Whereas it has become necessary to call into service not only
volunteers, but also portions of the militia of the States by draft in
order to suppress the insurrection existing in the United States, and
disloyal persons are not adequately restrained by the ordinary processes
of law from hindering this measure and from giving aid and comfort in
various ways to the insurrection:
Now, therefore, be it ordered, first, that during the existing
insurrection, and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all
rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United
States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting
militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and
comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States, shall be
subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment by
courts-martial or military commissions; second, that the writ of _habeas
corpus_ is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now
or hereafter during the rebellion shall be imprisoned in any fort, camp,
arsenal, military prison, or other place of confinement by any military
authority or by the sentence of any court-martial or military
commission.
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 24th day of September, A.D. 1862,
and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.