involved in the progress of our great civil war. We cannot, if we would, close our eyes to this fact—a fact which forces itself upon us from all directions. It has occupied the deliberations both of the legislative and executive departments of the Government. The proposal of the President to the border States we have presented to public consideration. It was submitted as a measure of union and peace. The emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia and the appropriation of $100,000 to aid in their colonization indicated the sentiment of our Government and people on the subject.

The report of the select committee of nine (printed, but upon which there was no action during the last session of Congress,) proposing to aid the border States in the abolishment of slavery and the colonization of the black population from their limits, although regarding with favor the Central American colonization, indicates a strong and generous purpose by proposing to devote $20,000,000 to the accomplishment of this great measure.

On the 10th day of August the President of the United States gave audience to a committee of colored men, invited to meet him, and addressed them in the kindest and most persuasive manner, expressing his hope that they would take into consideration the question of colonization, and his purpose and wish to aid them to secure comfortable homes in some part of Central America, and desiring them to consider whether they would co-operate with him in this enterprise. More recently Senator Pomeroy, "to whom the first movement is to be entrusted, has issued an address to the free colored people of the United States, and which has been approved by the President, in which he proposes, at as early a date as five weeks from the time of the address, to take out to Central America a colony of five hundred colored persons, to be settled permanently in that country. The immediate point of their destination is to be Chiriqui—well known from the discoveries of ancient gold there-in New Granada, which is but a week's voyage from the port of New York. They are to be carried out and supported for the first season at Government expense, a small fund for that purpose having been appropriated by the last Congress. The sum required will be small, as they will be carried out in national vessels, while the country to which they emigrate is so fertile, and so profuse in edible products of all sorts, that the only support required will be implements and seeds, and a temporary supply of provisions. "

It is little agreeable to our sense of right and reason that in such northern States as are most averse to slavery there should be found much opposition to allow of the introduction among their people of men of the African race, and that stern legislation should be adopted against them. A writer in the Philadelphia Ledger alludes with emphatic condemnation to laws enacted in several of the northern States to the disadvantage of the people of color, and denounces the disabilities and restrictions imposed upon them as "repugnant to love, justice, religion, and humanity.” Yet, while the present condition of things is regretted, and especially that a class of men who, under their many embarrassments, have nevertheless made rapid progress in education, morality, and respectability, should have so many barriers cast

in the way of their advancement. Yet, taking things and men as they are, and not as we might wish them to be, the writer justly adds:

"It is wise for us to make Africa the point to which black emigration, with the consent of the emigrants, should be encouraged; it is the land natural to the race, and where they may extirpate the horrid slave trade, develope a mighty commerce, and extend a knowledge of arts, science, literature, and religion; it is the country most exclusively their own, where caste wili be least unfavorable, and where nature has erected the most insurmountable barrier against any molestation.

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Let no one be staggered by want of faith in the practicability of the settlement of our colored population in Liberia-not much more distant than we are from Europe. It is not to be done in a year. Such operations are not in the order of God's providence. In the meanwhile encourage their gradual removal; enlarge commercial intercourse with the young African Republic, and thus build up the means of cheap inter-communication-and let them see that while here they are under the law of caste, that there they are men, and their manhood universally acknowledged. The consequence seems certain that there will be an exodus gradually increasing with the facilities, until perhaps the nations of the earth may see a repetition of that produced by the famine in Ireland of a dozen years ago. But even if this shall never be realized, at least a large removal may take place, conveying our language, civilization, and Christianity to the millions of that continent, and contributing to one of the greatest blessings in the history of the world-in one sense even greater thau that produced by the emigration hither, because not accompanied by the extinction of the aborigines."

As an important document, relating possibly in future to the cause of colonization and to the interests of our country and the African race, we publish the following proclamation:

A PROCLAMATION

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or disturbed; that it is my purpose upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all the slave States so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which States may then have voluntarily adopt. ed or thereafter may voluntarily adopt the immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent with their consent upon this continent or elsewhere with the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there, will be continued; 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 any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be thence

forward 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 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.

That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled "An act to make an additional article of war," approved March 13, 1862. and which act is in the words and figures following:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war, for the government of the Army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:

ARTICLE. All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage.

Also, to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled “An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, and to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following:

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the Army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the Government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found on (or being within) any place occupied by rebel forces and afterward occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captures of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude and not again held as slaves.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or District of Columbia, from any of the States shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime or some offense 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 been in 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 pretense whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of 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 relations between the United States and their respective States and people, If the relation shall have suspended or been 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 and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eightyseventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the PRESIDENT :

WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

The Liberia Herald states that this lecture, by a brother of the late Secretary of the Treasury in Liberia, was the first delivered before the Lyceum of Monrovia. Its author died in Jamaica. The Lyceum has been renewed as the Young Men' Lyceum of Monrovia. The son of the author of this lecture, now in the missionary service in Jamaica, expresses a purpose of returning to his home in Liberia.

ADDRESS

DELIVERED BY COLONEL WILLIAM N. LEWIS IN MONROVIA, ON THE CELEBRATION OF THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE OLD MEN'S LYCEUM.

GENTLEMEN OF THE LYCEUM: It is with no little degree of sensibility of the extreme poverty of mind that I stand as a speaker before this meeting. The attitude that I assume is not one of my choice, as many of you are aware of, and had it not been that I conceived each of us bound to contribute what aid we can for our general and mutual improvement, I should have declined the honor of addressing you, and given my assent to some one more capable and competent as a speaker, to interest you to-day. You are aware, Gentlemen of the Lyceum, that when I was called upon to say something on the anniversary of this Institution, you did not nor did I expect to have to address you thus publicly; but notwithstanding this, incompetent as I am of addressing such an enlightened audience, I would have this respectable assembly know that I possess neither the vanity nor the presumption to conceive myself orator sufficient to duly interest them on so important an occasion, unwilling as I am to

give back when called upon at like times and thus publicly exhibit my weakness.

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This institution, denominated the "Liberia Lyceum," was raised this day a year, for the express object of diffusing a more general knowledge throughout the colony, and I need scarcely say, that, since its formation we have made some considerable improvement; for this fact must be conceded by all present. Without such Institutions for general improvement, in vain may we look forward and expect the prosperity of the colony. It is through the instrumentality of such institutions that we may be enabled to look ahead with some degree of comparative composure and reasonableness to the time when Liberia shall become the seat of learning, and give to this vast and benighted region the arts and sciences. Again, if we would wish success from this institution and the building up of the colony, we must foster and nurture our lyceum. To neglect it and the cultivation of our minds will be the sinking daily and hourly of our colony, and the end disgrace, and the total defeat of the experiment of our becoming a People; and then the well merited stigma upon us of our incapacity of becoming in this land a people, and the predictions of our enemies will be verified.

God has endowed us with all the faculties of acquisition and given us a country wherein we may exercise them. In fact our very existence in this land depends upon such efforts, and the progress we may make; and if we fail to make the necessary improvement we shall not be able to maintain our position against the aborigines, for they will not fail to extirpate us from the country. Gentlemen of the lyceum, I need not say to you that on us as a people much depends, as well for the present prosperity as for the rising generation of this infant Republic. If we would be a people, let not our stated meetings and the business of the institution be neglected; let us apply ourselves closely to study, consistently with our daily vocations, and then we need have no fears of not having competent persons capable of doing and transacting all such affairs as are common to large and powerful countries. No-no room for fear: we shall have doctors of medicine, divines, statesmen, lawyers, philosophers, soldiers, &c. May I not ask what is it that causes our little colony, so thickly surrounded by the most ferocious cannibals, at times from being swept off as with some mighty hurricane? It is our advantage of a powera power derived from learning and civilized life. I say it is this, and this alone, that induces them to honor and respect us and admit our superiority for "knowledge is power." But, if we neglect our lyceum and fail to improve our minds, our civilization will decrease proportionably to our neglect, and deprive us of the only advantage we have over them, and thereby lay ourselves open to be swept away in a day. It is to the rising generation that we must look to govern Liberia, and if we neglect to improve the mind we may not go down to our graves in peace and quietness, in the hope that Liberia will prosper. No, we shall be degraded, and the original lords of the soil will treat our posterity as intruders. Can we look to America with any degree of certainty for help from our colored brethren? No; they are not coming to share a part of the weight which now is almost too heavy for us.