NEWS OF 150 YEARS AGO
September 1862
From The Missouri Democrat, Tuesday, September 23, 1862.
FREEDOM INSCRIBED ON OUR BANNER.
“Revolutions Never Go Backward.”
PROCLAMATION BY THE PRESIDENT.
FREEDOM TO SLAVES IN REBELLIOUS STATES.
Fremont’s Policy Triumphant.
“THE YEAR OF JUBILEE HAS COME.”
A PROCLAMATION.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22.—By the President of the United States of America: 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 before, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United 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 for the free acceptance or rejection of all the 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 the immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits, and that the efforts to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon the continent or elsewhere with the previously obtained consent of the Government existing there, will be continued.
That on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or any designated parts of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, SHALL THEN BE 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, or any of them, in the efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
That the Executive will, on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation designate the States and parts of States 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 wherever a majority of the qualified voter 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 have not been 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, which act is in the words and figures following:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 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 1st. 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 person, 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.
Article 2d. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage.
Also, to the 9th and 19th section of an act entitled an act to suppress insurrection and to punish treason and rebellion; to seize and confiscate property of rebels and other purpose, approved July 17th, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following:
Sec. 9. And that it be 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, and escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the line 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 on or being within any place 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 serve as slaves.
Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any slave territory, or the District of Columbia, from any of the States, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime or some offense against the law, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make an oath that the person to whom the labor or servitude of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not been in arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid or 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 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 thereof 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 relations between the United States and the respective States and the people thereof wherein the 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 thereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this 22d 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:
W. H SEWARD, Secretary of State.