And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to
be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary
self-defense; 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
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,
1863, and of the independence of the United States
the Eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
Amendment to the National Constitution recommended
by President Lincoln in his Message to Congress of
December I, 1862.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled:
that the following articles be proposed to the Legislatures
(or conventions) of the several States as amendments
to the Constitution of the United States, all or any
of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths
of the said Legislatures (or conventions) to be valid
as parts of the said Constitution, namely:
Article.—Every State wherein Slavery now
exists, which shall abolish the same therein, at any
time or times before the 1st day of January in the
year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred, shall receive
compensation from the United States as follows, to
wit:
(Then follows a provision to issue bonds of the United
States Government, which shall be delivered to the
States in amounts sufficient to compensate the owners
of slaves within their jurisdictions for the loss
of their slave property.)
Article.—All slaves who shall have enjoyed
actual freedom by the chances of the war, at any time
before the end of the rebellion, shall be forever
free; but all owners of such, who shall not have been
disloyal, shall be compensated for them at the same
rates as is provided for States adopting abolishment
of slavery, but in such way that no slave shall be
twice accounted for.
Article.—Congress may appropriate money
and otherwise provide for colonizing free colored
persons, with their own consent, at any place or places
without the United States.
“PRAYER OF TWENTY MILLIONS”
On the 19th of August, 1862, Horace Greeley, under
the above heading, addressed a letter to the President,
which appeared over his signature in the New York
Tribune of that date. The conclusion of
Mr. Greeley’s epistle was as follows:
