authorities existing or found within the said State of Kentucky, to take notice of this proclamation and to give full effect to the same.  The martial laws herein proclaimed and the things in that respect herein ordered will not be deemed or taken to interfere with the holding of lawful elections, or with the proceedings of the constitutional Legislature of Kentucky, or with the administration of justice in the courts of law existing therein between citizens of the United States in suits or proceedings which do not affect the military operations or the constituted authorities of the government of the United States.

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 5th day of July, in the year of our Lord 1864, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President: 
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

PROCLAMATION FOR A DAY OF PRAYER, JULY 7, 1864.

By the president of the united states of America: 

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate and House of Representatives at their last session adopted a concurrent resolution, which was approved on the second day of July instant, and which `was in the words following, namely: 

That the President of the United States be requested to appoint a day of humiliation and prayer by the people of the United States, that he request his constitutional advisers at the head of the Executive Departments to unite with him, as Chief Magistrate of the nation, at the City of Washington, and the members of Congress, and all magistrates, all civil, military, and naval officers, all soldiers, sailors, and marines, with all loyal and law-abiding people, to convene at their usual places of worship, or wherever they may be, to confess and to repent of their manifold sins, to implore the compassion and forgiveness of the Almighty, that, if consistent with His will, the existing rebellion may be speedily suppressed, and the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United States may be established throughout all the States; to implore Him, as the Supreme Ruler of the world, not to destroy us as a people, nor suffer us to be destroyed by the hostility or connivance of other nations, or by obstinate adhesion to our own counsels which may be in conflict with His eternal, purposes, and to implore Him to enlighten the mind of the nation to know and do His will, humbly believing that it is in accordance with His will that our place should be maintained as a united people among the family of nations; to implore Him to grant to our armed defenders, and the masses of the people, that courage, power of resistance, and endurance necessary to secure that result; to implore Him in His infinite goodness to soften the hearts, enlighten the minds, and quicken the conscience of those in rebellion, that they may lay down their arms, and speedily return to their allegiance to the United States, that they may not be utterly destroyed, that the effusion of blood may be stayed, and that unity and fraternity may be restored, and peace established throughout all our borders.