782 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called 

 Confederate Government ; all who have left judicial 

 stations under the United States to aid the rebellion ; 

 all who are or shall have been military or uaral offi- 

 cers of said so-called Confederate Government above 

 the rank of colonel in the armv or lieutenant in the 

 navy ; all who left seats in the United States Congress 

 to aid the rebellion ; all who resigned commissions in 

 the army or navy of the United States and afterward 

 aided the rebellion ; and all who have engaged in any 

 way in treating colored persons, or white persons in 

 charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners 

 of war, and which persons may have been found in 

 the United States service as soldiers, seamen, or in 

 any other capacity. 



And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known 

 that whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, 

 Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, 

 Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a num- 

 ber of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of 

 the votes cast in such State at the Presidential election 

 of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred 

 and sixty, each having taken the oath aforesaid, and 

 not having since violated it, and being a qualified 

 voter by the election laws of the State existing imme- 

 diately before the so-called act of secession, and ex- 

 cluding all others, shall reestablish a State Govern- 

 ment which shall be republican, and in nowise contra- 

 vening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true 

 Government of the State, and the State shall receive 

 thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision 

 which declares that " the United States shall guarantee 

 to every State in this Union a republican form of gov- 

 ernment, and shall protect each of them against inva- 

 sion ; and, on application of the Legislature, or the 

 executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), 

 against domestic violence." 



And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, 

 that any provision which may be adopted by such 

 State Government in relation to the freed people of 

 such State, which shall recognize and declare their 

 permanent freedom, provide tor their education, and 

 which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrange- 

 ment with their present condition as a laboring, land- 

 less, homeless class, will not be objected to by the na- 

 tional executive. 



And it is suggested as not improper that, in con- 

 structing a loyal State Government in any State, the 

 name ot the "State, the boundary, the subdivisions, 

 the constitution, and the general code of laws, as be- 

 fore the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the 

 modifications made necessary by the conditions here- 

 inbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contra- 

 vening said conditions, and which may be deemed ex- 

 pedient by those framing the new State Government. 



To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to 

 say that this proclamation, so far as it relates to State 

 Governments, has no reference to States wherein loyal 

 State Governments have all the while been maintained. 

 And, for the same reason, it may be proper to further 

 say, that whether members sent to Congress from any 

 plate shall be admitted to seats constitutionally, rests 

 exclusively with the respective Houses, and not to any 

 extent with the executive. And still further, that this 

 proclamation is intended to present the people of the 

 States wherein the national authority has been sus- 

 pended, and loyal State Governments have been sub- 

 verted, a mode in and by which the national authority 

 and loyal State Governments may be reestablished 

 within said States, or in any of them ; and, while the 

 mode presented is the best the executive can suggest, 

 with his present impressions, it must not be under- 

 stood that no other possible mode would be acceptable. 



Given under my hand, at the City of Washington, 



the eighth day of December, A. D. one thou- 



[L. s.j sand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the 



Independence of the United States of America 



the eighty-eighth. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



By the President : 



WILLIAM H. SEWABD, Secretary of State. 



Message of JEFFERSON DAVIS at the Session of 

 the Confederate Congress commencing in Jan- 

 uary, 1863. 

 To the Senate and House of Reprefentativcs 



of the Confederate Slates ; 



At the date of your last adjournment the prepara- 

 tions of the enemy for further hostilities had assumed 

 so menacing an aspect as to excite in some minds ap- 

 prehension of our ability to meet them with sufficient 

 promptness to avoid serious reverses. These prepa- 

 rations were completed shortly after your departure 

 from the seat of government, and the armies of the 

 United States made simultaneous advances on our 

 frontiers, on the Western rivers, and on the Atlantic 

 coast, in masses so great as to evince their hope of 

 overbearing all resistance by mere weight of numbers. 

 This hope, however, like those previously entertained 

 by our foes, vanished. 



In Virginia, their fourth attempt at invasion by ar- 

 mies whose assured success was confidently predicted, 

 has met with decisive repulse. Our noble defenders, 

 under the consummate leadership of their General, 

 have again, at Fredericksburg, inflicted on the forces 

 under Gen. Burnside the like disastrous overthrow as 

 had been previously suffered by the successive invad- 

 ing armies commanded by Gens. McDowell, McClellan, 

 and Pope. 



In the West, obstinate battles have been fought with 

 varied fortunes, marked by frightful carnage on both 

 sides; but the enemy's hopes of decisive results have 

 again been baffled, while at Vicksburg another formi- 

 dable expedition has been repulsed, with inconsider- 

 able loss on our side and severe damage to the assail- 

 ing forces. 



On the Atlantic coast the enemy has been unable to 

 gain a footing beyond the protecting shelter of his 

 fleets, and the city of Galveston has just been recov- 

 ered by our forces, which succeeded not only in the 

 capture of the garrison, but of one of the enemy's ves- 

 sels of war, which was carried by boarding parties from 

 merchant river steamers. 



Our fortified positions have everywhere been much 

 strengthened and improved, affording assurance of our 

 ability to meet with success the utmost efforts of our 

 enemies, in spite of the magnitude of their prepara- 

 tions for attack. A review of our history of the two 

 years of our national existence affords ample cause for 

 congratulation, and demands the most fervent expres- 

 sion of our thankfulness to the Almighty Father who 

 has blessed our cause. We are justified in asserting, 

 with a pride surely not unbecoming, that these Con- 

 federate States have added another to the lessons 

 taught by history for the instruction of man, that they 

 have afforded another example of the impossibility of 

 subjugating a people determined to be free, and nave 

 demonstrated that no superiority of numbers or avail- 

 able resources can overcome the resistance offered by 

 such valor in combat, such constancy under suffering, 

 and such cheerful endurance of privation as have been 

 conspicuously displayed by this people in the defence 

 of their rights and liberties. The anticipations with 

 which we entered into the contest have now ripened 

 into a conviction, which is not only shared with us by 

 the common opinion of neutral nations, but is evidently 

 forcing itself upon our enemies themselves. If we but 

 mark the history of the present year by resolute per- 

 severance in the path we have hitherto pursued, by 

 vigorous effort in the development of all our resour- 

 ces for defence, and by the continued exhibition of the 

 same unfaltering courage in our soldiers and able con- 

 duct in their leaders, as have distinguished the past, 

 we have every reason to expect that this will be the 

 closing year of the war. 



The war, which in its inception was waged for for- 

 cing us back into the Union, having failed to accom- 

 plish that purpose, passed into a second stage, in which 

 it was attempted to conquer and rule these States as 

 dependent provinces. Defeated in this second design, 

 our enemies have evidently entered upon another, 

 which can have no other purpose than revenge, 



