Whereas it has become necessary to define the cases in which insurgent
enemies are entitled to the benefits of the proclamation of the
President of the United States which was made on the 8th day of
December, 1863, and the manner in which they shall proceed to avail
themselves of those benefits; and
Whereas the objects of that proclamation were to suppress the
insurrection and to restore the authority of the United States; and
Whereas the amnesty therein proposed by the President was offered with
reference to these objects alone:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do
hereby proclaim and declare that the said proclamation does not apply to
the cases of persons who at the time when they seek to obtain the
benefits thereof by taking the oath thereby prescribed are in military,
naval, or civil confinement or custody, or under bonds, or on parole of
the civil, military, or naval authorities or agents of the United States
as prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind,
either before or after conviction, and that, on the contrary, it does
apply only to those persons who, being yet at large and free from any
arrest, confinement, or duress, shall voluntarily come forward and take
the said oath with the purpose of restoring peace and establishing the
national authority. Prisoners excluded from the amnesty offered in the
said proclamation may apply to the President for clemency, like all
other offenders, and their applications will receive due consideration.
I do further declare and proclaim that the oath prescribed in the
aforesaid proclamation of the 8th of December, 1863, may be taken and
subscribed before any commissioned officer, civil, military, or naval,
in the service of the United States or any civil or military officer of
a State or Territory not in insurrection who by the laws thereof may be
qualified for administering oaths. All officers who receive such oaths
are hereby authorized to give certificates thereon to the persons
respectively by whom they are made, and such officers are hereby
required to transmit the original records of such oaths at as early a
day as may be convenient to the Department of State, where they will be
deposited and remain in the archives of the Government. The Secretary of
State will keep a register thereof, and will on application, in proper
cases, issue certificates of such records in the customary form of
official certificates.
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, the 26th day of March,
A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-eighth.