President’s Proclamation

WASHINGTON, May 19. – By the President of the United States of America. – A Proclamation.

Whereas there appears in the public prints, what purports to be a proclamation of Major General Hunter, and whereas, the same is producing some excitement and misunderstanding,

Therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, proclaim and declare that the government of the United States, had no knowledge, information, or belief, of an intention on the part of General Hunter, to issue such a proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that the document is genuine, and further, that neither General Hunter, nor any other commander or person, has been authorized by the Government of the United States, to make proclamation declaring the slaves of any State free, and that the supposed proclamation, now in question, whether genuine or false, is altogether void, so far as respects such declaration.

I further make known, that whether it be competent for me, as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the Slaves of any state or States free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintainance of the government, to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of policy regulations in armies and camps.

On the sixth day of February last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution, to be substantially as follows:

Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State in its discretion to compensate for the inconvenience, public and private, produced by such change of system.

The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definitive and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most immediately interested in the subject matter.

To the people of those states I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue ideas. I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You cannot if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging if it may be, far above personal and party politics – common cause for a common object – casting no reproaches.

The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past time, as in the providence of God, it is now your high previlege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be annexed.

Done at the City of Washington, this nineteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the 86th.

(Signed)

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WILLAM H. SEWARD, Sec’y of State.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 4