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PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.

217

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 or 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 [L. S.] and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

The issuing of this proclamation created the deepest interest, not unmixed with anxiety, in the public mind. The opponents of the Administration in the loyal States, as well as the sympathizers with secession everywhere, insisted that it afforded unmistakable evidence that the object of the war was, what they had always declared it to be, the abolition of slavery, and not the restoration of the Union; and they put forth the most vigorous efforts to arouse public sentiment against the Administration on this ground. They were met, however, by the clear and explicit declaration of the document itself, in which the President "proclaimed and declared" 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 that relation is or may be suspended or disturbed." This at once made it evident that emancipation, as provided for in the Proclamation, as a war measure, was subsidiary and subordinate to the paramount object of the war-the restoration of the Union, and the re-establishment of the authority of the Constitution; and in this sense it was favorably received by the great body of the loyal people of the United States.

It only remains to be added, in this connection, that on the first of January, 1863, the President followed this measure by issuing the following

PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, on the 22d day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

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 States 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.

Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and

PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.

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necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, Ste. Marie, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of [L. S.] the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. By the President : ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

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THE repulse of the national forces at the bat in July, 1861, aroused the people of the loyal S of the magnitude of the contest which had be them. It stimulated to intoxication the pride a the rebels, and gave infinite encouragement to raise fresh troops, and increase the military res Confederation. Nor did the reverse the national tained for an instant damp the ardor, or check tion, of the Government and people of the loyal eral McDowell, the able and accomplished off manded the army of the United States in tha conducted the operations of the day with sign his defeat was due, as subsequent disclosure: shown, far more to accidents for which others we than to any lack of skill in planning the battle, and generalship on the field. But it was the fir engagement of the war, and its loss was a seriou disappointment to the sanguine expectations of was deemed necessary, therefore, to place a new the head of the army in front of Washington. G lan, who had been charged, at the outset of the w tions in the department of the Ohio, and who marked success in clearing Western Virginia troops, was summoned to Washington on the 22. on the 27th assumed command of the Army of

GEN. M'CLELLAN SUCCEEDS M'DOWELL.

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Although then in command only of a department, General McClellan, with an ambition and a presumption natural, perhaps, to his age and the circumstances of his advancement, addressed his attention to the general conduct of the war in all sections of the country, and favored the Government and Lieutenant-General Scott with several elaborate and meritorious letters of advice, as to the method most proper to be pursued for the suppression of the rebellion. He soon, however, found it necessary to attend to the preparation of the army under his command for an immediate resumption of hostilities. Fresh troops in great numbers speedily poured in from the Northern States, and were organized and disciplined for prompt and effective service. The number of troops in and about the capital when General McClellan assumed command, was a little over 50,000, and the brigade organization of General McDowell formed the basis. for the distribution of these new forces. By the middle of October this army had been raised to over 150,000 men, with an artillery force of nearly 500 pieces-all in a state of excellent discipline, under skilful officers, and animated by a zealous and impatient eagerness to renew the contest for the preservation of the Constitution and Government of the United States. The President and Secretary of War had urged the division of the army into corps d'armée, for the purpose of more effective service; but General McClellan had discouraged and thwarted their endeavors in this direction, mainly on the ground that there were not officers enough of tried ability in the army to be intrusted with such high commands as this division would create.

On the 22d of October, a portion of our forces which had been ordered to cross the Potomac above Washington, in the direction of Leesburgh, were met by a heavy force of the enemy at Ball's Bluff, repulsed with severe loss, and compelled to return. The circumstances of this disaster excited a great deal of dissatisfaction in the public mind, and this was still

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