Annotation
[1] AES, owned by Perc S. Brown, Newark, New Jersey. Lincoln's endorsement is written on a memorial from S. Peck of the Baptist Home Mission Society, September 26, 1862, asking that ``the beneficent labors'' of ministers assigned by the Society to work with freedmen in and near Port Royal, South Carolina, ``be suffered to proceed without unnecessary interference; that no religious test or question will be applied ab extra to such persons, as conditional to their admission to or continuance on the islands;---that the churches & congregations spoken of will be allowed to assemble & worship as heretofore in their respective meetinghouses without `let or hindrance,' except as the use of the said houses shall be imperatively required by military exigencies;---especially, that no measure, designedly or unwittingly, will be suffered to infringe on the internal economy of the churches, but the rights of conscience, in matters of purely religious faith & practice, be held inviolate. . . .'' No reply from Stanton has been found.