TION

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

263

Now therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power vested in me as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, in a time of actual armed rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States, as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord, 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the date of the first above-mentioned order, designate as the States and parts of States therein, the people whereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, La Fourche, 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 Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), 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 designated States, or 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 the said persons; and I hereby enjoin upon the peo

ple so declared to be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense, and I recommend to them that, in all cases where 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, 1863, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the eightyseventh.

Abraham Lincoln

FRED'K DOUGLASS.

265

A

GREAT man, tender of heart, strong of

nerve, of boundless patience and broadest sympathy, with no motive apart from his country, he could receive counsel from a child and give counsel to a sage. The simple approached him with ease, and the learned approached him with deference. Take him for all in all, Abraham Lincoln was one of the noblest, wisest and best men I ever knew.

REPLY

TO AN INVITATION TO PRESIDE OVER A MEETING OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMISSION, HELD IN WASH

INGTON, FEBRUARY 22, 1863.

WHILE, for reasons which I deem sufficient, I must decline to preside, I cannot withhold my approval of the meeting and its worthy objects. Whatever shall be sincerely, and in God's name, devised for the good of the soldiers and seamen in their hard spheres of duty, can scarcely fail to be blessed. And whatever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the unreasoning and uncharitable passions, prejudices, and jealousies incident to a great national trouble such as ours, and to fix them on the vast and long-enduring consequences, for weal or for woe, which are to result from the struggle, and especially to strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph of the right, cannot but be well for us all.

The birthday of Washington and the Christian Sabbath coinciding this year, and suggesting together the highest interests of this life and of that to come, it is the most propitious for the meeting proposed.

GEO. S. BOUTWELL.

267

PRESIDENT LINCOLN excelled all his contem

poraries, as he also excelled most of the eminent rulers of every time, in the humanity of his nature, in the constant assertion of reason over passion and feeling, in the art of dealing with men; in fortitude, never disturbed by adversity, in capacity for delay when action was fraught with peril, in the power of immediate and resolute decision when delays were dangerous; in comprehensive judgment, which forecasts the final and best opinion of nations and of posterity, and in the union of enlarged patriotism, wise philanthropy and the highest political justice, by which he was enabled to save a nation and to emancipate a race.

Gers Kimmel.

CHESTNUT HILLS FARM, 1880.