1854. 1855. 1858. 1858. 1861. 1863. question, and so in 1865, the Free Presbyterians again united with the Old General convention of the Christian Church adopted resolutions concern- Division in the Protestant Church, the Northern and Southern wings sepa- The synods and assemblies of the New School of the Presbyterian Church EMANCIPATION PRELIMINARY PROCLAMATION OF EMANICIPATION. I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter as heretofore the war will be persecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States and each of the States, and the people thereof, in which States that relation is or may be suspended or disturbed. That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there, will be continued. That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January, aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States. That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled "An Act to Make an Additional Article of War," approved March 13th, 1862, and which act is in the words and figures following: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and and observed as such: Section 1. All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands, for the purposes of returning fugitives from service to labor who may have escaped from any persons whom such service of labor is claimed to be due; and any officer who shall be found guilty, by a court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service. Sec. 2. And be it urther enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage. Also, in the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled "An Act to Suppress Insurrection, to Punish Treason and Rebellion, to Seize and Confiscate property of Rebels and for other Purposes," approved July 16, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures following Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves or persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them and coming under the control of the Government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found on (or) being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves. Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or District of Columbia, from any other State, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offense against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due, is the lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and comfort thereto and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall under any pretense whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service. And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States, to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and sections above recited. And the Executive will, in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States and their respective States, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by the acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. By the President: William H. Seward, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. EMANICIPATION PROCLAMATION. Whereas, on the 22nd any of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing among other things, the following, to wit: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any States or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, henceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January, aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof respectively shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States. Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and Government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States, wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: 'Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemine, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, As cension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, North Hampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are, for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. "And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States, are and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said per sons. "And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed' they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. "And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable conditions will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, position, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. "In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord 1863, and of the independence of the United States the 87th. By the President: William H. Seward, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 13th AMENDMENT TO CONSTITUTION. Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Adopted December 18, 1865. FREEDMEN'S BUREAU. Congress on March the 3rd, 1865, established the "Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands." This Bureau was in the War Department and was to be maintained through the war and one year thereafter. It had the supervision and management of all abandoned lands and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen. The President was authorized to appropriate for the use of freedmen the confiscated and abandoned lands within the Southern States. Not more than forty acres, however, for a period not longer than three years, were to be assigned to each freedman thus aided. Provisions, fuel and clothing were distributed free to destitute freedmen and loyal refugees. The administration of the Bureau was placed in the hands of a chief commissioner, General Oliver O. Howard. July 16, 1866, Congress extended for two years the Bureau's statutory life. At the same time the powers of the Bureau were increased. Confederate public property was authorized to be sold for educational purposes. The Bureau was given military jurisdiction over infringement of civil rights. In June, 1868, second bill was passed extending the term of the Bureau for one year in un-reconstructed States. January 1, 1869, the work of the Bureau, excepting educational, ended. This was concluded in 1870. (See below under Education.) Over $20,000,000 was expended by the Bureau. When the Bureau was discontinued, $200,000 of its funds were unexpended. A recent bill introduced in Congress proposed to use this money for the erection, in the District of Columbia, of a home for aged and infirm colored persons. REFERENCES: Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard; Report of the Freedmen's Bureau, Executive Documents of the House of Representatives, 1869; Williams History of the Negro; Freedmen's Bureau, Atlantic Monthly, Volume LXXXVII, Boston, 1901; and Washington, Story of the Negro. FREE AND SLAVE NEGRO POPULATION 1790 TO 1860 TOTAL NEGROES, FREE AND SLAVE, BY STATES, 1860. NUMBER AND PER CENT OF INCREASE OF FREE AND SLAVE NE- COUNTRIES The Census Bureau estimates that the value of the slaves in the Southern States in 1860 amounted to $1,500,000,000. (See abstract of special bulletin, "Wealth, Debt and Taxation 1913," page 10.) DATE OF THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN VARIOUS AMERICAN THE NEGRO AND CIVIL RIGHTS. Status Free Negro At Beginning The Civil War. Questions relative to the political and civil status of Free Negroes became prominent in 1862. United States Attorney General Bates, in an elaborate opinion, concerning the right of a Negro to be master of a vessel, engaged in the coasting trade, ruled that free persons without distinction of race or color if native born, were citizens. He then distinguished between the inherent rights of citizens and the political privileges of certain classes. "All citizens," he said, "have a right to protection, but only certain classes enjoy the privilege of voting and holding office. A child or a woman is a citizen, though not always privileged to vote or hold office." For the purpose of drafting soldiers, Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, ordered Negroes as well as whites to be enrolled. The attorney general of the State justified the order on the ground that "Congress and the War Department both leave out the word white from the description of the class to be enrolled." In contrast to the above it was decided in Illinois that Negroes were not citizens. One W. C. Lowry had contracted with the trustees of a certain school district in Montgomery County of that State to teach their school. The trustees were enjoined from paying Lowery on the ground that he was one-fourth Negro. The court in rendering its decision, sustaining the injunction said, "The Constitution of this State, and the statutes adopted in pursuance thereto, forbid the migration to and settlement in this State of such persons. They are forbidden to vote, sit upon juries, hold offices, and to testify in cases where white persons are parties. In June of 1862 the electors of the State of Illinois voted upon the adoption of a new constitution. The results with reference to that part relating to Negroes were as follows: For the continued exclusion from the State of Negroes and mulattoes, a majority of 100,000; against granting the right of suffrage or to hold office to Negroes or mulattoes, a majority of 176,000. Senator John Sherman, of Ohio, in a speech in Congress, said: "The Negro race is looked upon by the people of Ohio as a class to be kept by themselves, to be debarred of social intercourse with the whites, to be deprived of all advantages which they cannot enjoy in common with their own class. They have always been deprived of the elective franchise in this State, and no party among our citizens has ever contemplated that they should be given the right of citizenship and for aught that appears to the contrary, the colored man in Ohio will not, in all future time that he may remain an inhabitant of the State, attain any material improvement in the socal or political rights over what he now enjoys. REFERENCES: Annual Cyclopedia 1862, pp. 752, 753, 754. Emancipation Proclamation Gives Freedmen Status Free Negroes. With the close of the Civil War and the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment all the slaves in the South become free. Between 1865 and 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, numerous black laws were passed by the legislatures of the Southern States to control the Freedmen who were considered to have the same status as the Free Negroes of ante-bellum days. The constitution of Mississippi, as amended August 1, 1865, abolished slavery and gave the legislature power to make laws for the protection and security of the persons and property of the freedmen and to protect "them and the State against any evils that may arise from their sudden emancipation. |