Whereas it is claimed by and in behalf of persons of foreign birth within the ages specified in said act, who have heretofore declared on oath their intentions to become citizens under and in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and who have not exercised the right of suffrage or any other political franchise under the laws of the United States, or of any of the States thereof, that they are not absolutely concluded by their aforesaid declaration of intention from renouncing their purpose to become citizens, and that, on the contrary, such persons under treaties or the law of nations retain a right to renounce that purpose and to forego the privileges of citizenship and residence within the United States under the obligations imposed by the aforesaid act of Congress: 

Now, therefore, to avoid all misapprehensions concerning the liability of persons concerned to perform the service required by such enactment, and to give it full effect, I do hereby order and proclaim that no plea of alienage will be received or allowed to exempt from the obligations imposed by the aforesaid act of Congress any person of foreign birth who shall have declared on oath his intention to become a citizen of the United States under the laws thereof, and who shall be found within the United States at any time during the continuance of the present insurrection and rebellion, at or after the expiration of the period of sixty-five days from the date of this proclamation; nor shall any such plea of alienage be allowed in favor of any such person who has so, as aforesaid, declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and shall have exercised at any time the right of suffrage, or any other political franchise, within the United States, under the laws thereof, or under the laws of any of the several States.

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 eighth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

Abraham Lincoln.

By the President: 
William H. Seward

TELEGRAM TO GENERAL J. HOOKER.

Washington, D. C. May 8, 1863. 4 P.M.

Major-general Hooker: 

The news is here of the capture by our forces of Grand Gulf—­a large and very important thing.  General Willich, an exchanged prisoner just from Richmond, has talked with me this morning.  He was there when our cavalry cut the roads in that vicinity.  He says there was not a sound pair of legs in Richmond, and that our men, had they known it, could have safely gone in and burned everything and brought in Jeff Davis.  We captured and paroled 300 or 400 men.  He says as he came to City Point there was an army three miles long (Longstreet’s, he thought) moving toward Richmond.