PROCLAMATION OF AUGUST 16, 1861, PURSUANT TO ACT OF CONGRESS OF JULY
13, 1861.
Whereas, on the 15th day of April, the President of the United States,
in view of an insurrection against the laws and Constitution and
Government of the United States, which had broken out within the States
of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana,
and Texas, and in pursuance of the provisions of the Act entitled "An
Act to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the
Union, to suppress insurrection and repel invasion, and to repeal the
Act now in force for that purpose," approved February 18th, 1795, did
call forth the militia to suppress said insurrection and cause the laws
of the Union to be duly executed, and the insurgents having failed to
disperse by the time directed by the President, and--
Whereas such insurrection has since broken out and yet exists within
the States of Virginia and North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas,
and--
Whereas the insurgents in all of the said States claim to act under
authority thereof, and such claim is not disclaimed or repudiated by
the person exercising the functions of Government in each State or
States, or in the part or parts thereof in which combinations exist,
nor has such insurrection been suppressed by said States--
Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, in
pursuance of an Act of Congress passed July 13th, 1861, do hereby
declare that the inhabitants of the said States of Georgia, South
Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana,
Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida, except the inhabitants of
that part of the State of Virginia lying west of the Alleghany
Mountains, and of such other parts of that State and the other States
hereinbefore named as may maintain a loyal adhesion to the Union and
the Constitution, or may be, from time to time, occupied and controlled
by the forces engaged in the dispersion of said insurgents, are in a
state of insurrection against the United States, and that all
commercial intercourse between the same and the inhabitants thereof,
with the exception aforesaid, and the citizens of other States, and
other parts of the United States, is unlawful, and will remain unlawful
until such insurrection shall cease or has been suppressed; that all
goods and chattels, wares and merchandize, coming from any of the said
States, with the exceptions aforesaid, into other parts of the United
States, without a special license and permission of the President,
through the Secretary of the Treasury, or proceeding to any of the said
States, with the exceptions aforesaid, by land or water, together with
the vessel or vehicle conveying the same, or conveying persons to or
from States, with the said exceptions, will be forfeited to the United
States; and that, from and after fifteen days from the issue of this
proclamation, all ships and vessels belonging in whole or in part to
any citizen or inhabitant of any State, with the said exceptions, found
at sea, or in any port of the United States, will be forfeited to the
United States; and I hereby enjoin on all District Attorneys, Marshals,
and officers of the revenue and of the military and naval forces of the
United States, to be vigilant in the execution of said Act, and in the
enforcement of the penalties and forfeitures imposed or declared by it,
leaving any party who may think himself aggrieved thereby the right to
make application to the Secretary of the Treasury for the remission of
any penalty or forfeiture, which the said Secretary is authorized by
law to grant, if, in his judgment, the special circumstances of any
case shall require such remission.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed. Done in the City of Washington, this
16th day of August, in the year of our Lord 1861, and of the
independence of the United States the eighty-sixth.