January 1, 2013
Today is the sesquicentennial of the enactment of the Emancipation
Proclamation:
By the President of the United States
of America:
A Proclamation.
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of
September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a
proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing,
among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the first day of January,
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons
held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then,
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, and will do no act or acts to repress
such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual
freedom.
"That the Executive will, on the
first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts
of States, if any, 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 wherein a majority of
the qualified voters 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, are not then in rebellion against the
United States."
Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army
and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the
authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war
measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in
accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of
one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as
the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are
this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the
Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St.
James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and
Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight
counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley,
Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk,
including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts,
are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the
purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves
within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall
be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the
military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom
of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so
declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary
self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they
labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known,
that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed
service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other
places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed
to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military
necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor
of Almighty God.
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
first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the
eighty-seventh.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
Yet, even now there is bitter hatred in this country, in
this state, in central Michigan among the spindle-twisted, synaptic-deficient
bigots for those with more melanin than they possess.
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