726 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



sons 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 lilies of the army; and all slaves 

 captured from nuch persons, or deserted by them and com- 

 ing 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. 



SKO. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escap- 

 ing 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 pre- 

 tence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the 

 claim of any person to the service or labor of any other per- 

 son, 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 re- 

 spective 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 re- 

 mained 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 

 [SEAL.] 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. 



Message of President LINCOLN at the third 

 session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, Dec. 

 1, 1862. 



Fellow Citizens of the Senate and 



Since your last annual assembling another year of 

 health and bountiful harvests has passed. And while 

 it has not pleased the Almighty to bless us with a re- 

 turn of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best 

 light he gives us, trusting that, in his own good time 

 and wise way, all will yet be well. 



The correspondence touching foreign affairs which 

 has taken place during the last year is herewith sub- 

 mitted, in virtual compliance with a request to that ef- 

 fect made by the House of Representatives near the 

 close of the last session of Congress. 



If the condition of our relations with other nations 

 is less gratifying than it has usually been at former 

 periods, it is certainly more satisfactory than a nation 

 so unhappily distracted as we are might reasonably 

 have apprehended. In the month of June last there 

 were some grounds to expect that the maritime Pow- 

 ers which, at the beginning of our domestic difficulties, 

 so unwisely and unnecessarily, as we think, recognized 

 the insurgents as a belligerent, would soon recede from 

 that position, which has proved only less injurious to 

 themselves than to our own country. But the temporary 

 reverses which afterward befell the national arms, and 

 which were exaggerated by our own disloyal citizens 

 abroad, have hitherto delayed that act of simple justice. 



The civil war which has so radically changed, for 

 the moment, the occupations and habits of the Ameri- 



can people, has necessarilly disturbed the social con- 

 dition, and affected very deeply the prosperity of the 

 nations with which we have carried on a commerce 

 that has been steadily increasing throughout a period 

 of half a century. It has, at the same time, excited 

 political ambitions and apprehensions which have pro- 

 duced a profound agitation throughout the civilized 

 world. In this unusual agitation we have forborne 

 from taking part in any controversy between foreign 

 states, and between parties or factions in such states. 

 We have attempted no propagandism, and acknowl- 

 edged no revolution. But we have left to every nation 

 the exclusive conduct and management of its own af- 

 fairs. Our struggle has been, of course, contemplated 

 by foreign nations with reference less to its own mer- 

 its, than to its supposed and often exaggerated effects 

 and consequences resulting to those nations themselves. 

 Nevertheless, complaint on the part of this Government, 

 even if it were just, would certainly be unwise. 



The treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of 

 the slave trade has been put into operation with a good 

 prospect of complete success. It is an occasion of 

 special pleasure to acknowledge that the execution of 

 it, on 'the part of her Majesty's Government, has been 

 marked with a jealous respect for the authority of the 

 United States and the rights of their moral and loyal 

 citizens. 



The convention with Hanover for the abolition of the 

 stade dues has been carried into full effect, under the 

 act of Congress for that purpose. 



A blockade of three thousand miles of seacoast could 

 not be established and vigorously enforced, in a season 

 of great commercial activity like the present, without 

 committing occasional mistakes, and inflicting uninten- 

 tional injuries upon foreign nations and their subjects. 



A civil war occurring in a country where foreigners 

 reside and carry on trade under treaty stipulations is 

 necessarily fruitful of complaints of the violation of 

 neutral rights. All such collisions tend to excite mis- 

 apprehensions, and possibly to produce mutual rec- 

 lamations between nations which have a common in- 

 terest in preserving peace and friendship. In clear 

 cases of these kinds I have, so far as possible, heard 

 and redressed complaints which have been presented 

 by friendly Powers. There is still, however, a large 

 and an augmenting number of doubtful cases upon 

 which the Government is unable to agree with the Gov- 

 ernments whose protection is demanded by the claim- 

 ants. There are, moreover, many cases in which the 

 United States, or their citizens, suffer wrongs from the 

 naval or military authorities of foreign nations, which 

 the Governments of these states are not at once prepar- 

 ed to redress. I have proposed to some of the foreign 

 states thus interested, mutual conventions to examine 

 and adjust such complaints. This proposition has been 

 made especially to Great Britain, to France, to Spain, 

 and to Prussia. In each case it has been kindly re- 

 ceived, but has not yet been formally adopted. 



I deem it my duty to recommend an appropriation in 

 behalf of the owners of the Norwegian bark Admiral 

 P. Tordenskiold, which vessel was, in May, 1861, pre- 

 vented by the commander of the blockading force off 

 Charleston from leaving that port with cargo, notwith- 

 standing a similar privilege had, shortly before, been 

 granted to an English vessel. I have directed the Sec- 

 retary of State to cause the papers in the case to be 

 communicated to the proper committees. 



Applications have been made to me by many free 

 Americans of African descent to favor their emigration, 

 with a view to such colonization as was contemplated 

 in recent acts of Congress. Other parties, at home and 

 abroad some from interested motives, others upon pa- 

 triotic considerations, and still others influenced by 

 philanthropic sentiments have suggested similar 

 measures; while, on the other hand, several of the 

 Spanish- American Republics have protested against the 

 sending of such colonies to their respective territories. 

 Under these circumstances I have declined to move 

 any such colony to any state without first obtaining 

 the consent of its Government, with an agreement on 

 its part to receive and protect such emigrants in all the 



