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“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, thenceforth and forever free, and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities 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 therein 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 States 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 Gov ernment of the United States, and as a fit and 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 of the 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, Ascensioù, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans. Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, except the fortyeight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, 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, 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 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 first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight [L. S.] hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of

the United States of America the eighty-seventh. "ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

"By the President :

SUSPENSION OF THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS.

On the twenty-fourth of September, 1862, two days after the promulgation of the renowned Emancipation Proclamation, the following order was published:

"Whereas, It has become necessary to call into service, not only volunteers, but also portions of the militia of the State by draft, in order to suppress the insurrection existing in the United States, and disloyal persons are not adequately restrained by the ordinary processes of law from hindering this measure, and from giving aid and comfort in various ways to the insurrection : Now, therefore, be it ordered:

"First. That during the existing insurrection, and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and comfort to the rebels against the authority of the United States, shall be subject to martial law, and liable to trial and punishment by courts-martial or military commissions.

Third. That the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prison, or other place of confinement, by any military

authority or by the sentence of any court-martial or military commission.

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-fourth 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.

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By the President.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

"WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

The suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus was naturally obnoxious to Northern sympathizers with treason, and for some time their newspaper organs were daily filled with editorial and other articles, teeming with invidious criticism and abuse. The act placed more power in the hands of the President than was acceptable to men who, by their voice and pen, if not by their pecuniary means, were aiding and abetting the enemies of the country, and as they were not aware what moment they might be arrested and imprisoned for their despicable crimes, in their regard for their personal safety, they forgot their prudence, and abused the Executive. The beneficial effects of the order were not over-estimated by Mr. Lincoln, and with its promulgation almost entirely ceased the inteference with enlistments, which had too often before that date delayed the organization of regiments in some of the loyal States.

THE SABBATH TO BE OBSERVED.

On the sixteenth of November, 1862, the following order was issued to the soldiers and sailors of the Union :

"The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine will, demand that Sunday labor in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity.

"The discipline and character of the National forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperilled, by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. At this time of public distress' adopting the words of Washington in 1776, men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality.' The first general order issued by the Father of his Country after the Declaration of Independence indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended: 'The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.'

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN."

HIS ANNUAL MESSAGE.-IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATIONS TO CONGRESS.

On the first of December, 1862, Mr. Lincoln sent in to Congress his annual message; giving a satisfactory resumé of the events of the previous twelve months; calling the attention of the Senators and Representatives to important matters which should receive their notice; recommending the organization of national banking associations, under the hope and belief that they would be the means of promoting the early resumption of specie payments; re-impressed upon them the importance of his plan of “compensated emancipation;" repeated at length his views upon the slavery question, and recommended the adoption of the following resolutions and articles amendatory to the Constitution:

"Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both houses concurring, that the following articles be proposed to the Legislatures or Conventions of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles, when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures or Conventions, to be valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, namely:

"ARTICLE Every State wherein slavery now exists, which shall abolish the same therein at any time or times before the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit:

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"The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State, bonds of the United States, bearing interest at the rate of for each slave shown to have been therein, by the eighth census of the United States; said bonds to be delivered to such State by instalments, or in one parcel at the completion of the abolishment, according as the same shall have been gradual or at one time within such State; and interest shall begin to run upon any such bond only from the proper time of its delivery as aforesaid, and afterward. Any State having received bonds as aforesaid, and afterward introducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to the United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon.

"ARTICLE All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom, by the chances of the war at any time, before the end of the rebellion, shall be forever free; but all owners of such, who shall not have been disloyal, shall be compensated for them at the same rates as is provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery-but in such a way that no slave shall be twice accounted for.

'ARTICLE. Congress may appropriate money, and otherwise provide for colonizing free colored persons with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States."

The message and its recommendations were received with the same eclat which has attended all the official documents penned by the illustrious statesman. The proclamation of September had awakened the people of the Union to the vast advantages to be derived from the adoption of his views and suggestions on every thing relating to slavery, and as the day on which the unfortunate blacks were to be rescued from a life of degradation approached, thousands, who had hitherto protested against interference with the "peculiar institution," united with their old political opponents, and awaited anxiously the hour when the order of emancipation was to go into effect. Residents of foreign lands were no less eager for the time to arrive when the Federal Government should strike off the fetters of the slave, and among other complimentary addresses sent to the President, was one from Manchester, England, from which we make the following extracts:

"As citizens of Manchester, assembled at the Free-Trade Hall, we beg to express our fraternal sentiments toward you and

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