Washington, DC, 2012.
Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
For more information about this text and this American Memory collection, refer to accompanying matter.
The National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress makes digitized historical materials available for education and scholarship.
This transcription captured with optical character recognition technology is not intended to reproduce the appearance of the original work. The accompanying images provide a facsimile of this work and represent the appearance of the original.
GEXEKAL ORDERS
Ko. 13D.
WAR DEPARTMENT,
ADJ0TAKT GEKEKJL'S OFFICE,
Washington, Sept. 24, 1862.
The following Procianiaiion by the President is published for the
information and government of the Army and all concerned:
By the Peesidest op the United States of America.
A PEOCLAMATION.
I, Abraham I^imcoln, President of the United States of An:eriea,
and Command er-in-Chicf of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby
proclaim and declare tliat hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be
prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional
relation between the United States and each of the 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 Slave States, so called,
the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United
States, and which States may then have' voluntarily adopted, or there-
after nray voluntarily adopt, 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 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 anthoritj' thereof, will recognise 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.
That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled "An
act to mako an additional Article of War," approved March J3, 86"i,
and which act is in the words and figure 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 service or 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, to seize and
confiscate 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 afterwards occupied by the forces of the
United States, shall be deemed captives 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 the District of Columbia, from any other State,
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 borne arms against the United States in the present
rebellion, nor in anyway given aid and comfort thereto; and no person
engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall,
nnder any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of tlio
claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or sur-
render 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 relation
between the United States and their respective States and people, if
that relation shall have been suspended or 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 Sep-
tember, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
seal. and sixty-two, and of the independence of the United States
the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
William H. Seward, Searetm-y of Stata.
By ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OP WaE:
L. THOMAS,
Adjutant General.
Official,-
Assistant Adjutant G^uer&l.
h