And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; 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, 1863, and of the independence of the United States the Eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President: 
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

BORDER SLAVE-STATE MESSAGE

Amendment to the National Constitution recommended by President Lincoln in his Message to Congress of December I, 1862.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled:  that the following articles be proposed to the Legislatures (or conventions) of the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures (or conventions) to be valid as parts of the said Constitution, namely: 

Article.—­Every State wherein Slavery now exists, which shall abolish the same therein, at any time or times before the 1st day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred, shall receive compensation from the United States as follows, to wit: 

(Then follows a provision to issue bonds of the United States Government, which shall be delivered to the States in amounts sufficient to compensate the owners of slaves within their jurisdictions for the loss of their slave property.)

Article.—­All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of the war, at any time before the end of the rebellion, shall be forever free; but all owners of such, who shall not have been disloyal, shall be compensated for them at the same rates as is provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way that no slave shall be twice accounted for.

Article.—­Congress may appropriate money and otherwise provide for colonizing free colored persons, with their own consent, at any place or places without the United States.

“PRAYER OF TWENTY MILLIONS”

On the 19th of August, 1862, Horace Greeley, under the above heading, addressed a letter to the President, which appeared over his signature in the New York Tribune of that date.  The conclusion of Mr. Greeley’s epistle was as follows: