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 navel 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 State 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 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
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, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, 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 Berkley, 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, including the
military and navel 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 act, sincerely
believed to be an act if 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
hundred, and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
L.S.
BY the President
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
