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The Emancipation Proclamation,
1863
By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.
Whereas on the 22d day of September, A.D.
1862, a proclamation was issued by the
President of the United States, containing, among other things,
the following, to wit:
"That on the 1st day of January A.D.
1863, 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 1st 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 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 1st day of
January, A.D. 1863,
and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaim
for the full period of one hundred days from the first day 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, Plaque-mines, 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, Northhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess
Anne, 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; and that the Executive
Government of the United States, including the military and
naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of said persons.
And I do 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.
U.S. Statutes at Large, XII, pp.
1268-69.
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update 22 July 2008 |
