BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas, at the late session Congress passed a bill to
"guarantee certain States, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government," a copy of which is hereunto
annexed;
And whereas, the said bill was presented to the President of
the United States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die
adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him;
And whereas, the said bill contains, among other things, a
plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation
in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and
which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their
consideration:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, do proclaim, declare, and make known that, while I am (as I was in
December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration)
unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any
single plan of restoration; and while I am also unprepared to declare that the
free State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in
Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby
repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to
further effort, or to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to
abolish slavery in States, but am at the same time sincerely hoping and
expecting that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the
Nation may be adopted, nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for
restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people
of any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times shall be,
prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people, so soon
as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in
any such State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their
obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in which cases
military Governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to
the bill.
In testimony 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 eighth day of July, in
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the
Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.
[L. S.]
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series III, Volume
4 (Serial No. 125), p. 477-8
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