Whereas there appears in the public prints what purports to be a
proclamation of Major-General Hunter, in the words and figures
following, to wit:
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH,
_Hilton Head, S.C., May 9, 1862_.
_General Orders, No. 11_.--The three States of Georgia, Florida, and
South Carolina, comprising the Military Department of the South, having
deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the
United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said
United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under
martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862.
Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible;
the persons in these three States--Georgia, Florida, and South
Carolina--heretofore held as slaves are therefore declared forever free.
DAVID HUNTER,
_Major-General Commanding_.
Official:
ED. W. SMITH,
_Acting Assistant Adjutant-General_.
And whereas the same is producing some excitement and misunderstanding:
Therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, proclaim
and declare that the Government of the United States had no knowledge,
information, or belief of an intention on the part of General Hunter to
issue such a proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that
the document is genuine; and, further, that neither General Hunter nor
any other commander or person has been authorized by the Government of
the United States to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any
State free, and that the supposed proclamation now in question, whether
genuine or false, is altogether void so far as respects such
declaration.
I further make known that whether it be competent for me, as Commander
in Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any State or
States free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have become
a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to
exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my
responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified
in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally
different questions from those of police regulations in armies and
camps.
On the 6th day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to
Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as
follows:
_Resolved_, That the United States ought to cooperate with any State
which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State
pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to
compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such
change of system.
The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large
majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic,
definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people
most immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of
those States I now earnestly appeal--I do not argue; I beseech you to
make the arguments for yourselves; you can not, if you would, be blind
to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged
consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and
partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object,
casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it
contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or
wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been
done by one effort in all past time as, in the providence of God, it is
now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament
that you have neglected it.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
[SEAL.]
Done at the city of Washington, this 19th day of May, A.D. 1862, and of
the Independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.