It is to be understood, however, that the blockade thus rescinded was an international measure for the purpose of protecting the sovereign rights of the United States.  The greater or less subversion of civil authority in the region to which it applied and the impracticability of at once restoring that in due efficiency may for a season make it advisable to employ the Army and Navy of the United States toward carrying the laws into effect wherever such employment may be necessary.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 23d day of June, A.D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-ninth.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

By the President: 
  W. HUNTER,
    Acting Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it has been the desire of the General Government of the United States to restore unrestricted commercial intercourse between and in the several States as soon as the same could be safely done in view of resistance to the authority of the United States by combinations of armed insurgents; and

Whereas that desire has been shown in my proclamations of the 29th of
April, 1865, the 13th of June, 1865, and the 23d of June, 1865; and

Whereas it now seems expedient and proper to remove restrictions upon internal, domestic, and coastwise trade and commercial intercourse between and within the States and Territories west of the Mississippi River: 

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do hereby declare that all restrictions upon internal, domestic, and coastwise intercourse and trade and upon the purchase and removal of products of States and parts of States and Territories heretofore declared in insurrection, lying west of the Mississippi River (excepting only those relating to property heretofore purchased by the agents or captured by or surrendered to the forces of the United States and to the transportation thereto or therein on private account of arms, ammunition, all articles from which ammunition is made, gray uniforms, and gray cloth), are annulled; and I do hereby direct that they be forthwith removed, and also that the commerce of such States and parts of States shall be conducted under the supervision of the regularly appointed officers of the customs, [who] shall receive any captured and abandoned property that may be turned over to them under the law by the military or naval forces of the United States and dispose of the same in accordance with instructions on the subject issued by the Secretary of the Treasury.

In testimony 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 24th day of June, A.D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-ninth.