clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed as to conform with, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject contained in the act of Congress entitled, "An Act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August 6, 1861, and that said Act be published at length with this order. Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN. A PROCLAMATION. By the President of the United States of America. In pursuance of the sixth section of the act of Congress entitled, "An Act to Suppress Insurrection, to Punish Treason and Rebellion, to Seize and Confiscate the Property of Rebels, and for other purposes, approved July 17, 1862, and which act and the joint resolution explanatory therein, are herewith published, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to, and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section, to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion, or any rebellion against the Government of the United States, and to return to their allegiance to the United States, on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided. In testimony 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 25th day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. By the President. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. A. LINCOLN. EXTRACTS UPON WHICH SEWARD BASED HIS "IRRE- "In my opinion, it [the slavery agitation] will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." It "I believe the government cannot remain permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I do not expect the house to fall-but I do expect it will cease to be divided. will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as newNorth as well as South." "I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist. I have been an old-line Whig. I have always hated it, and I always believed it in the course of ultimate extinction. "If I were in Congress and a vote should come up whether slavery should be prohibited in a new Territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should " 3 "I nevertheless did not mean to go to the banks of the Ohio and throw missiles into Kentucky, to disturb them in their domestic institutions.. "I believe that the right of property in a slave is not distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."' A PROCLAMATION. By the President of the United States of America: Whereas, It has become necessary to call into service, not only volunteers, but also portions of the military of the States 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 these measures, and from giving aid and comfort in various ways to the 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 military 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 commission. Second, 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 places of confinement, by any military confinement, 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. By the President. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. A PROCLAMATION. On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution, to be substantially as follows: "Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such a Ŝtate, in its discretion, compensation for the inconvenience, public and private, provided by such change of system." The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately interested in the subject matter. To the people of the States I now most earnestly appeal. I do not argue, I beseech you to make the argument for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of their import, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contem plates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past times, as in the Providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have rejected it. By the President. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. Issued by President Lincoln, January 1, 1863, at Washington. Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing among other things, the following, to wit: "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 |