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- The Emancipation Proclamation
-
- 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 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 where in 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.
- 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 the 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 Berkeley, 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, are, and henceforward shall be, free; States, including the military
- and naval 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-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 thereof, 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
- By the President:
-
- WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
- Secretary of State