In witness whercof, 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 September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

By the President:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

This proclamation, inaugurating a new era in the progress of the war, and constituting a landmark in the nation's history for all time, was received with great satisfaction throughout the loyal States, reassuring the faith and reviving the confidence of those who now saw the only hope of a complete overthrow of the slaveholders' conspiracy, in the utter eradication of its mischievous and immoral cause. This decree flashed a new light across the Atlantic, and gave cheer to the friends of American republicanism abroad, affording them a firm foothold among the nations of the Old World, so many of whose ruling men had manifested a positive affinity for Davis and the inhuman revolt against freedom and civilization which he had inaugurated. From this time onward, that portion of the European population in sympathy with the constitutional government of this nation began steadily to advance, until its power has come to be strongly felt, and its influence controlling. In Europe, the line was now distinctly drawn between the grand principles of universal freedom and the usurpations of slaveholding barbarism; between legitimate authority on the side of liberty, and organized revolt to perpetuate oppression.

On the 1st day of January, the expected proclamation, completing this great work and giving it actual vitality, was promulgated in the following terms:

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 any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the

United States, shall be 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 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-inchief 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 repressing 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 of the 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, Terre Bonne, 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; 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 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, 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, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight [L. S.] hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

The power exercised by President Lincoln in suspending the writ of habeas corpus, in certain cases, gave some uneasiness to a class of men whose efforts to obstruct the Government in putting down the rebellion had been pursued under the assumption that they would escape punishment on a formal trial, for the treason of which they were morally guilty. The people, however, fully sustained this course of the Executive, in a time of great public peril, and his prompt action therein tended materially to strengthen the Government. His proclamation on this subject, issued on the 24th day of September, 1862, contained the following orders:

That during the existing insurrection, and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all Rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and comfort to the Rebels against the authority of the United States, shall be subject to martial law, and liable to trial and punishment by courts-martial or military commissions.

That the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military

prison, or other place of confinement, by any military authority, or by the sentence of any court-martial or military commission.

In noticing these measures, which have occupied so large a place in the public mind, it is fitting also to mention the order issued by President Lincoln, in response to an appeal made to him by many Christian men, in regard to the better observance of Sunday as a day of rest and religious devotion. "In revolutionary times," this reverence for the day can seldom be maintained in that strictness which is required even by human laws; but that a great improvement in this respect was practicable, could not be denied. The President's order on this subject, issued on the 16th of November, 1862, is one which deserves a perpetual remembrance. It is here subjoined:

The President, Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath, by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance, for man and beast, of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine will, demand that Sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity.

The discipline and character of the National forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. "At this time of public distress," adopting the words of Washington in 1776, "men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country, without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality." The first general order issued by the Father of his Country, after the Declaration of Independence, indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended: "The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country." ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The Thirty-seventh Congress convened, for its last session, on the first day of December, 1862. The annual message of the President was transmitted to both Houses on that day. In view of the marked events of the preceding season, this docu ment was looked for with unusual interest; nor was its favor

able reception aisproportioned to the public expectation. The material portions of this State paper are as follows:

MR. LINCOLN'S ANNUAL MESSAGE, 1862.

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: Since your last annual assembling, another year of health and bountiful harvests has passed, And, while it has not pleased the Almighty to bless us with a return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best light He gives us, trusting that, in His own good time, and wise way, all will yet be well.

If the condition of our relations with other nations is less gratifying than it has usually been at former periods, it is certainly more satisfactory than a nation so unhappily distracted as we are, maight reasonably have apprehended. In the month of June last there were some grounds to expect that the maritime powers which, at the beginning of our domestic difficulties, so unwisely and unnecessarily, as we think, recognized the insurgents as a belligerent, would soon recede from that position, which has proved only less injurious to themselves than to our own country. But the temporary reverses which afterward befell the National arms, and which were exaggerated by our own disloyal citizens abroad, have hitherto delayed that act of simple justice.

The civil war, which has so radically changed, for the moment, the occupations and habits of the American people, has necessarily disturbed the social condition, and affected very deeply the prosperity of the nations with which we have carried on a commerce that has been steadily increasing throughout a period of half a century. It has, at the same time, excited political ambitions and apprehensions which have produced a profound agitation throughout the civilized world. In this unusual agitation we have forborne from taking part in any controversy between foreign States, and between parties or factions in such States. We have attempted no propagandism, and acknowledged no revolution. But we have left to every nation the exclusive conduct and management of its own affairs. Our struggle has been, of course, contemplated by foreign nations with reference less to its own merits, than to its supposed, and often exaggerated, effects and consequences resulting to those nations themselves. Nevertheless, complaint on the part of this Government, even if it were just, would certainly he unwise.

The treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave-trade has been put into operation, with a good prospect