Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the `United States, cordially concurring with the Congress of the United States, in the penitential and pious sentiments expressed in the aforesaid resolutions, and heartily approving of the devotional design and purpose thereof, do hereby appoint the first Thursday of August next to be observed by the people of the United States as a day of national humiliation and prayer.

I do hereby further invite and request the heads of the Executive Departments of this Government, together with all legislators, all judges and magistrates, and all other persons exercising authority in the land, whether civil, military, or naval, and all soldiers, seamen, and marines in the national service, and all other loyal and law-abiding people of the United States, to assemble in their preferred places of public worship on that day, and there to render to the Almighty and merciful Ruler of the Universe, such homage and such confessions, and to offer to Him such supplications as the Congress of the United States have, in their aforesaid resolution, so solemnly, so earnestly, and so reverently recommended.

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 seventh day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

Abraham Lincoln.

By the President
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Proclamation concerning A bill “To guarantee to certain states, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, A republican form of government,” And concerning reconstruction,

July 8, 1864.

By the president of the united states: 

A Proclamation.

Whereas at the late session Congress passed a bill “to guarantee to certain states whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a republican form of government,” a copy of which is hereunto annexed; and

Whereas, the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him; and

Whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration: