And whereas the said insurrectionary portions of the Union consist exclusively of States wherein persons of African descent are held in large numbers to involuntary service or labor,—­the white inhabitants thereof basing their insurrectionary acts upon the assumption that the security and perpetuation of such involuntary servitude require the disruption of the national unity, and the establishment, on a portion of the domain of the United States, of a separate and independent government;

And whereas a large portion of the said persons of African descent, so held in servitude, contribute greatly, so long as such involuntary services are thus exacted from them, to the aid and comfort of the said insurrectionists, laboring for their behoof on their fortifications, and for the supply of their commissariat, and otherwise giving strength and support to various insurrectionary acts;

And whereas, in an emergency so urgent as that which is now patent to the world, it is the duty of the Congress to place at the disposal of the Executive branch of the Government, for the common defence, the utmost power, civil and military, of the country, and to employ every means not forbidden by the usages of civilized warfare, and not in violation of the Constitution, that is placed within their reach, in order to repress and to bring to a speedy termination the present protracted and desolating insurrection;

And whereas it appears from the above recitals, that the existence, throughout certain of the United States, of a labor-system which recognizes the claims of one race of men to the involuntary services of another race (always a moral wrong) has now shown itself to be destructive of the supremacy of the laws, and a constant menace to the Government, and that the continuance of such labor-system imminently jeopardizes the integrity of the Union, and has become incompatible with the domestic tranquillity of the country;

And whereas it has thus become evident that claims to the involuntary service or labor of persons of African descent ought not to be possessed by any inhabitant of the United States, but should, in the just exercise of the power which inheres in every independent government to protect itself from destruction by seizing and destroying any private property of its citizens or subjects which imperils its own existence, be taken, as for public use, from their present possessors, and abrogated and annulled,—­just compensation being made to so many of the said possessors of such claims as may demand it, and as may by their loyalty be entitled thereto, for the claims so abrogated and annulled; therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, that from and after the ——­ day of ——­ next all claims to the services or labor of persons of African descent, who shall then be held to involuntary service or labor in any of the States