan and personal vengeance, and hurried, without a hearing and without any known accusation, through the rebel lines into Virginia. The indecent and guilty haste with which he was hurried off, and through the lines stamps the personal malignity of the deed with the infamy of conscious criminality. Other cases might be mentioned, but these are selected because they are known to the whole country; their acts are part of the glorious history of loyal heroism, and their accusers shrink from the light of investigation, but cannot escape the scourging judg. ment of an outraged people.

The military authorities are as much bound to observe the laws as the civil. Though the law governing the action of the military may and does often and materially differ from that which controls the action

of the civil, yet the law applicable to each is alike binding on each. Although the facts which constitute reasonable and probable cause for the arrest and imprisonment of a citizen by the military are dif ferent from and far more extensive than civil arrests, yet the rules of law are the same in the application of the facts.

By the act of Congress, approved March 3, 1863, entitled "An act relating to habeas corpus and regu lating judicial proceedings in certain cases," the mode of proceeding, when non-combatants and others have been arrested, is fixed. This law, which was intended to limit the action of military commandants in the various localities and give some assurance of ultimate justice to the the citizen, has been wholly and utterly set at defiance by Brevet Maj.-General S. G. Burbridge in the instances of Colonel Wolford and Lieut.-Gov. Jacobs and others. Nay, further, the action in the case of Lieut.-Gov. Jacobs is in defiance of Federal and State Constitutions and laws; in defiance of the laws of humanity and liberty; dis honors the cause of our country, and degrades the military rank to the infamous uses of partisan and personal vengeance.

The contributions of the State to the army of the United States to Dec. 31st, 1864, were as follows: Three-years men, 39,645; one-year men, 18,085; nine-months men, 3,057-total, 61,317. This is exclusive of the colored troops, of whom there were 14,918, three-years men. The total of white and colored troops is 76,335. The returns of the enrolment presented the following results: 113,410 whites, 20,083 negroes; total, 133,493. About 5,000 should be added to the colored, as no returns were made from two districts. The receipts into the Treasury during the fiscal year were greatly decreased, and the Governor recommended an increased rate of taxation.

Near the end of the year 1863 a call was issued by some citizens of Missouri for a convention of the friends of freedom in slave States, to assemble at Louisville on June 8th, "for the promotion of a more cordial understanding between those who concurred in the necessity of adopting freedom policies; for the more effective initiation of local State organizations to accomplish the work of emancipation; and for such mutual interchange of opinions and experiences as may make the teachings of the past profit in the guidance of the present." The convention thus called was postponed to February 22d, at

which time it assembled. About one hundred delegates from Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas were present. Wm. P. Thomason was chosen President, and the following resolutions were adopted:

Resolved, 1st. That the unity of this country, with the present republican form of government, State and National, must be preserved, and rebellion suppressed.

2d. That slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of the rebellion; that we see no hope of permanent peace until the principles of freedom announced in the Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution are carried into practice. The question whether slavery is to be perpetuated or not is no longer exclusively a State but a national one. It is, therefore, proper that the Constitution of the United States should be so amended as to secure freedom to every human being within its jurisdiction. Such a guarantee of individual freedom is as neces

sary in the Constitution of the United States as that of a republican form of government to each State. 8d. The Government has the constitutional right to command the services of every man, no matter what his color or condition, whether bond or free. The master cannot interpose his right between the man and the Government; and we are in favor of enlisting and enrolling all alike. 4th. That during a rebellion the President, in the exercise of the war power, has full and ample authority to free all slaves in the rebellious districts, and they are hereby invested irrevocably with all the rights of freemen; and in the present rebellion he ought to exercise this power to its full extent. 5th. That with the effect of the President's Amnesty Proclamation before us we declare that in our opinion the same has been injurious to the Union cause and its operations within the district to which it especially applies, humiliating and unjust to loyal men, by placing them upon the same footing with rebels, and we would urge its recall or suspension

until armed rebellion is wholly crushed.

6th. That the Slave-State Freedom Convention be made a permanent organization by the formation of nate from each of the slave States for the purpose of carrying out its principles, and that the delegation for each State represented in the convention appoint the members on the committee.

an executive committee of one member and one alter

7th. That we declare ourselves favorable to such

an amendment of the Constitution of the United States as shall make the President elective for one term only.

A State executive committee was appointed by the Kentucky delegates to the convention, and a call issued for a State convention to as

semble at Louisville on May 9th, and appoint delegates to the Baltimore Presidential Convention. The following persons were appointed the State executive committee: James Speed, afterwards U. S. Attorney-General, John Tompkins and L. N. Dembitz, Louisville; C. A. Preston, Covington; C. F. Beyland; Ham Cummings, Newport; Dr. Perry S. Leyton, Lewis County; George D. Blakey, Russellville; Thomas B. Calvert, Bowling Green.

A Republican, or a Republican Union convention, assembled at Lexington on April 11th, at which Mr. Goodloe was appointed chairman. Speeches were made, and delegates appointed to the Baltimore Presidential Convention.

On May 25th a Union Democratic convention assembled at Louisville, at which James Guthrie was chosen chairman. Delegates were appointed to the Chicago Presidential Convention, and an electoral ticket appointed. Resolutions were also unanimously adopted, affirming the principles expressed by the previous convention of March 17th, 1863, condemning the doctrine that the insurrectionary States have ceased to be States of the Union, that the object of the war should be to subjugate armed insurrection, condemning the enlistment of negroes, &c., &c. A convention was also called by some of the most prominent members of the Democratic party of the State, to meet at Louisville on May 15th for the purpose of appointing delegates to the Chicago Presidential Convention. It had been previously proposed by the senators and some of the representatives from the State at Washington that the Union Democrats and Dem

ocrats should meet in joint convention on June 18th. The former, however, declined the proposition. Both, however, acted in union at the Chicago Convention and at the subsequent election. The Democratic convention assembled June 15th, and Chas. A. Wickliffe was chosen chairman. The resolutions express the sovereignty of the people, that the declarations of the authors of the Constitution, the deliberations of the Federal conventions, the resolutions of 1798 and 1799, and the decisions of the Supreme Court, were the guides for its interpretation, that the coercion of eleven States is an act of suicidal folly; that the administration has attempted to strike down State sovereignty, interfered with the right of suffrage, &c., &c., and that they of the African race to citizenship and their forare uncompromisingly opposed to the elevation mation into standing armies to control white men, &c. The convention also appointed a committee to address President Lincoln for the purpose which they thus state:

To Abraham Lincoln, President, &c. :

The Kentucky Democratic State Convention meet

ing in Louisville on the 28th of June respectfully requests, through the undersigned committee, your immediate attention to a grievance under which Kentucky is now suffering, of an extraordinary, if not anomalous, character in a republic.

For more than a week Democratic newspapers from other States have been excluded from the city of Louisville, by the order, we are informed, of the Ewing; and for nearly the same time the Cincinnati provost marshal, under the authority of General Inquirer and Chicago Times have been excluded from the whole State of Kentucky under the order, as reported, of General Burbridge.

Early in June an invasion of the eastern and central part of the State was made by Col. John Morgan from East Tennessee. For the object and details of the invasion see ARMY OPERATIONS. Guerrillas acting as thieves, were infesting the southern borders, greatly to the injury of the peaceable inhabitants. On June 21st Gen. Sherman issued the following instructions to the commander of the division of Kentucky:

HEADQUARTERS MIL. DIY OF THE MISS. IN THE FELD, } BIG SHANTY, GA., June 21, 1864. Gen. Burbridge, Commanding Div. of Ky. :

GENERAL, The recent raid of Morgan, and the eurrent acts of men styling themselves Confederate partisans or guerrillas, calls for determined action on your part.

Even on the Southern "State Rights" theory Kentucky has not seceded. Her people by their vote and their actions have adhered to their allegiance to the National Government, and the South would now coerce her out of our Union, and into theirs, by the very dogma of coercion upon which so much stress was laid at the outset of the war, and which carried into rebellion the people of the middle

or border slave States.

But politics aside, these acts of the so-called parti sans or guerrillas, are nothing but simple murder, horse stealing, arson, and other well-defined crimes,

which do not sound as well under their true name as more agreeable ones of warlike meaning.

Now before starting on this campaign I foresaw it, as you remember, that this very case would arise, and I asked Gov. Bramlette to at once organize in each county a small trustworthy band under the sheriffs,

and at one dash arrest every man in the community who was dangerous to it; and also every fellow hanging about the towns, villages, and cross-roads who had no honest calling, the materials out of which guerrillas are made up; but this sweeping exhibition of power doubtless seemed to the Governor rather arbitrary.

The fact is, in our country personal liberty has been so well secured that public safety is lost sight of in our laws and institutions, and the fact is we are thrown back one hundred years in civilization, law, and every thing else, and will go right straight to anarchy and the devil, if somebody don't arrest our downward progress.

We, the military, must do it, and we haye right and law on our side. All governments and communities have a right to guard against real and even supposed danger. The whole people of Kentncky must not be kept in a state of suspense and real danger, lest a few innocent men should be wrongfully accused. 1st. You may order all your post and district commanders that guerrillas are not soldiers, but wild beasts, unknown to the usages of war. To be recognized as soldiers they must be enlisted, enrolled, officered, uniformed, armed, and equipped, by a recognized belligerent power, and must, if detailed from a main army, be of sufficient strength with written orders from some army commander to some military thing. Of course we have recognized the Confederate Government as a belligerent power, but deny their right to our lands, territories, rivers, coasts, and nationality-admitting the right to rebel and move to some other country, where laws and customs are more in accordance with their own ideas and prejudices.

2. The civil power being insufficient to protect life and property ex necessitate rei to prevent anarchy, "which nature abhors," the military steps in and is rightful, constitutional, and lawful. Under this law everybody can be made to "stay at home and mind his or her own business," and if they won't do that, can be sent away where they cannot keep their honest neighbors in fear of danger, robbery, and insult.

3d. Your military commanders, provost marshals, and other agents, may arrest all males and females who have encouraged or harbored guerrillas and robbers, and you may cause them to be collected in Louisville; and when you have enough-say three or four hundred-I will cause them to be sent down the Mississippi, through their guerrilla gauntlet, and by a sailing ship send them to a land where they may take their negroes and make a colony, with laws and a future of their own. If they won't live in peace in such a garden as Kentucky, why we will send them to another if not a better land; and surely this would be a kindness to them and a God's blessing to Kentucky.

I wish you to be careful that no personalities are mixed up in this, nor does a full and generous "love of country," "of the South," of their State or country, form a cause of banishment, but that devilish spirit which will not be satisfied, and that makes war the pretext of murder, arson, theft, in all its grades, perjury and all the crimes of human nature. My own preference was, and is, that the civil authorities in Kentucky would and could do this in that State; but if they will not, or cannot, then we must, for it must be done. There must be an "end to strife," and the honest, industrious people of Kentucky and the whole world will be benefited and rejoiced at the conclusion, however arrived at.

I use no concealment in saying that I do not object to men or women having what they call "Southern feeling," if confined to love of country, and of peace, honor, and security, and even a little family pride; but these become "crimes" when enlarged to mean love of murder, of war, desolation, famine, and all the horrid attendants of anarchy.

I am, with respect, your friend, (Signed)

W. T. SHERMAN, Maj.-Gen.

On July 5th the President issued the follow ing proclamation, establishing martial law in Kentucky:

Whereas, by a proclamation which was issued or the 15th day of April, 1861, the President of the United States announced and declared that the laws of the United States had been for some time past, and then were, opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in certain States therein mentioned, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals of law;

And whereas, immediately after the issuing of the said proclamation, the land and naval forces of the United States were put into activity to suppress the said insurrection and rebellion;

And whereas the Congress of the United States, by an act approved on the 3d day of March, 1863, did enact that during the said rebellion the President of the United States, whenever in his judgment the public safety may require it, is authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in any case throughout the United States, or in any part thereof;

And whereas the said insurrection and rebellion still continue, endangering the existence of the Constitution and Government of the United States;

And whereas the military forces of the United States are now actively engaged in suppressing the said insurrection and rebellion in various parts of the States where the said rebellion has been successful in obstructing the laws and public authorities, especially in the States of Virginia and Georgia;

And whereas on the 15th day of September last, the President of the United States duly issued his proclamation, wherein he declared that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus should be suspended throughout the United States in the cases where, by the authority of the President of the United States, military, naval, and civil officers of the United States, or any of them, hold persons under their command or in their custody, either as prisoners of war, spies, or aiders or abettors of the enemy, or officers, soldiers, or seamen enrolled, or drafted, or mustered, or enlisted in or belonging to the land or naval forces of the United States, or as deserters therefrom, or otherwise amenable to military law or the rules and articles of war, or the rules or regulations prescribed for the military or naval service by authority of the President of the United States, or for resisting a draft, or for any other offence against the military or naval service;

And whereas many citizens of the State of Kentucky have joined the forces of the insurgents, and such insurgents have on several occasions entered the said State of Kentucky in large force, and, not without the aid and comfort furnished by disaffected and disloyal citizens of the United States residing therein, have not only greatly disturbed the public peace, but have overborne the civil authorities and made flagrant civil war, destroying property and life in various parts of that State;

And whereas it has been made known to the President of the United States by the officers commanding the national armies that combinations have been formed in the said State of Kentucky, with a purpose of inciting rebel forces to renew the said operations of civil war within the said State, and thereby to embarrass the United States armies now operating in the said States of Virginia and Georgia, and even to endanger their safety;

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws, do hereby declare that, in my judgment, the public safety espe cially requires that the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, so proclaimed in the said proclamation of the 15th of September, 1863, be made effectual and be duly enforced in and throughout the said State of Kentucky, and that martial law be for the present