Whereas there is too much reason to believe that citizens of the United
States, in disregard to the solemn warning heretofore given to them by
the proclamations issued by the Executive of the General Government and
by some of the governors of the States, have combined to disturb the
peace of the dominions of a neighboring and friendly nation; and
Whereas information has been given to me, derived from official and
other sources, that many citizens in different parts of the United
States are associated or associating for the same purpose; and
Whereas disturbances have actually broken out anew in different parts of
the two Canadas; and
Whereas a hostile invasion has been made by citizens of the United
States, in conjunction with Canadians and others, who, after forcibly
seizing upon the property of their peaceful neighbor for the purpose
of effecting their unlawful designs, are now in arms against the
authorities of Canada, in perfect disregard of their obligations as
American citizens and of the obligations of the Government of their
country to foreign nations:
Now, therefore, I have thought it necessary and proper to issue this
proclamation, calling upon every citizen of the United States neither to
give countenance nor encouragement of any kind to those who have thus
forfeited their claim to the protection of their country; upon those
misguided or deluded persons who are engaged in them to abandon projects
dangerous to their own country, fatal to those whom they profess a
desire to relieve, impracticable of execution without foreign aid, which
they can not rationally expect to obtain, and giving rise to imputations
(however unfounded) upon the honor and good faith of their own
Government; upon every officer, civil or military, and upon every
citizen, by the veneration due by all freemen to the laws which they
have assisted to enact for their own government, by his regard for the
honor and reputation of his country, by his love of order and respect
for the sacred code of laws by which national intercourse is regulated,
to use every effort in his power to arrest for trial and punishment
every offender against the laws providing for the performance of our
obligations to the other powers of the world. And I hereby warn all
those who have engaged in these criminal enterprises, if persisted in,
that, whatever may be the condition to which they may be reduced, they
must not expect the interference of this Government in any form on their
behalf, but will be left, reproached by every virtuous fellow-citizen,
to be dealt with according to the policy and justice of that Government
whose dominions they have, in defiance of the known wishes of their own
Government and without the shadow of justification or excuse,
nefariously invaded.
[SEAL.]
Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 21st day of
November, A.D. 1838, and the sixty-third of the Independence of the
United States.