Whereas, on the twenty seconds day of September in the year of our donor one thousand eight hundred and sixtytwo, as proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, tomi:

"

1

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.

Now, therefore I. Alraham Lincoln President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me pasted as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion ag. ainst authority and government of the United States, and necessay was measend for pups. pressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of Jaws

hay,

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fit

in the

year of our Lord one thousand eight hun.

and pinty threw.

and an accorcianer with

my purpose so to do proclamed for the full perioa

as the states and pants of States wherein the people ther

of respectively, aw this

day

in rebellion against the levie

tex States, the following, towit.

Arkansas, Texas, Louinanas, except the Parishes of Le Bemara, Plaquemines, Jefferson, SiJohan, SiCharles, Sifames Ascension, Anumption, Terrebonne, La fourch, S. May, S. Tharters.

anov

Orleans, including the last of News. Aleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North barolinas, Virginia, (except the fortyeight counties designatio as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Arcas mac, Northampton, Elizabeth bity York Princess, Aww,

• Norfolk, including the Cates of Norfolk, & Portmores; and which encept. ear parts ar for the present, left precisely as of the prox

clamation wew not issues.

And by vister of the power, and for the purpose ass messia, I do order and declare that all persons heen

as plaves within said denigration. States, anov,

and parts of

government of the United States, inclu.

the militan

and naval authorities thereof wile

recognize and maintain the freesion of said persons,

And I herely enjoin upon the people as declares to be free to abstain from all polence, unless in necess sary self-defence; and I recommence to them thay in all cases when allowed, they labor fastefully for reasonables wages,

And I further declaw and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will he received into the armed service of the United States to garnison forts, positions stations, and other places, and to maw vessels of all porto in parou pavo

vico.

And

wow

this act, sinceres believed to he

on act of justice, weranted by the Constitution, ups=_ ow militan necessit, I invoke the considerats

5 jindy: ment of mankings, and the gracious favor of Almight Gow.

I'n witness whereof Thave hereunto set my. hand and caused the seal of the United States -to be affixed.

Done ab the city of Mashington, this first day of
January, in the year of our Lord

one thousand

eight hundred and sixty three, and of the

564

PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION.

"Lond.) Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President;

Abraham Lincoln

William Aleward

Learetary of State

POUREDO

THE PRESIDENT'S PEN.1

This Proclamation, considered in all its relations, was one of the mos important public documents ever issued by the hand of man. And as tim passes on, adding century to century of human history, it will be regarded with more and more reverence, as a consummation of the labors of the Fathers of the Republic, who declared the great truth, that “all men are created equal." With that belief, the writer has inserted, for the gratification of the present generation and of posterity, the form of the proclamation as it came from the hand of the President, and of the pen with which it was written.

Unlike the preliminary proclamation, it was wonderfully potential. The loyal portion of the nation was ready for the great act, and hailed it with

1 This is a picture of the pen with which President Lincoln wrote the original draft of his Proclamation, a fac-simile of which is given on this and the three pages preceding. The pen was given to Senator Sumner by the President, at the request of the former, and by him presented to the late George Livermore, of Boston, from whom the writer received a photograph and a pencil drawing of it. It is a steel pen, known as the "Washington," with a common cedar handle-all as plain and unostentatious as the President himself.

The original draft of the Proclamation is on four pages of foolscap paper, from which a perfect fac-simile was made for the author of this work by the Government photographer, a few days after it was written, by permission of the President, and under the direction of his Private Secretary, John G. Nicolay. In speaking of it to the author the President said:-"I wish to make an explanation of the cause of the last formal paragraphs being in another's hand-writing, and the appearance of a tremulousness of hand when I signed th paper. It was on New Year's day. Before I had quite completed the proclamation, the people began to cal upon me to present the compliments of the season. For two or three hours I shook hands with them, and when I went back to the desk, I could hardly hold a pen in the hand that had been so employed. So I used the hand of my private secretary in writing the closing paragraphs, having nothing more to add to the proclamation. I ther signed it, with a tremulous hand, as you will perceive, made so, not from any agitation caused by the act, but from the reception of my visitors."

The fac-simile here given was made a little smaller than the original, to adapt it to the size of the page, but is perfect in every part. The original was presented by the President to the managers of a Sanitary Fair 13 Chicago, for the benefit of the soldiers, who sold it to T. B. Bryan, Esq., of that city, for the sum of $3,000.

FIRST REGIMENT OF COLORED TROOPS.

565

joy, while the disloyal portion, and especially the conspirators, were struck with dismay, for it was a blow fatal to their hopes. It dissipated the charming vision of a magnificent empire within the Golden Circle,' founded on human slavery, which the conspirators had presented to the imaginations of their cruelly deceived dupes. It touched with mighty power a chord of sympathy among the aspirants for genuine freedom in the old world; and from the hour when that proclamation was promulgated, the prayers of true men in all civilized lands went to the throne of God in supplication for the success of the armies of the Republic against its enemies. And from the moment when the head of the nation proclaimed that act of justice, the power of the rebellion began to wane. Already freedmen by thousands had

entered the public service, and large numbers were enrolled soldiers in the army of the Republic; and the first utterance of tidings by the mouth of man to freedmen of the Proclamation of Emancipation, was made to a regiment of them in arms beneath the shadows of a magnificent live-oak grove near Beaufort, in South Carolina, within bugle-sound of the place where many of the earlier treasonable movements in that State were planned. In Beaufort district, the stronghold of slavery, the first regiment of colored troops, under the provisions of the act of Congress, was organized, and it was to these that a public servant of the Republic announced the glad tidings.'

1 See page 187, volume I.

When the writer visited the village of Beaufort, in South Carolina, early in April, 1866, he spent an evening with Dr. Brisbane, the Government Tax-Collector of the District. He was born in South Carolina, but had been