GENERAL ORDERS No. 139.
WAR DEPT., ADJT.
GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Washington, September
24, 1862.
The following proclamation by the President is published for
the information and government of the Army and all concerned:
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 prosecuted
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 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, with their consent,
upon this continent or elsewhere, with 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, 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.
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 figures following:
"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:
"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
afterward 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 offense 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 pretense 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 time 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.
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 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.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
By order of the Secretary of War:
L. THOMAS,
Adjutant-General.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume
2 (Serial No. 123), p. 594-5
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