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By the President of the
United States of America
A Proclamation.
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prossecuted 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,2Jump to section may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with3Jump to section their consent, upon this continent, or elsewhere, with4Jump to section 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 authority thereof, will5Jump to section 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.
That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled ``An act to make an additional Article of War'' approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following:6Jump to section
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:7Jump to section
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 offence 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 any way given aid and comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender 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 time8Jump to section 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.
L.S.
In9Jump to section 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 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
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
[1] ADS, N; DS, DNA FS RG 11, Proclamations. The autograph proclamation in the New York State Library was presented by Lincoln to the Albany Army Relief Bazaar held in February and March, 1864, where it was purchased by Gerrit Smith for $1,100 and given to the U.S. Sanitary Commission, whence it was purchased again for $1,000 in April, 1865, by the State of New York for the State Library. A letter of transmittal from Frederick W. Seward to Mrs. Emily W. Barnes, January 4, 1864, correctly describes the body of the document as being in Lincoln's own handwriting, the pencilled additions in the hand of the Secretary of State, and the formal beginning and ending, in the hand of the chief clerk.'' Seward's emendations as well as other peculiarities of the document are indicated in succeeding footnotes.
From Lincoln's original the engrossed copy in the National Archives was made and an official printing was issued by the State Department accompanied by a Circular from Secretary Seward to Diplomatic and Consular officers. A copy of this Circular printing is preserved in the Lincoln Papers bearing Lincoln's endorsement ``Preliminary Proclamation from which a scrap was cut to paste onto the final one.'' The ``scrap'' cut away comprised paragraphs three and four of the Preliminary Proclamation, incorporated as paragraphs two and three of the Final Proclamation January 1, 1863, infra.
The purported facsimile of the original document which appears in Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, and which has been referred to as a forgery (Charles Eberstadt, ``Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation,'' The New Colophon, 1950, pp. 312-56), is not reliable in detail, but appears to have been made from the original by a tracing process rather than by photography, and presents the passages which appear in the original as clippings from the official printings of the acts referred to, in type face and line length which do not correspond to the clippings themselves.
The history of the original document, prior to the cabinet meeting on September 22 at which Lincoln presented it, is somewhat obscure, except for the notation in Hay's Diary on September 23 that ``The President rewrote the Proclamation on Sunday morning carefully.'' This may be interpreted to mean that Lincoln rewrote directly from the draft of July 22 (supra), or that he rewrote from an intervening draft in more or less complete form. If the latter possibility is the case, the intervening draft has not been found. Later accounts of the writing of the Preliminary Proclamation are reminiscent and unreliable in detail (see George S. Boutwell, The Lawyer, the Statesman, and the Soldier, 1887, pp. 116-17). The full reports of the cabinet meeting on September 22 as recorded in the diaries of Chase and Welles are too long for reproduction here, but should be consulted by anyone interested in the reaction of the several members to Lincoln's announcement that he had made up his mind to issue the Proclamation forthwith.
[2] ``And'' inserted and deleted at this point not in Lincoln's handwriting.
[3] ``With their consent'' inserted by Seward.
[4] ``With the previously obtained consent of the Governments existing there'' inserted by Seward.
[5] At this point, following a suggestion of Seward concurred in by Chase and other members at the cabinet meeting, Lincoln deleted and revised his original phrasing, which read as follows: ``will, during the continuance in office of the present incumbent, recognize such persons, as being free, and will'' etc.
[6] A clipping from the official printing of the act is pasted on the page of Lincoln's autograph document.
[7] This quotation is also in the form of a clipping from the official printing.
[8] ``In due time'' is inserted in handwriting not Lincoln's, to replace ``at the next session of Congress,'' which had been inserted by the chief clerk at this point.
[9] The remainder, including signatures, is in the hand of the clerk.