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States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government 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 first abovementioned, 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, St. Mary, 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 Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are left for the present 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 recognise 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 where allowed, they labour 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 favour of Almighty God.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

L. S.

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 the Independence of the United States of America the eightyseventh,

By the President,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

A true copy, with the autograph signatures of the President and the Secretary of State.

JOHN G. NICOLAY, Priv. Sec. to the President.

The excitement caused by the appearance of the proclamation of September 22nd, 1862, was very great. The anti-slavery men rejoiced as at the end of a dreadful struggle; those who had doubted became at once strong and confident. Whatever

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trials and troubles might be in store, all felt assured,
even the Copperheads or rebel sympathisers, that
slavery was virtually at an end.
The newspapers
teemed with gratulations. The following poem, which
was the first written on the proclamation, or on the
day on which it appeared, and which was afterwards
published in the "Continental Magazine," expresses
the feeling with which it was generally received.

THE PROCLAMATION.-SEPT. 22, 1862.
Now who has done the greatest deed

Which History has ever known?
And who in Freedom's direst need

Became her bravest champion?

Who a whole continent set free?

Who killed the curse and broke the ban

Which made a lie of liberty?—

You, Father Abraham—you're the man!

The deed is done.

Millions have yearned

To see the spear of Freedom cast.

The dragon roared and writhed and burned:
You've smote him full and square at last.
O Great and True! you do not know-
You cannot tell-you cannot feel

How far through time your name must go,
Honoured by all men, high or low,

Wherever Freedom's votaries kneel.

This wide world talks in many a tongue-
This world boasts many a noble state;

In all your praises will be sung

I

In all the great will call you great.

Freedom! where'er that word is known-
On silent shore, by sounding sea,
'Mid millions, or in deserts lone—
Your noble name shall ever be.

The word is out, the deed is done,
The spear is cast, dread no delay;
When such a steed is fairly gone,
Fate never fails to find a way.
Hurrah! hurrah! the track is clear,
We know your policy and plan;
We'll stand by you through every year;

Now, Father Abraham, you're our man.

The original draft of the proclamation of Emancipation was purchased by Thos. B. Bryan, of Chicago, for the Sanitary Commission for the Army, held at Chicago in the autumn of 1863. As it occurred to the writer that official duplicates of such an important document should exist, he suggested the idea to Mr. George H. Boker, subsequently United States Minister to Constantinople and to St. Petersburg, at whose request the President signed a number of copies, some of which were sold for the benefit of the Sanitary Fairs held in Philadelphia and Boston in 1864, while others were presented to public institutions. One of these, bearing the signatures of President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, with the attesting signature of John Nicolay, Private Secretary to the President, may be seen hanging in the George the Third Library in the British Museum. This document

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is termed by Mr. Carpenter, in his history of the proclamation, "the third great State paper which has marked the progress of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. First is the Magna Charta, wrested by the barons of England from King John; second, the Declaration of Independence; and third, worthy to be placed upon the tablets of history by the first two, Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation."

On the 7th November, Messrs. J. M. Mason and John Slidell, Confederate Commissioners to England and France, were taken from the British mail steamer Trent by Commodore Wilkes, of the American frigate San Jacinto. There was great rejoicing over this capture in America, and as great public irritation in England. War seemed imminent between the countries; but Mr. Lincoln, with characteristic sagacity, determined that so long as there was no recognition of the rebels as a nation, not to bring on a war. "One war at a time," he said. In a masterly examination of the case, Mr. Seward pointed out the fact that "the detention of the vessel, and the removal from her of the emissaries of the rebel Confederacy, was justifiable by the laws of war, and the practice and precedents of the British Government itself; but that, in assuming to decide upon the liability of these persons to capture, instead of sending them before a legal tribunal, where a regular trial could be had, Captain Wilkes had departed