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A COMPILATION
MESSAGES AND PAPERS
PRESIDENTS
I 789-1897
JAMES D. RICHARDSON
A Representative from the State of Tennessee
VOLUME VI
PUBLISHED BY
AUTHORITY OF CONGRESS
1899
Copyright, 1897, by James D. Richardson.
Prefatory Note
The Presidential papers during the period from March 4, 1861, to
March 4, 1869, are contained in this volume. No other period of Ameri-
can history since the Revolution comprises so many events of surpassing
importance. The Administrations of Presidents lyincoln and Johnson
represent two distinct epochs. That of Abraham Lincoln was dedicated
to the successful prosecution of the most stupendous war of modern
times, while that of Andrew Johnson was dedicated to the reestablish-
ment of peace and the restoration of the Union as it had existed prior
to the war. Strange to say, it fell to the lot of the kind-hearted humani-
tarian, who loved peace and his fellow-man, to wage the bloody conflict
of civil war, and the more aggressive, combative character directed the
affairs of the Government while the land took upon itself the conditions
of peace. Yet who can say that each was not best suited for his par-
ticular sphere of action ? A greater lover of his kind has not filled the
office of President since Thomas Jefferson, and no public servant ever
left with the people a gentler memory than Abraham Lincoln. A more
self-willed and determined Chief Executive has not held that office since
Andrew Jackson, and no public servant ever left with the people a higher
character for honesty, integrity, and sincerity of purpose and action than
Andrew Johnson. The life of each of these two great men had been a
series of obscure but heroic struggles; each had experienced a varied
and checkered career; each reached the highest political station of earth.
Their official state papers are of supreme interest, and comprise the utter-
ances of President Lincoln while he in four years placed in the field nearly
three millions of soldiers; what he said when victories were won or when
his armies went down in defeat; what treasures of blood and money it
cost to triumph; also, the utterances of President Johnson as he through
his eventful term waged the fiercest political battle of our country's his-
tory in his efforts, along his own lines, for the restoration of peace and
the reunion of the States.
rv Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Interesting papers relating to the death and funeral obsequies of Presi-
dent lyincoln have been inserted, as also the more important papers and
proceedings connected with the impeachment of President Johnson.
Much time and labor have been expended in the compilation of this
volume — more than on any one of the preceding — to the end that all
papers of importance that could be found should be published; and I feel
sure that no other collection of Presidential papers is so thorough and
complete.
The perusal of these papers should enkindle within the heart of every
citizen of the American Republic, whether he fought on the one side or
the other in that unparalleled struggle, or whether he has come upon the
scene since its closing, a greater love of country, a greater devotion to
the cause of true liberty, and an undying resolve that all the blessings
of a free government and the fullest liberty of the individual shall be
perpetuated.
JAMBS D. RICHARDSON.
November 25, 1897.
Abraham Lincoln
March 4, 1861, to April IB, 186B
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham lyiNCOi^N was bom in Hardin County, Ky., February 12,
1809. His earliest ancestor in America was Samuel lyincoln, of Norwich,
England, who settled in Hingham, Mass. , where he died, leaving a son,
Mordecai, whose son of the same name removed to Monmouth, N. J.,
and thence to Berks County, Pa., where he died in 1735. One of his
sons, John, removed to Rockingham County, Va. , and died there, leaving
five sons, one of whom, named Abraham, emigrated to Kentucky about
1780. About 1784 he was killed by Indians, leaving three sons, Morde-
cai, Josiah, and Thomas, and two daughters. Their mother then located
in Washington County, Ky., and there brought up her family. The
youngest son, Thomas, learned the trade of a carpenter, and in 1806 mar-
ried Nancy Hanks, a niece of the man with whom he learned his trade.
Thej^ had three children, the second being Abraham, the future President
of the United States. In 18 16 Thomas Lincoln removed to Indiana, and
settled on Little Pigeon Creek, not far distant from the Ohio River, where
Abraham grew to manhood. He made the best use of his limited oppor-
tunities to acquire an education and at the same time prepare himself for
business. At the age of 19 years he was intrusted with a cargo of farm
products, which he took to New Orleans and sold. In 1830 his father
again emigrated, and located in Macon County, 111. Abraham by this
time had attained the unusual stature of 6 feet 4 inches, and was of
great muscular strength; joined with his father in building his cabin,
clearing the field, and splitting the rails for fencing the farm. It was
not long, however, before his father again changed his home, locating
this time in Coles County, where he died in 185 1 at the age of 73 years.
Abraham left his father as soon as his farm was fenced and cleared and
hired himself to a man named Denton Offutt, in Sangamon County, whom
he assisted to build a flatboat; accompanied him to New Orleans on a
trading voyage and returned with him to New Salem, Menard County,
where Offutt opened a store for the sale of general merchandise. Mr.
Lincoln remained with him for a time, during which he employed his
leisure in constant reading and study. Learned the elements of English
3
4 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
grammar and made a beginning in the study of surveying and the prin-
ciples of law. But the next year an Indian war began, and lyincoln vol-
unteered in a company raised in Sangamon County and was immediately
elected captain. His company was organized at Richland April 21, 1832 ;
but his service in command of it was brief, for it was mustered out on May
27. Mr. I^incoln immediately reenlisted as a private and served for sev-
eral weeks, being finally mustered out on June 16, 1832, by Lieutenant
Robert Anderson, who afterwards commanded Fort Sumter at the begin-
ning of the civil war. He returned to his home and made a brief but
active canvass for the legislature, but was defeated. At this time he
thought seriously of learning the blacksmith's trade, but an opportunity
was offered him to buy a store, which he did, giving his notes for the
purchase money. He was unfortunate in his selection of a partner, and
the business soon went to wreck, leaving him burdened with a heavy debt,
which he finally paid in full. He then applied himself earnestly to the
study of the law. Was appointed postmaster of New Salem in 1833, and
filled the ofl&ce for three years. At the same time was appointed deputy
county surveyor. In 1834 was elected to the legislature, and was reelected
in 1836, 1838, and 1840, after which he declined further election. In his
last two terms he was the candidate of his party for the speakership of
the house of representatives. In 1837 amoved to Springfield, where he
entered into partnership with John T. Stuart and began the practice
of the law. November 4, 1842, married Miss Mary Todd, daughter of
Robert S. Todd, of Kentucky. In 1846 was elected to Congress over
Rev. Peter Cartwright. Served only one term, and was not a candidate
for reelection. While a member he advocated the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia. Was an unsuccessful applicant for Commis-
sioner of the General I^and Office under President Taylor; was tendered
the office of governor of Oregon Territory, which he declined. Was an
able and influential exponent of the principles of the Whig party in
Illinois, and did active campaign work. Was voted for by the Whig
minority in the State legislature for United States Senator in 1855. As
soon as the Republican party was fully organized throughout the coun-
try he became its leader in Illinois. In 1858 he was chosen by his party
to oppose Stephen A. Douglas for the Senate, and challenged him to
a joint debate. The challenge was accepted, and a most exciting de-
bate followed, which attracted national attention. The legislature chosen
was favorable to Mr. Douglas, and he was elected. In May, i860, when
the Republican convention met in Chicago, Mr. Lincoln was nominated
for the Presidency, on the third ballot, over William H. Seward, who
was his principal competitor. Was elected on November 6, receiving 180
electoral votes to 72 for John C. Breckinridge, 39 for John Bell, and 12
for Stephen A. Douglas. Was inaugurated March 4, 1861. On June 8,
1864, was unanimously renominated for the Presidency by the Repub-
lican convention at Baltimore, and at the election in November received
Abraham Lincoln 5
212 electoral votes to 21 for General McClellan. Was inaugurated for his
second term March 4, 1865. Was shot by an assassin at Ford's Theater,
in Washington, April 14, 1865, and died the" next day. Was buried at
Oak Ridge, near Springfield, 111.
FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
Fellow-Citizens of the United States:
In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear
before you to address you briefly and to take in your presence the oath
prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the
President "before he enters on the execution of his office."
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters
of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.
f Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States
that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and
their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most
ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open
to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of
him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches
when I declare that —
/ I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery
in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no
inclination to do so.
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I
had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them;
and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as
a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which
I now read:
Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially
the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according
to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the
perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless
invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what
pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the
public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is sus-
ceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in
any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too,
that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the
6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when law-
fully demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to
anotherrj
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from
service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Con-
stitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping
into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged
from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom
such service or labor may be due.
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who
made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the inten-
tion of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their
support to the whole Constitution — to this provision as much as to any
other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within
the terms of this clause * * shall be delivered up ' ' their oaths are unani-
mous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they
not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which
to keep good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be en-
forced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not
a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but
little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done.
And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept
on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
Again: In any law upon this subject ought not all the safeguards of
liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so
that a free man be not in any case surrendered as a slave? And might
it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement
of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that ' ' the citizens of
each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens
in the several States ' ' ?
I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations and with no
purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules;
and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as
proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both
in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts
which stand unrepealed than to violate any of them trusting to find im-
punity in having them held to be unconstitutional.
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under
our National Constitution. During that period fifteen different and
greatly distinguished citizens have in succession administered the execu-
tive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many
perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of prec-
edent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional terra
Abraham Lmcohi 7
of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the
Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted,
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution
the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not ex-
pressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe
to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic
law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provi-
sions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it
being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in
the instrument itself.
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an asso-
ciation of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract,
be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One
party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak — but does it not
require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that
in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history
of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It
was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was ma-
tured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was
further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly
plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Con-
federation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for
ordaining and establishing the Constitution was '' to form a more perfect
JJyiion. ' '
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States
be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitu-
tion, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion
can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that
effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States
against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolu-
tionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the
Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as
the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the
Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be
only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practi-
cable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold
the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary.
I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared
purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain
itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there
shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The
8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the prop-
erty and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties
and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there
will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people any-
where. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall
be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from
holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious
strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right
may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the
attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal
that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such ofiices.
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts
of the Union. So far as possible the people everywhere shall have that
sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and
reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current
events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper,
and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised,
according to circumstances actually existing and with a view and a hope
of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of
fraternal sympathies and affections.
That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy
the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it I will neither
affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them.
To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our
national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would
it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so
desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the
ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills
you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from, will you risk
the commission of so fearful a mistake?
( All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can
be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the
Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind
is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this.
Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provi-
sion of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of
numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written con-
stitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution;
certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case.
All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured
to them by afiirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in
the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them. But
no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable
to every question which may occur in practical administration. No fore-
Abraham Lincoln 9
sight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain ex-
press provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be
surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not
expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The
Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in
the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. "7
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies,
and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority
will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.
There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquies-
cence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede
rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide
and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them when-
ever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance,
why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbi-
trarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim
to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being
educated to the exact temper of doing this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose
a new union as to produce harmony only and prevent renewed secession ?
Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A
majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and
always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and
sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects
it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impos-
sible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly
inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despo-
tism in some form is all that is left.
[ I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional ques-
tions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such
decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the
object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and
consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Gov-
ernment. / And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be
erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited
to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and
never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could
the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen
must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions
affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the
Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between
parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own
rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into
the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault
upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not
lo Messages and Papers of the Presidents
shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of
theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be ex-
tended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended.
This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the
Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade
are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community
where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself.
The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both
cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly
cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sec-
tions than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed,
would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugi-
tive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at
all by the other.
Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our
respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between
them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence
and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country
can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse,
either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible,
then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory
after separation than before ? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends
can make laws ? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens
than laws can among friends ? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight
always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either,
you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse,
are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit
it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they
can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolution-
ary x\^\. to dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the
fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the
National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of
amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over
the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in
the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor
rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act
upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems
preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people
themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject proposi-
tions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and
which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or
refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution— which
amendment, however, I have not seen— has passed Congress, to the effect
Abraham Lincoln ii
that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic
institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To
avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not
to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a
provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to
its being made express and irrevocable.
The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and
they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of
the States. The people themselves can do this also if they choose,
but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to
administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to trans-
mit it unimpaired by him to his successor.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of
the people? Is there any better or eqiial hope in the world? In our
present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right?
If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be
on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that
justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the
American people.
By the frame of the Government under which we live this same peo-
ple have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief,
and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their
own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their vir-
tue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or
folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four
years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an
object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never
take deliberately , that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no
good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied
still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point,
the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration
will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were
admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute,
there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence,
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet
forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way
all our present difficulty.
In jj/<72^r hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you.
You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You
have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while /
shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not
12 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all
over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. ^
March 4, 1861.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
rp IT ^ / . Washington, March 16, 186 1.
The Senate has transmitted to me a copy of the message sent by my
predecessor to that body on the 21st day of February last, proposing to
take its advice on the subject of a proposition made by the British Gov-
ernment through its minister here to refer the matter in controversy
between that Government and the Government of the United States to
the arbitrament of the King of Sweden and Norway, the King of the
Netherlands, or the Republic of the Swiss Confederation.
In that message my predecessor stated that he wished to submit to the
Senate the precise questions following, namely:
Will the Senate approve a treaty referring to either of the sovereign powers above
named the dispute now existing between the Governments of the United States and
Great Britain concerning the boundary line between Vancouvers Island and the
American continent? In case the referee shall find himself unable to decide where
the line is by the description of it in the treaty of 15th June, 1846, shall he be author-
ized to establish a line according to the treaty as nearly as possible ? Which of the
three powers named by Great Britain as an arbiter shall be chosen by the United
States?
I find no reason to disapprove of the course of my predecessot in this
important matter, but, on the contrary, I not only shall receive the advice
of the Senate therein cheerfully, but I respectfully ask the Senate for their
advice on the three questions before recited.
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
Washington, March 26, 1861.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have received a copy of a resolution of the Senate passed on the 25th
instant, requesting me, if in my opinion not incompatible with the pubhc
interest, to communicate to the Senate the dispatches of Major Robert
Anderson to the War Department during the time he has been in command
of Fort Sumter.
Abraham Lincoln 13
On examining the correspondence thus called for I have, with the
highest respect for the Senate, come to the conclusion that at the present
moment the publication of it would be inexpedient.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
PROCLAMATIONS.
By the Prbsidknt of thk United States.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past
and now are opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in the States
of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana,
and Texas by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordi-
nary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the mar-
shals by law:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham I^incoln, President of the United States,
in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws,
have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the
several States of the Union to the aggregate number of 75,000, in order
to suppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed.
The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the
State authorities through the War Department.
I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to
maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National
Union and the perpetuity of popular government and to redress wrongs
already long enough endured.
I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces
hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and
property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event
the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid,
to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or interference with prop-
erty, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.
And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations afore-
said to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within
twenty days from this date.
Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an ex-
traordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested
by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Congress. Senators and
Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective
chambers at 12 o'clock noon on Thursday, the 4th day of July next,
then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wis-
dom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand.
14 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P -| Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of April,
[SKAL.J ^ ^ ^g^^^ ^^^ ^j ^^ Independence of the United States the
eighty-fifth. ABRAHAM I.INCOLN.
By the President:
WiiviviAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By thk Prbsidkni^ of thk Unitkd States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States
has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for
the collection of the revenue can not be effectually executed therein con-
formably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to
be uniform throughout the United States; and
Whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection have
threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers
thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good
citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas
and in waters of the United States; and
Whereas an Executive proclamation has been already issued requiring
the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom,
calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and
convening Congress in extraordinary session to deliberate and determine
thereon:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
with a view to the same purposes before mentioned and to the protection
of the public peace and the lives and property of quiet and orderly citi-
zens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assem-
bled and deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings or until the same
shall have ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a block-
ade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of
the United States and of the law of nations in such case provided. For
this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance
and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view
to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach or shall attempt to leave
either of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the commander of
one of the blockading vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact
and date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to
enter or leave the blockaded port she will be captured and sent to the
nearest convenient port for such proceedings against her and her cargo
as prize as may be deemed advisable.
Abraham Lincoln 15
And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under the pre-
tended authority of the said States or under any other pretense, shall
molest a vessel of the United States or the persons or cargo on board of
her, such person will be held amenable to the laws of the United States
for the prevention and punishment of piracy.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 19th day of April,
A. D. 1 86 1, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-fifth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidknt of thk Unitkd States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas, for the reasons assigned in my proclamation of the 19th
instant, a blockade of the ports of the States of South CaroHna, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, lyouisiana, Mississippi, and Texas was ordered to be
established; and
Whereas since that date public property of the United States has been
seized, the collection of the revenue obstructed, and duly commissioned
officers of the United States, while engaged in executing the orders of
their superiors, have been arrested and held in custody as prisoners or
have been impeded in the discharge of their official duties, without due
legal process, by persons claiming to act under authorities of the States
of Virginia and North Carolina, an efficient blockade of the ports of those
States will also be established.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 27th day of April,
A. D. 1 86 1, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-fifth. ABRAHAM I.INCOI,N.
By the President:
WiiyiyiAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States.
A proclamation.
Whereas existing exigencies demand immediate and adequate measures
for the protection of the National Constitution and the preservation of the
National Union by the suppression of the insurrectionary combinations
now existing in several States for opposing the laws of the Union and
i6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
obstructing the execution thereof, to which end a military force in ad-
dition to that called forth by my proclamation of the 15th day of April
in the present year appears to be indispensably necessary:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham I^incoln, President of the United States
and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof and of the
militia of the several States when called into actual service, do hereby
call into the service of the United States 42,034 volunteers to serve for
the period of three years, unless sooner discharged, and to be mustered
into service as infantry and cavalry. The proportions of each arm and
the details of enrollment and organization will be made known through
the Department of War.
And I also direct that the Regular Army of the United States be in-
creased by the addition of eight regiments of infantry, one regiment of
cavalry, and one regiment of artillery, making altogether a maximum
aggregate increase of 22,714 officers and enfisted men, the details of
which increase will also be made known through the Department of War.
And I further direct the enlistment for not less than one or more than
three years of 18,000 seamen, in addition to the present force, for the
naval service of the United States. The details of the enlistment and
organization will be made known through the Department of the Navy.
The call for volunteers hereby made and the direction for the increase
of the Regular Army and for the enlistment of seamen hereby given,
together with the plan of organization adopted for the volunteer and for
the regular forces hereby authorized, will be submitted to Congress as
soon as assembled.
In the meantime I earnestly invoke the cooperation of all good citi-
zens in the measures hereby adopted for the effectual suppression of
unlawful violence, for the impartial enforcement of constitutional laws,
and for the speediest possible restoration of peace and order, and with
these of happiness and prosperity, throughout our country.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed.
fsKAL 1 I^oiie at the city of Washington, this 3d day of May, A. D.
1 86 1, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^* ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By the Prb)sidknt of thk United States of America.
A PROCIyAMATlON.
Whereas an insurrection exists in the State of Florida by which the
lives, Hberty, and property of loyal citizens of the United States are
endangered; and
Whereas it is deemed proper that all needful measures should be taken
Abraham Lincoln 17
for the protection of such citizens and all officers of the United States in
the discharge of their public duties in the State aforesaid:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham lyincoln, President of
the United States, do hereby direct the commander of the forces of the
United States on the Florida coast to permit no person to exercise any
office or authority upon the islands of Key West, the Tortugas, and
Santa Rosa which may be inconsistent with the laws and Constitution
of the United States, authorizing him at the same time, if he shall find
it necessary, to suspend there the writ of habeas corpus and to remove
from the vicinity of the United States fortresses all dangerous or sus-
pected persons.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
p 1 Done at the city of Washington, this loth day of May, A. D.
1861 , and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^- ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Seward,
Secretary of State,
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
Lieutenant-General ScoTT. Washington, April 25, 1861.
My Dear Sir: The Maryland legislature assembles to-morrow at
Annapolis, and not improbably will take action to arm the people of
that State against the United States. The question has been submitted
to and considered by me whether it would not be justifiable, upon the
ground of necessary defense, for you, as General in Chief of the United
States Army, to arrest or disperse the members of that body. I think it
would not be justifiable nor efficient for the desired object.
First. They have a clearly legal right to assemble, and we can not
know in advance that their action will not be lawful and peaceful, and
if we wait until they shall have acted their arrest or dispersion will not
lessen the effect of their action.
Secondly. We can not permanently prevent their action. If we arrest
them, we can not long hold them as prisoners, and when liberated they
will immediately reassemble and take their action; and precisely the
same if we simply disperse them — they will immediately reassemble in
some other place.
I therefore conclude that it is only left to the Commanding General to
watch and await their action, which, if it shall be to arm their people
M P — ^VOL VI— 2
1 8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
against the United States, he is to adopt the most prompt and efficient
means to counteract, even, if necessary, to the bombardment of their cities
and, in the extremest necessity, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
Your obedient servant, ABRAHAM WNCOLN.
The Commanding Gknkrai, of thk Army of thk United States:
You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of the
United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of any mihtary line
which is now or which shall be used between the city of Philadelphia
and the city of Washington you find resistance which renders it neces-
sary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you per-
sonally, or through the officer in command at the point where resistance
occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, ac the city
r -j of Washington, this 27th day of April, 1861, and of the Inde-
pendence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
By the President of the United States:
WiiyiyiAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
Gbnerai, Orders, No. 13.
War Department,
Adjutant- Generai^'s Office,
Washington, April jo, 186 1.
The President directs that all officers of the Army, except those who
have entered the service since the ist instant, take and subscribe anew
the oath of allegiance to the United States of America, as set forth in the
tenth article of war.
Commanding officers will see to the prompt execution of this order,
and report accordingly.
By order: I,. THOMAS,
A djutajit- General.
To all who shall see these presents, greeting:
Know ye that, reposing special trust and confidence in the patriotism,
valor, fidelity, and ability of Colonel Robert Anderson, United States
Army, I have empowered him, and do hereby empower him, to receive
into the Army of the United States as many regiments of volunteer troops
from the State of Kentucky and from the western part of the State of
Virginia as shall be willing to engage in the service of the United States
Abraham Lincoln 19
for the term of three years upon the terms and according to the plan
proposed by the proclamation of May 3, 1861, and General Orders, No.
15, from the War Department, of May 4, i86i.
The troops whom he receives shall be on the same footing in every
respect as those of the like kind called for in the proclamation above
cited, except that the officers shall be commissioned by the United States.
He is therefore carefully and diligently to discharge the duty hereby
devolved upon him by doing and performing all manner of things there-
unto belonging.
Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 7th day of May,
A. p. 1 86 1, and in the eighty-fifth year of the Independence of the
United States. ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
By the President:
Simon Cameron,
Secretary of War.
Statk DkparTmknT, /?/;2(? 20, 1861.
The IvIKutknant-Genkrai, Commanding the Armies of the
United States:
You or any officer you may designate will, in your discretion, suspend
the writ of habeas corpus so far as may relate to Major Chase, lately of
the Engineer Corps of the Army of the United States, now alleged to
be guilty of treasonable practices against this Government.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
By the President:
Wii^iviAM H. Seward.
The Commanding Generai., Army of the United States:
You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of
the United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of any military
line which is now or which shall be used between the city of New York
and the city of Washington you find resistance which renders it neces-
sary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you per-
sonally, or through the officer in command at the point where resistance
occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at the city
r 1 of Washington, this 2d day of July, A. D. 1861, and of the
Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
By the President:
Wiiyi<iAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
*30 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
SPECIAL SESSION MESSAGE.
July 4, 1861.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
Having been convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by
the Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of
legislation.
At the beginning of the present Presidential term, four months ago,
the functions of the Federal Government were found to be generally sus-
pended within the several States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, lyouisiana, and Florida, excepting only those of the Post-
Oifice Department.
Within these States all the forts, arsenals, dockyards, custom-houses,
and the Hke, including the movable and stationary property in and about
them, had been seized and were held in open hostility to this Govern-
ment, excepting only Forts Pickens, Taylor, and Jefferson, on and near
the Florida coast, and Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Caro-
lina. The forts thus seized had been put in improved condition, new
ones had been built, and armed forces had been organized and were organ-
izing, all avowedly with the same hostile purpose.
The forts remaining in the possession of the Federal Government in
and near these States were either besieged or menaced by warlike prep-
arations, and especially Fort Sumter was nearly surrounded by well-pro-
tected hostile batteries, with guns equal in quality to the best of its own
and outnumbering the latter as perhaps ten to one. A disproportionate
share of the Federal muskets and rifles had somehow found their way into
these States, and had been seized to be used against the Government.
Accumulations of the public revenue lying within them had been seized
for the same object. The Navy was scattered in distant seas, leaving
but a very small part of it withirf the immediate reach of the Govern-
ment. Officers of the Federal Army and Navy had resigned in great
numbers, and of those resigning a large proportion had taken up arms
against the Government. Simultaneously and in connection with all this
the purpose to sever the Federal Union was openly avowed. In accord-
ance with this purpose, an ordinance had been adopted in each of these
States declaring the States respectively to be separated from the National
Union. A formula for instituting a combined government of these States
had been promulgated, and this illegal organization, in the character of
Confederate States, was already invoking recognition, aid, and interven-
tion from foreign powers.
Finding this condition of things and believing it to be an imperative
duty upon the incoming Executive to prevent, if possible, the consumma-
tion of such attempt to destroy the Federal Union, a choice of means to
\
Abraham Lincoln 2i
that end became indispensable. This choice was made, and was declared
in the inaugural address. The policy chosen looked to the exhaustion
of all peaceful measures before a resort to any stronger ones. It sought
only to hold the public places and property not already wrested from
the Government and to collect the revenue, relying for the rest on time,
discussion, and the ballot box. It promised a continuance of the mails
at Government expense to the very people who were resisting the Gov-
ernment, and it gave repeated pledges against any disturbance to any of
the people or any of their rights. Of all that which a President might con-
stitutionally and justifiably do in such a case, everything was forborne
without which it was believed possible to keep the Government on foot.
On the 5th of March, the present incumbent's first full day in office,
a letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter, written on the
28th of February and received at the War Department on the 4th of
March, was by that Department placed in his hands. This letter ex-
pressed the professional opinion of the writer that reenforcements could
not be thrown into that fort within the time for his relief rendered nec-
essary by the limited supply of provisions, and with a view of holding
possession of the same, with a force of less than 20,000 good and well-
disciplined men. This opinion was concurred in by all the officers of his
command, and their memoranda on the subject were made inclosures of
Major Anderson's letter. The whole was immediately laid before Lieu-
tenant-General Scott, who at once concurred with Major Anderson in
opinion. On reflection, however, he took full time, consulting with other
ofiicers, both of the Army and the Navy, and at the end of four days came
reluctantly, but decidedly, to the same conclusion as before. He also
stated at the same time that no such sufiicient force was then at the con-
trol of the Government or could be raised and brought to the ground
within the time when the provisions in the fort would be exhausted. In
a purely military point of view this reduced the duty of the Administra-
tion in the case to the mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of
the fort.
It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position under the
circumstances would be utterly ruinous; that the necessity under which
it was to be done would not be fully understood; that by many it would
be construed as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home it would dis-
courage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to
insure to the latter a recognition abroad; that, in fact, it would be our
national destruction consummated. This could not be allowed. Star-
vation was not yet upon the garrison, and ere it would be reached Fort
Pickens might be reenforced. This last would be a clear indication of
policy, and would better enable the country to accept the evacuation of
Fort Sumter as a military necessity. An order was at once directed to be
sent for the landing of the troops from the steamship Brooklyn into Fort
Pickens. This order could not go by land, but must take the longer and
22 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
slower route by sea. The first return news from the order was received
j ust one week before the fall of Fort Sumter. The news itself was that the
officer commanding the Sabine, to which vCvSsel the troops had been trans-
ferred from the Brooklyn, acting upon some quasi armistice of the late
Administration (and of the existence of which the present Administra-
tion, up to the time the order was dispatched, had* only too vague and
uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the troops. To
now reenforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be reached at Fort
Sumter was impossible, rendered so by the near exhaustion of provisions
in the latter-named fort. In precaution against such a conjuncture the
Government had a few days before commenced preparing an expedition,
as well adapted as might be, to relieve Fort Sumter, which expedition
was intended to be ultimately used or not, according to circumstances.
The strongest anticipated case for using it was now presented, and it was
resolved to send it forward. As had been intended in this contingency,
it was also resolved to notify the governor of South Carolina that he
might expect an attempt would be made to provision the fort, and that
if the attempt should not be resisted there would be no effort to throw in
men, arms, or ammunition without further notice, or in case of an attack
upon the fort. This notice was accordingly given, whereupon the fort
was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even awaiting the arrival
of the provisioning expedition.
It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter
was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants.
They well knew that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility com-
mit aggression upon them. They knew — they were expressly notified —
that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the gar-
rison was all which would on that occasion be attempted, unless them-
selves, by resisting so much, should provoke more. They knew that this
Government desired to keep the garrison in the fort, not to assail them,
but merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union
from actual and immediate dissolution, trusting, as hereinbefore stated,
to time, discussion, and the ballot box for final adjustment; and they
assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object — to drive
out the visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to imme-
diate dissolution. That this was their object the Executive well under-
stood; and having said to them in the inaugural address, "You can
have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors," he took pains
not only to keep this declaration good, but also to keep the case so free
from the power of ingenious sophistry as that the world should not be
able to misunderstand it. By the affair at Fort Sumter, with its sur-
rounding circumstances, that point was reached. Then and thereby the
assailants of the Government began the conflict of arms, without a gun
in sight or in expectancy to return their fire, save only the few in the
fort, sent to that harbor years before for their own protection, and still
Abraham Lincoln 23
ready to give that protection in whatever was lawful. In this act, dis-
carding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue,
' ' Immediate dissolution or blood. ' '
And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States.
It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitu-
tional republic, or democracy — a government of the people by the same
people — can or can not maintain its territorial integrity against its own
domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals,
too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in
any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any
other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their gov-
ernment, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the
earth. It forces us to ask, Is there in all republics this inherent and
fatal weakness? Must a government of necessity be too strong for the
liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?
So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to call out the war power
of the Government and so to resist force employed for its destruction by
force for its preservation.
The call was made, and the response of the country was most gratify-
ing, surpassing in unanimity and spirit the most sanguine expectation.
Yet none of the States commonly called slave States, except Delaware,
gave a regiment through regular State organization. A few regiments
have been organized within some others of those States by individual
enterprise and received into the Government service. Of course the
seceded States, so called (and to which Texas had been joined about the
time of the inauguration), gave no troops to the cause of the Union.
The border States, so called, were not uniform in their action, some of
them being almost /^r the Union, while in others, as Virginia, North Car-
olina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, the Union sentiment was nearly repressed
and silenced. The course taken in Virginia was the most remarkable,
perhaps the most important. A convention elected by the people of
that State to consider this very question of disrupting the Federal Union
was in session at the capital of Virginia when Fort Sumter fell. To this
body the people had chosen a large majority of professed Union men.
Almost immediately after the fall of Sumter many members of that major-
ity went over to the original disunion minority, and with them adopted
an ordinance for withdrawing the State from the Union. Whether this
change was wrought by their great approval of the assault upon Sumter
or their great resentment at the Government's resistance to that assault
is not definitely known. Although they submitted the ordinance for rat-
ification to a vote of the people, to be taken on a day then somewhat
more than a month distant, the convention and the legislature (which
was also in session at the same time and place), with leading men of
the State not members of either, immediately commenced acting as if the
State were already out of the Union. They pushed military preparations
24 Messages and Papers of the Preside7tts
vigorously forward all over the State. They seized the United States
armory at Harpers Ferry and the navy-yard at Gosport, near Norfolk.
They received — perhaps invited — into their State large bodies of troops,
with their warlike appointments, from the so-called seceded States. They
formally entered into a treaty of temporary alliance and cooperation with
the so-called * * Confederate States, ' ' and sent members to their congress
at Montgomery; and, finally, they permitted the insurrectionary govern-
ment to be transferred to their capital at Richmond.
The people of Virginia have thus allowed this giant insurrection to
make its nest within her borders, and this Government has no choice
left but to deal with it where it finds it; and it has the less regret, as
the loyal citizens have in due form claimed its protection. Those loyal
citizens this Government is bound to recognize and protect, as being
Virginia.
In the border States, so called — in fact, the Middle States — there are
those who favor a policy which they call "armed neutrality;" that is,
an arming of those States to prevent the Union forces passing one way
or the disunion the other over their soil. This would be disunion com-
pleted. Figuratively speaking, it would be the building of an impassable
wall along the line of separation, and yet not quite an impassable one,
for, under the guise of neutrality, it would tie the hands of the Union
men and freely pass supplies from among them to the insurrectionists,
which it could not do as an open enemy. At a stroke it would take all
the trouble off the hands of secession, except only what proceeds from the
external blockade. It would do for the disunionists that which of all
things they most desire — feed them well and give them disunion without
a struggle of their own. It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution,
no obligation to maintain the Union; and while very many who have
favored it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very injurious
in effect.
Recurring to the action of the Government, it may be stated that at
first a call was made for 75,000 militia, and rapidly following this a proc-
lamation was issued for closing the ports of the insurrectionary districts
by proceedings in the nature of blockade. So far all was beheved to be
strictly legal. At this point the insurrectionists announced their purpose
to enter upon the practice of privateering.
Other calls were made for volunteers to serve three years unless sooner
discharged, and also for large additions to the Regular Army and Navy.
These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under
what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity, trusting
then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed
that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency of
Congress.
Soon after the first call for militia it was considered a duty to authorize
the Commanding General in proper cases, according to his discretion, to
Abraham Lincoln 25
suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words,
to arrest and detain without resort to the ordinary processes and forms
of law such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety.
This authority has purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Never-
theless, the legality and propriety of what has been done under it are
questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the prop-
osition that one who is sworn to ' ' take care that the laws be faithfully
executed ' ' should not himself violate them. Of course some considera-
tion was given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter
was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faith-
fully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one-
third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution,
even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to
their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of
the citizen's liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty than
of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated? To state
the question more directly. Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted,
and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even
in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government
should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single
law would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this ques-
tion was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The
provision of the Constitution that * ' the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion,
the public safety may require it " is equivalent to a provision — is a provi-
sion— that such privilege may be suspended when, in cases of rebellion or
invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have
a case of rebellion and that the public safety does require the qualified
suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made.
Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with
this power; but the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is
to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dan-
gerous emergency, it can not be believed the framers of the instrument
intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Con-
gress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be
prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.
No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion at some
length will probably be presented by the Attorney- General. Whether
there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and, if any, what, is sub-
mitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress.
The forbearance of this Government had been so extraordinary and so
long continued as to lead some foreign nations to shape their action as
if they supposed the early destruction of our National Union was proba-
ble. While this on discovery gave the Executive some concern, he is
now happy to say that the sovereignty and rights of the United States
26 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
are now everywhere practically respected by foreign powers, and a gen-
eral sympathy with the country is manifested throughout the world.
The reports of the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Navy
will give the information in detail deemed necessary and convenient for
your deliberation and action, while the Executive and all the Depart-
ments will stand ready to supply omissions or to communicate new facts
considered important for you to know.
It is now recommended that you give the legal means for making this
contest a short and a decisive one; that you place at the control of the
Government for the work at least 400,000 men and $400,000,000. That
number of men is about one- tenth of those of proper ages within the
regions where apparently all are willing to engage, and the sum is less
than a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the men who seem
ready to devote the whole. A debt of $600,000,000 now is a less sum
per head than was the debt of our Revolution when we came out of that
struggle, and the money value in the country now bears even a greater
proportion to what it was then than does the population. Surely each
man has as strong a motive now to preserve our liberties as each had then
to establish them.
A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten
times the men and ten times the money. The evidence reaching us
from the country leaves no doubt that the material for the work is
abundant, and that it needs only the hand of legislation to give it legal
sanction and the hand of the Executive to give it practical shape and
efl&ciency. One of the greatest perplexities of the Government is to
avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word,
the people will save their Government if the Government itself will do
its part only indifFerenlly well.
It might seem at first thought to be of little difference whether the
present movement at the South be called "secession" or ''rebeUion."
The movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning
they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable mag-
nitude by any name which implies violation of law. They knew their
people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and
order, and as much pride in and reverence for the history and Govern-
ment of their common country as any other civiHzed and patriotic people.
They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of
these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly, they commenced by
an insidious debauching of the pubHc mind. They invented an ingen-
ious sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps
through all the incidents to the complete destruction of the Union.
The sophism itself is that any State of the Union may consistently with
the National Constitution, and therefore lawfully and peacefully, with-
draw from the Union without the consent of the Union or of any other
State. The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised
Abraham Lincoln 27
only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judge of its justice, is too
thin to merit any notice.
With rebellion thus sugar coated they have been drugging the public
mind of their section for more than thirty years, and until at length they
have brought many good men to a willingness to take up arms against
the Government the day after some assemblage of men have enacted the
farcical pretense of taking their State out of the Union who could have
been brought to no such thing the day before.
This sophism derives much, perhaps the whole, of its currency from
the assumption that there is some omnipotent and sacred supremacy
pertaining to a State — to each State of our Federal Union. Our States,
have neither more nor less power than that reserved to them in the Union
by the Constitution, no one of them ever having been a State out of the
Union. The original ones passed into the Union even before they cast
off their British colonial dependence, and the new ones each came into
the Union directly from a condition of dependence, excepting Texas;
and even Texas, in its temporary independence, was never designated a
State. The new ones only took the designation of States on coming into
the Union, while that name was first adopted for the old ones in and by
the Declaration of Independence. Therein the ' ' United Colonies ' ' were
declared to be ''free and independent vStates ;" but even then the object
plainly was not to declare their independence of one another or of the
Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual
action before, at the time, and afterwards abundantly show. The express
plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles
of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual is
most conclusive. Having never been States, either in substance or in
name, outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of ''State
rights," asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself?
Much is said about the ' ' sovereignty ' ' of the States, but the word even
is not in the National Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the
State constitutions. What is a " sovereignty ' ' in the political sense of the
term ? Would it be far wrong to define it " a political community with-
out a political superior"? Tested by this, no one of our States, except
Texas, ever was a sovereignty; and even Texas gave up the character on
coming into the Union, by which act she acknowledged the Constitution
of the United States and the laws and treaties of the United States made
in pursuance of the Constitution to be for her the supreme law of the
land. The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other
legal status. If they break from this, they can only do so against law
and by revolution. The Union, and not themselves separately, procured
their independence and their liberty. By conquest or purchase the Union
gave each of them whatever of independence and liberty it has. The
Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as
States. Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and in
28 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
turn the Union threw off their old dependence for them and made them
States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had a State constitution
independent of the Union. Of course it is not forgotten that all the new
States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union, never-
theless dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.
Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to
them in and by the National Constitution; but among these surely are
not included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive,
but at most such only as were known in the world at the time as govern-
mental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the Government itself
had never been known as a governmental — as a merely administrative
power. This relative matter of national power and State rights, as a
principle, is no other than the principle of generality and locality. What-
ever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole — to the General
Government — ^while whatever concerns only the State should be left
exclusively to the State. This is all there is of original principle about
it. Whether the National Constitution in defining boundaries between
the two has applied the principle with exact accuracy is not to be ques-
tioned. We are all bound by that defining without question.
What is now combated is the position that secession is consistent with
the Constitution — is lawful and peaceful. It is not contended that there
is any express law for it, and nothing should ever be implied as law
which leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The nation purchased
with money the countries out of which several of these States were
formed. Is it just that they shall go off without leave and without
refunding? The nation paid very large sums (in the aggregate, I believe,
nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes.
Is it just that she shall now be off without consent or without making
any return? The nation is now in debt for money applied to the benefit
of these so-called seceding States in common with the rest. Is it just
either that creditors shall go unpaid or the remaining States pay the
whole? A part of the present national debt was contracted to pay the
old debts of Texas. Is it just that she shall leave and pay no part of
this herself?
Again: If one State may secede, so may another; and when all shall
have seceded none is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just to cred-
itors? Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we borrowed
their money? If we now recognize this doctrine by allowing the seceders
to go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do if others choose to go
or to extort terms upon which they will promise to remain.
The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession. They
have assumed to make a national constitution of their own, in which of
necessity they have either discarded or retained the right of secession, as
they insist it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, they thereby
admit that on principle it ought not to be in ours. If they have retained
Abraham Lincoln 29
it, by their own construction of ours they show that to be consistent they
must secede from one another whenever they shall find it the easiest way
of settling their debts or effecting any other selfish or unjust object.
The principle itself is one of disintegration, and upon which no govern-
ment can possibly endure.
If all the States save one should assert the power to drive that one out
of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder politicians would
at once deny the power and denounce the act as the greatest outrage
upon State rights. But suppose that precisely the same act, instead of
being called "driving the one out," should be called *'the seceding of
the others from that one, ' ' it would be exactly what the seceders claim
to do, unless, indeed, they make the point that the one, because it is a
minority, may rightfully do what the others, because they are a majority,
may not rightfully do. These politicians are subtle and profound on the
rights of minorities. They are not partial to that power which made
the Constitution and speaks from the preamble, calling itself '*we, the
people. ' '
It may well be questioned whether there is to-day a majority of the
legally qualified voters of any State, except, perhaps. South Carolina, in
favor of disunion. There is much reason to believe that the Union men
are the majority in many, if not in every other one, of the so-called
seceded States. The contrary has not been demonstrated in any one of
them. It is ventured to affirm this even of Virginia and Tennessee; for
the result of an election held in military camps, where the bayonets are
all on one side of the question voted upon, can scarcely be considered as
demonstrating popular sentiment. At such an election all that large
class who are at oncey^r the Union and against coercion would be coerced
to vote against the Union.
It may be affirmed without extravagance that the free institutions we
enjoy have developed the powers and improved the condition of our whole
people beyond any example in the world. Of this we now have a striking
and an impressive illustration. So large an army as the Government has
now on foot was never before known without a soldier in it but who had
taken his place there of his own free choice. But more than this, there
are many single regiments whose members, one and another, possess full
practical knowledge of all the arts, sciences, professions, and whatever
else, whether useful or elegant, is known in the world; and there is
scarcely one from which there could not be selected a President, a Cabi-
net, a Congress, and perhaps a court, abundantly competent to administer
the Government itself. Nor do I say this is not true also in the army of
our late friends, now adversaries in this contest; but if it is, so much better
the reason why the Government which has conferred such benefits on both
them and us should not be broken up. Whoever in any section proposes
to abandon such a government would do well to consider in deference to
what principle it is that he does it; what better he is likely to get in its
30 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
stead; whether the substitute will give, or be intended to give, so much
of good to the people. There are some foreshadowings on this subject.
Our adversaries have adopted some declarations of independence in which,
unlike the good old one penned by Jefferson, they omit the words ' 'all men
are created equal." Why? They have adopted a temporary national
constitution, in the preamble of which, unlike our good old one signed
by Washington, they omit '* We, the people," and substitute "We, the
deputies of the sovereign and independent States." Why? Why this
deliberate pressing out of view the rights of men and the authority of the
people?
This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a
struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of govern-
ment whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift arti-
ficial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit
for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of
life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this
is the leading object of the Government for whose existence we contend.
I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appre-
ciate this. It is worthy of note that while in this the Government's
hour of trial large numbers of those in the Army and Navy who have
been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to the hand
which had pampered them, not one common soldier or common sailor is
known to have deserted his flag.
Great honor is due to those officers who remained true despite the
example of their treacherous associates; but the greatest honor and most
important fact of all is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers
and common sailors. To the last man, so far as known, they have suc-
cessfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose commands but an
hour before they obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct
of plain people. They understand without an argument that the destroy-
ing the Government which was made by Washington means no good to
them.
Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two
points in it our people have already settled — the successful establishing
and the successful administering of it. One still remains — its successful
maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is
now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry
an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and
peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and con-
stitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets;
that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at
succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men
that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a
war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.
lyest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what
Abraham Lincoln 31
is to be the course of the Government toward the Southern States after
the rebelHon shall have been suppressed, the Executive deems it proper
to say it will be his purpose then, as ever, to be guided by the Constitu-
tion and the laws, and that he probably will have no different under-
standing of the powers and duties of the Federal Government relatively
to the rights of the States and the people under the Constitution than
that expressed in the inaugural address.
He desires to preserve the Government, that it may be administered
for all as it was administered by the men who made it. I^oyal citizens
everywhere have the right to claim this of their government, and the
government has no right to withhold or neglect it. It is not perceived
that in giving it there is any coercion, any conquest, or any subjugation
in any just sense of those terms.
The Constitution provides, and all the States have accepted the pro-
vision, that ''the United States shall guarantee to every State in this
Union a republican form of government. ' ' But if a State may lawfully
go out of the Union, having done so it may also discard the republican
form of government; so that to prevent its going out is an indispensable
means to the end of maintaining the guaranty mentioned; and when an
end is lawful and obligatory the indispensable means to it are also lawful
and obligatory.
It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the duty of
employing the war power in defense of the Government forced upon him.
He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the Govern-
ment. No compromise by public servants could in this case be a cure;
not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular govern-
ment can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an elec-
tion can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving
up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The people
themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate
decisions.
As a private citizen the Executive could not have consented that these
institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so vast and
so sacred a trust as these free people had confided to him. He felt that
he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own
life, in what might follow. In full view of his great responsibility he
has so far done what he has deemed his duty. You will now, according
to your own judgment, perform yours. He sincerely hopes that your
views and your action ma}^ so accord with his as to assure all faithful
citizens who have been disturbed in their rights of a certain and speedy
restoration to them under the Constitution and the laws.
And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure pur-
pose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with
manly hearts.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
32 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
rr- 11 TT r r, J. y ^- Washington, /2^/k ii, i86i.
To the House of Representatives: ' ^ -^
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th
instant, requesting a copy of correspondence upon the subject of the
incorporation of the Dominican Repubhc with the Spanish Monarchy, I
transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution
was referred. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, /z/;/j/, 1861.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of correspondence between the Secretary
of State and Her Britannic Majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister
plenipotentiary accredited to this Government, relative to an exhibition
of the products of industry of all nations which is to take place at Lon-
don in the course of next year. As citizens of the United States may
justly pride themselves upon their proficiency in industrial arts, it is
desirable that they should have proper facilities toward taking part in
the exhibition. With this view I recommend such legislation by Con-
gress at this session as may be necessary for that purpose.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, /z^/f 19, 1861.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its advice with a view to a formal exe-
cution of the instrument, the draft of a treaty informally agreed upon
between the United States and the Delaware tribe of Indians, relative
to certain lands of that tribe. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, /2^/)/ 19, 1861.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
As the United States have, in common with Great Britain and France,
a deep interest in the preservation and development of the fisheries adjacent
to the northeastern coast and islands of this continent, it seems proper that
we should concert with the Governments of those countries such measures
as may be conducive to those important objects. With this view I trans-
mit to Congress a copy of a correspondence between the Secretary of State
and the British minister here, in which the latter proposes on behalf of his
Government the appointment of a joint commission to inquire into the
matter, in order that such ulterior measures may be adopted as may be
Abraham Lincoln 33
advisable for the objects proposed. Such legislation is recommended as
may be necessary to enable the Executive to provide for a commissioner
on behalf of the United States. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
To the House of Representatives: Washington, July 25, 1861.
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 2 2d
instant, requesting a copy of the correspondence between this Govern-
ment and foreign powers with reference to maritime rights, I transmit a
report from the Secretary of State. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
To the House of Representatives: Washington, July 25, 186 1.
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
15th instant, requesting a copy of the correspondence between this Gov-
ernment and foreign powers on the subject of the existing insurrection
in the United States, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
To the Senate: Washington, July 27, 1861.
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 25th instant, relative
to the instructions to the ministers of the United States abroad in refer-
ence to the rebellion now existing in the southern portion of the Union,
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State.
ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
To the House of Representatives: Washington, July 27. 1861.
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th
instant, asking the grounds, reasons, and evidence upon which the police
commissioners of Baltimore were arrested and are now detained as pris-
oners at Fort McHenry, I have to state that it is judged to be incom-
patible with the public interest at this time to furnish the information
called for by the resolution. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Hon. H. HAMLIN. ExBCUTnm Office, July 29, 1861.
President of the Senate.
Sir: I transmit herewith, to be laid before the Senate for its constitu-
tional action thereon, articles of agreement and convention,* with accom-
panying papers. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
* with confederated tribes of Arapahoe and Cheyenne Indians of the Upper Arkansas River.
INI P— vol, VT— 3
■24 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
To the Senate of the United States: ^^^^ ^'^' ^ ^'
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 19th instant, request-
ing information concerning the quasi armistice alluded to in my message
of the 4th instant,* I transmit a report from the Secretary of the Navy.
ABRAHAM LINCOIvN.
To the Senate of the United States: ^^^^ ^°' ^^^^*
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 23d instant, requesting
information concerning the imprisonment of Lieutenant John J. Worden
[John ly. Worden] , of the United States Navy, I transmit a report from
the Secretary of the Navy. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, August i, 1861.
To the Senate of the United States:
I submit herewith, for consideration with a view to ratification, a postal
treaty between the United States of America and the United Mexican
States, concluded by their respective plenipotentiaries on the 31st ultimo.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, August 2, 1861.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of yester-
day, requesting information regarding the imprisonment of loyal citizens
of the United States by the forces now in rebellion against this Govern-
ment, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the copy of a
telegraphic dispatch by which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
To the Senate of the United States: August 2, 1861.
The resolution of your honorable body which is herewith returned has
been submitted to the Secretary of the Navy, who has made the report
upon it which I have the honor to inclose herewith.
I have the honor to add that the same rule stated by the Secretary of
the Navy is found in section 5 of the Army Regulations published in
1 86 1. It certainly is competent for Congress to change this rule by law,
but it is respectfully suggested that a rule of so long standing and of so
extensive application should not be hastily changed, nor by any authority
less than the full lawmaking power.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
* See p. 22.
Abraham Lincoln 35
Navy Department, August 2, 1861.
The President oe the United States.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the resolution of the Senate
of the 31st ultimo, in relation to the recent nominations of lieutenants of marines,
which nominations were directed to "be returned to the President and he be informed
that the Senate adhere to the opinion expressed in the resolution passed by them
on the 19th of July instant, and that the Senate are of opinion that rank and position
in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps should not be decided by lot, but that, all other
things being equal, preference should be given to age."
If I understand correctly the resolution of the Senate, it is an expression of opinion
on the part of that body against the Army Regulations, which are made applicable
to the Marine Corps — regulations that have been in existence almost from the com-
mencement of the Government.
In the published edition of Army Regulations when Mr. Calhoun was Secretary
of War, section i, article 3, it is expressly stated that the questions respecting the
rank of officers arising from the sameness of dates in commissions of the same grade
shall be decided, first, by a reference to the relative rank of the parties in the regular
forces (including the United States Marine Corps) at the time the present appoint-
ments or promotions were made; second, by reference to former rank therein taken
away by derangement or disbandment; third, by reference to former rank therein
given up by resignation; fourth, by lottery.
And in the last edition of Army Regulations, before me, published in 1857, it is
specified in article 2, section 5, that "when commissions are of the same date the rank
is to be decided between officers of the same regiment or corps by the order of appoint-
ment; between officers of different regiments or corps, first, by rank in actual service
when appointed; second, by former rank and service in the Army or Marine Corps;
third, by lottery among such as have not been in the military service of the United
States."
The rule here laid down governed in the appointment of the lieutenants of marines
who have been nominated the present session to the Senate. Their order of rank was
determined by lottery, agreeably to the published Army Regulations, and applied by
those regulations specifically to the Marine Corps.
The gentlemen thus appointed in conformity to regulations have been mustered into
service and done duty under fire. One of the number has fallen in the rank and place
assigned him according to those regulations, and to set them aside and make a new
order in conflict with the regulations will, I apprehend, be deemed, if not ex post facto,
almost invidious.
In this matter the Department has no feeling, but it is desirable that it should be
distinctly settled whether hereafter the Army Regulations are to govern in the ques-
tion of rank in the Marine Corps or whether they are to be set aside by resolution of
the Senate.
I have the honor to return the papers and subscribe myself, very respectfully, your
obedient servant, GIDEON WBI.LES.
ExBCuTivs Mansion, August 5, 1861.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of your honorable body of date July 31,
1 86 1, requesting the President to inform the Senate whether the Hon,
James H. I^ane, a member of that body from Kansas, has been appointed a
brigadier-general in the Army of the United States, and, if so, whether he
has accepted such appointment, I have the honor to transmit herewith
oiS Messages and Papers of the Presidents
certain papers, numbered i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, which taken together
explain themselves, and which contain all the information I possess upon
the questions propounded.
It was my intention, as shown by my letter of June 20, 1 861, to appoint
Hon. James H. Lane, of Kansas, a brigadier-general of United States Vol-
unteers, in anticipation of the act of Congress since passed for raising such
volunteers; and I have no further knowledge upon the subject except as
derived from the papers herewith inclosed.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
PROCLAMATIONS.
By thb Prksidknt of thk Unitkd States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas a joint committee of both Houses of Congress has waited on
the President of the United States and requested him to ' ' recommend
a day of public humiliation, prayer, and fasting to be observed by the
people of the United States with religious solemnities and the offer-
ing of fervent supplications to Almighty God for the safety and welfare
of these States, His blessings on their arms, and a speedy restoration of
peace;" and
Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people at all times to acknowl-
edge and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in humble
submission to His chastisements, to confess and deplore their sins and
transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and contrition for
the pardon of their past offenses and for a blessing upon their present
and prospective action; and
Whereas when our own beloved country, once, by the blessing of God,
united, prosperous, and happy, is now afflicted with faction and civil war,
it is peculiarly fit for us to recognize the hand of God in this terrible
visitation, and in sorrowful remembrance of our own faults and crimes as
a nation and as individuals to humble ourselves before Him and to pray
for His mercy — to pray that we may be spared further punishment,
though most justly deserved; that our arms may be blessed and made
effectual for the reestabhshment of law, order, and peace throughout
the wide extent of our country; and that the inestimable boon of civil
and rehgious hberty, earned under His guidance and blessing by the
labors and sufferings of our fathers, may be restored in all its original
excellence:
Therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do
Abraham Lincoln 2>7
appoint the last Thursday in September next as a day of humihation,
prayer, and fasting for all the people of the nation. And I do earnestly
recommend to all the people, and especially to all ministers and teachers
of religion of all denominations and to all heads of families, to obvServe
and keep that day according to their several creeds 'and modes of wor-
ship in all humility and with all religious solemnity, to the end that
the united prayer of the nation may ascend to the Throne of Grace and
bring down plentiful blessings upon our country.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed, this 12th day of August,
[SKAI..] A. D. 1861, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the eighty-sixth.
ABRAHAM LINCOIvN.
By the President:
Wiiyi^iAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By the Prbsidknt of thk United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas on the 15th day of April, 1861, the President of the United
States, in view of an insurrection against the laws, Constitution, and
Government of the United States which had broken out within the
States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, I^oui-
siana, 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, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions, and to repeal the
act now in force for that purpose," approved February 28, 1795, did call
forth the militia to suppress said insurrection and to cause the laws of
the Union to be duly executed, and the insurgents have 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, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas; and
Whereas the insurgents in all the said States claim to act under the
authority thereof, and such claim is not disclaimed or repudiated by
the persons exercising the functions of government in such State or
States or in the part or parts thereof in which such 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 approved July 13, 1861, do hereby
declare that the inhabitants of the said States of Georgia, South Carolina,
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Ar-
kansas, 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
38 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
or may be from time to time occupied and controlled by forces of the
United States engaged in the dispersion of said insurgents) are in a state
of insurrection against the United States, and that all commercial inter-
course between the same and the inhabitants thereof, with the excep-
tions aforesaid, and the citizens of other States and other parts of the
United States is unlawful, and will remain unlawful until such insurrec-
tion shall cease or has been suppressed; that all goods and chattels,
wares and merchandise, coming from any of said States, with the excep-
tions aforesaid, into other parts of the United States without the special
license and permission of the President, through the Secretary of the
Treasury, or proceeding to any of said States, with the exceptions afore-
said, by land or water, together with the vessel or vehicle conveying the
same or conveying persons to or from said States, with said exceptions,
will be forfeited to the United States; and that from and after fifteen
days from the issuing of this proclamation all ships and vessels belonging
in whole or in part to any citizen or inhabitant of any of said States, with
said exceptions, found at sea or in any port of the United States will
be forfeited to the United States; and I hereby enjoin upon 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 to his application to the Secretary of the Treasury for the remis-
sion 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,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this i6th day of August,
A. D. 1 86 1, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-sixth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
JUIvY 31, 1861.
The marshal of the United States in the vicinity of forts where political
prisoners are held will supply decent lodging and subsistence for such
prisoners, unless they shall prefer to provide in those respects for them-
selves, in which cases they will be allowed to do so by the commanding
officers in charge.
Abraham Lincoln 39
Approved, and the Secretary of State will transmit the order to mar-
shals, the lyieutenant-General, and Secretary of the Interior.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
August 7, 1861.
By the fifty-seventh article of the act of Congress entitled "An act for
establishing rules and articles for the government of the armies of the
United States," approved April 10, 1806, holding correspondence with
or giving intelligence to the enemy, either directly or indirectly, is made
punishable by death, or such other punishment as shall be ordered by
the sentence of a court-martial. Public safety requires strict enforce-
ment of this article.
// is therefore ordered, That all correspondence and communication,
verbally or by writing, printing, or telegraphing, respecting operations
of the Army or military movements on land or water, or respecting
the troops, camps, arsenals, intrenchments, or military affairs within the
several military districts, by which intelligence shall be, directly or in-
directly, given to the enemy, without the authority and sanction of the
major-general in command, be, and the same are, absolutely prohibited,
and from and after the date of this order persons violating the same will
be proceeded against under the fifty-seventh article of war.
SIMON CAMERON.
Approved:
A. LINCOI.N.
Gknbrai, Ordkr.
KxKCUTivK OF THE Unitbd Statks, October 4, 186 1.
Flag-officers of the United States Navy authorized to wear a square flag
at the mizzenmast head will take rank with major-generals of the United
States Army. ABRAHAM I^INCOI^N.
Washington, October 14, 1861.
Ivieutenant- General W1NFIK1.D Scott : ,
The miHtary line of the United States for the suppression of the insur-
rection may be extended so far as Bangor, in Maine. You and any ofiicer
acting under your authority are hereby authorized to suspend the writ of
habeas corpus in any place between that place and the city of Washington.
ABRAHAM I^INCOLN.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
40 Messages mid Papers of the Presidents "
Gknkral Orders, No. 94.
War Dkpartmknt,
Adjutant- General's Office,
Washington, November i, 1861.
The following order from the President of the United States, announ-
cing the retirement from active command of the honored veteran Lieu-
tenant-General Winfield Scott, will be read by the Army with profound
regret:
Executive Mansion,
Washington, November z, 1861.
On the I St day of November, A. D. 1861, upon his own application to
the President of the United States, Brevet Lieutenant- General Winfield
Scott is ordered to be placed, and hereby is placed, upon the list of retired
officers of the Army of the United States, without reduction in his current
pay, subsistence, or allowances.
The American people will hear with sadness and deep emotion that
General Scott has withdrawn from the active control of the Army, while
the President and a unanimous Cabinet express their own and the nation's
sympathy in his personal affliction and their profound sense of the impor-
tant public services rendered by him to his country during his long and
brilliant career, among which will ever be gratefully distinguished his
faithful devotion to the Constitution, the Union, and the flag when
assailed by parricidal rebellion. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
The President is pleased to direct that Major- General George B. Mc-
Clellan assume the command of the Army of the United States. The
headquarters of the Army will be established in the city of Washington.
All communications intended for the Commanding General will hereafter
be addressed direct to the Adjutant- General. The duplicate returns,
orders, and other papers heretofore sent to the Assistant Adjutant- Gen-
eral, Headquarters of the Army, will be discontinued.
By order of the Secretary of War: ^ THOMAS
A djutant- General.
Executive Mansion,
Washhigton, November 5, 1861.
The governor of the State of Missouri, acting under the direction of
the convention of that State, proposes to the Government of the United
States that he will raise a mihtary force, to serve within the State as
State militia during the war there, to cooperate with the troops in the
service of the United States in repelling the invasion of the State and
Abraham Lincoln 41
suppressing rebellion therein; the said State militia to be embodied and
to be held in the camp and in the field, drilled, disciplined, and gov-
erned according to the Army Regulations and subject to the Articles of
War; the said State militia not to be ordered out of the State except for
the immediate defense of the State of Missouri, but to cooperate with the
troops in the service of the United States in military operations within
the State or necessary to its defense, and when officers of the State mili-
tia act with officers in the service of the United States of the same grade
the officers of the United States service shall command the combined
force; the State militia to be armed, equipped, clothed, subsisted, trans-
ported, and paid by the United States during such time as they shall be
actually engaged as an embodied military force in service in accordance
with Regulations of the United States Army or general orders as issued
from time to time.
In order that the Treasury of the United States may not be burdened
with the pay of unnecessary officers, the governor proposes that, although
the State law requires him to appoint upon the general staff an adjutant-
general, a commissary-general, an inspector-general, a quartermaster- gen-
eral, a pay master- general, and a surgeon-general, each with the rank of
colonel of cavalry, yet he proposes that the Government of the United
States pay only the adjutant-general, the quartermaster-general, and
inspector- general, their services being necessary in the relations which
would exist between the State militia and the United States. The gov-
ernor further proposes that, while he is allowed by the State law to
appoint aids-de-camp to the governor at his discretion, with the rank
of colonel, three only shall be reported to the United States for payment.
He also proposes that the State militia shall be commanded by a single
major-general and by such number of brigadier-generals as shall allow
one for a brigade of not less than four regiments, and that no greater
number of staff officers shall be appointed for regimental, brigade, and
division duties than as provided for in the act of Congress of the 2 2d
July, 1 861; and that, whatever be the rank of such officers as fixed by
the law of the State, the compensation that they shall receive from the
United States shall only be that which belongs to the rank given by
said act of Congress to officers in the United States service performing
the same duties.
The field officers of a regiment in the State militia are one colonel, one
lieutenant-colonel, and one major, and the company officers are a captain,
a first lieutenant, and a second lieutenant.
The governor proposes that, as the money to be disbursed is the money
of the United States, such staff officers in the service of the United States
as may be necessary to act as disbursing officers for the State militia shall
be assigned by the War Department for that duty; or, if such can not be
spared from their present duty, he will appoint such persons disbursing
officers for the State militia as the President of the United States may
42 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
designate. Such regulations as may be required, in the judgment of the
President, to insure regularity of returns and to protect the United States
from any fraudulent practices shall be observed and obeyed by all in office
in the State militia.
The above propositions are accepted on the part of the United States,
and the Secretary of War is directed to make the necessary orders upon
the Ordnance, Quartermaster's, Commissary, Pay, and Medical depart-
ments to carry this agreement into effect. He will cause the necessary
staff officers in the United States service to be detailed for duty in con-
nection with the Missouri State militia, and will order them to make the
necessary provision in their respective offices for fulfilling this agreement.
All requisitions upon the different officers of the United States under this
agreement to be made in substance in the same mode for the Missouri
State militia as similar requisitions are made for troops in the service of
the United States; and the Secretary of War will cause any additional
regulations that may be necessary to insure regularity and economy in
carrying this agreement into effect to be adopted and communicated
to the governor of Missouri for the government of the Missouri State
militia.
[Indorsement.]
NovKMBKR 6, 1 86 1.
This plan approved, with the modification that the governor stipulates
that when he commissions a major-general of militia it shall be the same
person at the time in command of the United States Department of the
West; and in case the United States shall change such commander of
the department, he (the governor) will revoke the State commission given
to the person relieved and give one to the person substituted to the
United States command of said department. » y TNOOT "NT
Gbnkrai, Orders, No. 96.
War Dkpartmbnt,
Adjutant- Gknkrai^'s Office;,
Washington, November 7, 186 1.
Authority to raise a force of State militia, to serve during the war, is
granted, by direction of the President, to the governor of Missouri. This
force is to cooperate with the troops in the service of the United States
in repelhng the invasion of the State of Missouri and in suppressing
rebellion therein. It is to be held, in camp and in the field, drilled, dis-
ciplined, and governed according to the Regulations of the United States
Army and subject to the Articles of War; but it is not to be ordered
out of the State of Missouri except for the immediate defense of the said
State.
The State forces thus authorized will be, during such time as they
Abraham, Lincoln 43
shall be actually engaged as an embodied military force in active service,
armed, equipped, clothed, subsisted, transported, and paid by the United
States in accordance with the Regulations of the United States Army
and such orders as may from time to time be issued from the War
Department, and in no other manner; and they shall be considered as
disbanded from the service of the United States whenever the President
may so direct.
In connection with this force the governor is authorized to appoint
the following ofl&cers, who will be recognized and paid by the United
States, to wit: One major-general, to command the whole of the State
forces brought into service, who shall be the same person appointed by
the President to command the United States Military Department of the
West, and shall retain his commission as major-general of the State forces
only during his command of the said department; one adjutant-general,
one inspector-general, and one quartermaster- general, each with the rank
and pay of a colonel of cavalry; three aids-de-camp to the governor, each
with the rank and pay of a colonel of infantry; brigadier-generals at the
rate of one to a brigade of not less than four regiments; and division,
brigade, and regimental staff officers not to exceed in numbers those
provided for in the organization prescribed by the act approved July 22,
1 86 1, ''for the employment of volunteers," nor to be more highly com-
pensated by the United States, whatever their nominal rank in the State
service, than officers performing the same duties under that act.
The field officers of a regiment to be one colonel, one lieutenant- colo-
nel, and one major, and the officers of a company to be one captain, one
first and one second lieutenant.
When officers of the said State forces shall act in conjunction with
officers of the United States Army of the same grade, the latter shall
command the combined force.
All disbursements of money made to these troops or in consequence of
their employment by the United States shall be made by disbursing offi-
cers of the United States Army, assigned by the War Department, or
specially appointed by the President for that purpose, who will make
their requisitions upon the different supply departments in the same
manner for the Missouri State forces as similar requisitions are made for
other volunteer troops in the service of the United States.
The Secretary of War will cause any additional regulations that may be
necessary for the purpose of promoting economy, insuring regularity of
returns, and protecting the United States from fraudulent practices to be
adopted and published for the government of the said State forces, and
the same will be obeyed and observed by all in office under the authority
of the State of Missouri,
By order:
JULIUS P. GARESCHfi,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
44 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
GkneraIv Orders, No. ioo.
Headquarters of the Army,
Adjutant- General's Office,
Washington, NoveTnber i6, 1861.
Complaint has been made to the President of the United States that
certain persons within the State of Virginia, in places occupied by the
forces of the United States, claim to be incumbents of civil offices —
State, county, and municipal — by alleged authority from the Common-
wealth of Virginia, in disregard and violation of the ' ' declaration of the
people of Virginia represented in convention at the city of Wheeling,
Thursday, June 13, 1861," and of the ordinances of said convention, and
of the acts of the general assembly held by authority of said convention.
It is therefore ordered, by direction of the President, that if any person
shall hereafter attempt within the State of Virginia, under the alleged
authority of said Commonwealth, to exercise any official powers of a civil
nature within the limits of any of the commands of the occupying forces
of the United States, unless in pursuance of the declaration and ordi-
nances of the convention assembled at Wheeling on the 13th day of
June, 186 1, and the acts of the general assembly held by authority of said
convention, such attempt shall be treated as an act of hostility against
the United States, and such person shall be taken into military custody.
Commanding officers are directed to enforce this order within their
respective commands.
*T^ ^ *T^ *^ 5|C #|C 5jC
By command of Major- General McClellan:
I,. THOMAS, Adjutant-General.
Executive Mansion, Washington, November 27, 186 1.
The municipal authorities of Washington and Georgetown, in this
District, having appointed to-morrow, the 28th instant, as a day of thanks-
giving, the several Departments will on that occasion be closed, in order
that the officers of the Government may partake in the ceremonies.
ABRAHAM IvINCOLN.
- FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.
Washington, December j, 1861.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate ajid House of Representatives:
In the midst of unprecedented political troubles we have cause of great
gratitude to God for unusual good health and most abundant harvests.
You will not be surprised to learn that in the peculiar exigencies of
the times our intercourse with foreign nations has been attended with
profound solicitude, chiefly turning upon our own domestic affairs.
Abraham I Lincoln 45
A disloyal portion of the American people have during the whole year
been engaged in an attempt to divide and destroy the Union. A nation
which endures factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad,
and one party, if not both, is sure sooner or later to invoke foreign inter-
vention.
Nations thus tempted to interfere are not always able to resist the
counsels of seeming expediency and ungenerous ambition, although
measures adopted under such influences seldom fail to be unfortunate and
injurious to those adopting them.
The disloyal citizens of the United States who have offered the ruin of
our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked
abroad have received less patronage and encouragement than they prob-
ably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed
to assume, that foreign nations in this case, discarding all moral, social,
and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly for the most speedy
restoration of commerce, including especially the acquisition of cotton,
those nations appear as yet not to have seen their way to their object
more directly or clearly through the destruction than through the preser-
vation of the Union. If we could dare to believe that foreign nations
are actuated by no higher principle than this, I am quite sure a sound
argument could be made to show them that they can reach their aim
more readily and easily by aiding to crush this rebellion than by giving
encouragement to it.
The principal lever relied on by the insurgents for exciting foreign
nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the embarrass-
ment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw from
the first that it was the Union which made as well our foreign as our
domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that the
effort for disunion produces the existing difficulty, and that one strong
nation promises more durable peace and a more extensive, valuable,
and reliable commerce than can the same nation broken into hostile
fragments.
It is not my purpose to review our discussions with foreign states,
because, whatever might be their wishes or dispositions, the integrity of
our country and the stability of our Government mainly depend not
upon them, but on the loyalty, virtue, patriotism, and intelligence of the
American people. The correspondence itself, with the usual reservations,
is herewith submitted.
I venture to hope it will appear that we have practiced prudence and
liberality toward foreign powers, averting causes of irritation and with
firmness maintaining our own rights and honor.
Since, however, it is apparent that here, as in every other state, foreign
dangers necessarily attend domestic difficulties, I recommend that ade-
quate and ample measures be adopted for maintaining the public defenses
on every side. While under this general recommendation provision for
46 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
defending our seacoast line readily occurs to the mind, I also in the same
connection ask the attention of Congress to our great lakes and rivers.
It is believed that some fortifications and depots of arms and munitions,
with harbor and navigation improvements, all at well-selected points upon
these, would be of great importance to the national defense and preserva-
tion. I ask attention to the views of the Secretary of War, expressed in
his report, upon the same general subject.
I deem it of importance that the loyal regions of east Tennessee and
western North Carolina should be connected with Kentucky and other
faithful parts of the Union by railroad. I therefore recommend, as a mili-
tary measure, that Congress provide for the construction of such road as
speedily as possible. Kentucky no doubt will cooperate, and through her
legislature make the most judicious selection of a line. The northern
terminus must connect with some existing railroad, and whether the
route shall be from Lexington or Nicholasville to the Cumberland Gap,
or from Lebanon to the Tennessee line, in the direction of Knoxville,
or on some still different line, can easily be determined. Kentucky and
the General Government cooperating, the work can be completed in a
very short time, and when done it will be not only of vast present useful-
ness, but also a valuable permanent improvement, worth its cost in all
the future.
Some treaties, designed chiefly for the interests of commerce, and hav-
ing no grave political importance, have been negotiated, and will be
submitted to the Senate for their consideration.
Although we have failed to induce some of the commercial powers to
adopt a desirable melioration of the rigor of maritime war, we have
removed all obstructions from the way of this humane reform except
such as are merely of temporary and accidental occurrence.
I invite your attention to the correspondence between Her Britannic
Majesty's minister accredited to this Government and the Secretary of
State relative to the detention of the British ship Perthshire in June last
by the United States steamer Massachusetts for a supposed breach of the
blockade. As this detention was occasioned by an obvious misappre-
hension of the facts, and as justice requires that we should commit no
belligerent act not founded in strict right as sanctioned by public law,
I recommend that an appropriation be made to satisfy the reasonable
demand of the owners of the vessel for her detention.
I repeat the recommendation of my predecessor in his annual message
to Congress in December last in regard to the disposition of the surplus
which will probably remain after satisfying the claims of American citi-
zens against China, pursuant to the awards of the commissioners under
the act of the 3d of March, 1859. If, however, it should not be deemed
advisable to carry that recommendation into effect, I would suggest that
authority be given for investing the principal, over the proceeds of the
surplus referred to, in good securities, with a view to the satisfaction of
Abraham Lincoln . 47
such other just claims of our citizens against China as are not unHkely
to arise hereafter in the course of our extensive trade with that Empire.
By the act of the 5th of August last Congress authorized the President
to instruct the commanders of suitable vessels to defend themselves
against and to capture pirates. This authority has been exercised in a
single instance only. For the more effectual protection of our extensive
and valuable commerce in the Eastern seas especially, it seems to me that
it would also be advisable to authorize the commanders of sailing ves-
sels to recapture any prizes which pirates may make of United States
vessels and their cargoes, and the consular courts now established by
law in Eastern countries to adjudicate the cases in the event that this
should not be objected to by the local authorities.
If any good reason exists why we should persevere longer in withhold-
ing our recognition of the independence and sovereignty of Hayti and
Liberia, I am unable to discern it. Unwilling, however, to inaugurate
a novel policy in regard to them without the approbation of Congress,
I submit for your consideration the expediency of an appropriation for
maintaining a charg6 d'affaires near each of those new States. It does
not admit of doubt that important commercial advantages might be
secured by favorable treaties with them.
The operations of the Treasury during the period which has elapsed
since your adjournment have been conducted with signal success. The
patriotism of the people has placed at the disposal of the Government
the large means demanded by the public exigencies. Much of the na-
tional loan has been taken by citizens of the industrial classes, whose
confidence in their country's faith and zeal for their country's deliver-
ance from present peril have induced them to contribute to the support
of the Government the whole of their limited acquisitions. This fact
imposes peculiar obligations to economj^ in disbursement and energy in
action.
The revenue from all sources, including loans, for the financial year
ending on the 30th of June, 1861, was $86,835,900.27, and the expend-
itures for the same period, including payments on account of the public
debt, were $84,578,834.47, leaving a balance in the Treasury on the ist
of July of $2,257,065.80. For the first quarter of the financial year
ending on the 30th of September, 1861, the receipts from all sources,
including the balance of the ist of July, were $102,532,509.27, and the
expenses $98,239,733.09, leaving a balance on the ist of October, 1861,
of $4,292,776.18.
Estimates for the remaining three quarters of the year and for the
financial year 1863, together with his views of ways and means for meet-
ing the demands contemplated by them, will be submitted to Congress
by the Secretary of the Treasury. It is gratifying to know that the ex-
penditures made necessary by the rebellion are not beyond the resources
of the loyal people, and to believe that the same patriotism which has
48 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
thus far sustained the Government will continue to sustain it till peace
and union shall again bless the land.
I respectfully refer to the report of the Secretary of War for informa-
tion respecting the numerical strength of the Army and for recommen-
dations having in view an increase of its efficiency and the well-being
of the various branches of the service intrusted to his care. It is grati-
fying to know that the patriotism of the people has proved equal to
the occasion, and that the number of troops tendered greatly exceeds the
force which Congress authorized me to call into the field.
I refer with pleasure to those portions of his report which make allu-
sion to the creditable degree of discipline already attained by our troops
and to the excellent sanitary condition of the entire Army.
The recommendation of the Secretary for an organization of the militia
upon a uniform basis is a subject of vital importance to the future safety
of the country, and is commended to the serious attention of Congress.
The large addition to the Regular Army, in connection with the defec-
tion that has so considerably diminished the number of its officers, gives
peculiar importance to his recommendation for increasing the corps of
cadets to the greatest capacity of the Military Academy.
By mere omission, I presume, Congress has failed to provide chaplains
for hospitals occupied by volunteers. This subject was brought to my
notice, and I was induced to draw up the form of a letter, one copy of
which, properly addressed, has been delivered to each of the persons, and
at the dates respectively named and stated in a schedule, containing also
the form of the letter marked A, and herewith transmitted.
These gentlemen, I understand, entered upon the duties designated at
the times respectively stated in the schedule, and have labored faithfully
therein ever since. I therefore recommend that they be compensated at
the same rate as chaplains in the Army. I further suggest that general
provision be made for chaplains to serve at hospitals, as well as with
regiments.
The report of the Secretary of the Navy presents in detail the opera-
tions of that branch of the service, the activity and energy which have
characterized its administration, and the results of measures to increase
its efficiency and power. Such have been the additions, by construction
and purchase, that it may almost be said a navy has been created and
brought into service since our difficulties commenced.
Besides blockading our extensive coast, squadrons larger than ever
before assembled under our flag have been put afloat and performed deeds
which have increased our naval renown.
I would invite special attention to the recommendation of the Secretary"
for a more perfect organization of the Navy by introducing additional
grades in the service.
The present organization is defective and unsatisfactory, and the sug-
gestions submitted by the Department will, it is believed, if adopted,
Abraham Lincoln 49
obviate the difficulties alluded to, promote harmony, and increase the effi-
ciency of the Navy.
There are three vacancies on the bench of the Supreme Court — two by
the decease of Justices Daniel and McL<ean and one by the resignation of
Justice Campbell. I have so far forborne making nominations to fill
these vacancies for reasons which I will now state. Two of the out-
going judges resided within the States now overrun by revolt, so that if
successors were appointed in the same localities they could not now
serve upon their circuits; and many of the most competent men there
probably would not take the personal hazard of accepting to serve, even
here, upon the Supreme bench. I have been unwilling to throw all the
appointments northward, thus disabling myself from doing justice to
the South on the return of peace; although I may remark that to trans-
fer to the North one which has heretofore been in the South would not,
with reference to territory and population, be unjust.
During the long and brilliant judicial career of Judge McLean his cir-
cuit grew into an empire — altogether too large for any one judge to give
the courts therein more than a nominal attendance — rising in population
from 1,470,018 in 1830 to 6,151,405 in i860.
Besides this, the country generally has outgrown our present judicial
system. If uniformity was at all intended, the system requires that all
the States shall be accommodated with circuit courts, attended by
Supreme judges, while, in fact, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Flor-
ida, Texas, California, and Oregon have never had any such courts.
Nor can this well be remedied without a change in the system, because
the adding of judges to the Supreme Court, enough for the accommoda-
tion of all parts of the country with circuit courts, would create a court
altogether too numerous for a judicial body of any sort. And the evil, if
it be one, will increase as new States come into the Union. Circuit courts
are useful or they are not useful. If useful, no State should be denied
them; if not useful, no State should have them. Let them be provided
for all or abolished as to all.
Three modifications occur to me, either of which, I think, would be an
improvement upon our present system. Let the Supreme Court be of
convenient number in every event; then, first, let the whole country be
divided into circuits of convenient size, the Supreme judges to serve in a
number of them corresponding to their own number, and independent
circuit judges be provided for all the rest; or, secondly, let the Supreme
judges be relieved from circuit duties and circuit judges provided for
all the circuits; or, thirdly, dispense with circuit courts altogether, leav-
ing the judicial functions wholly to the district courts and an independent
Supreme Court.
I respectfully recommend to the consideration of Congress the present
condition of the statute laws, with the hope that Congress will be able
to find an easy remedy for many of the inconveniences and evils which
M P— voiv VI— 4
50 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
constantly embarrass those engaged in the practical administration of
them. Since the organization of the Government Congress has enacted
some 5,000 acts and joint resolutions, which fill more than 6,000 closely
printed pages and are scattered through many volumes. Many of these
acts have been drawn in haste and without sufficient caution, so that their
provisions are often obscure in themselves or in conflict with each other,
or at least so doubtful as to render it very difficult for even the best-
informed persons to ascertain precisely what the statute law really is.
It seems to me very important that the statute laws should be made as
plain and intelligible as possible, and be reduced to as small a compass
as may consist with the fullness and precision of the will of the Legislature
and the perspicuity of its language. This well done would, I think,
greatly facilitate the labors of those whose duty it is to assist in the
administration of the laws, and would be a lasting benefit to the people, by
placing before them in a more accessible and intelligible form the laws
which so deeply concern their interests and their duties.
I am informed by some whose opinions I respect that all the acts of
Congress now in force and of a permanent and general nature might be
revised and rewritten so as to be embraced in one volume (or at most
two 'volumes) of ordinary and convenient size; and I respectfully recom-
mend to Congress to consider of the subject, and if my suggestion be
approved to devise such plan as to their wisdom shall seem most proper
for the attainment of the end proposed.
One of the unavoidable consequences of the present insurrection is the
entire suppression in many places of all the ordinary means of admin-
istering civil justice by the officers and in the forms of existing law.
This is the case, in whole or in part, in all the insurgent States; and as
our armies advance upon and take possession of parts of those States the
practical evil becomes more apparent. There are no courts nor officers to
whom the citizens of other States may apply for the enforcement of their
lawful claims against citizens of the insurgent States, and there is a vast
amount of debt constituting such claims. Some have estimated it as
high as $200,000,000, due in large part from insurgents in open rebellion
to loyal citizens who are even now making great sacrifices in the discharge
of their patriotic duty to support the Government.
Under these circumstances I have -been urgently solicited to establish
by military power courts to administer summary justice in such cases.
I have thus far declined to do it, not because I had any doubt that the
end proposed — the collection of the debts — was just and right in itself,
but because I have been unwilling to go beyond the pressure of necessity
in the unusual exercise of power. But the powers of Congress, I sup-
pose, are equal to the anomalous occasion, and therefore I refer the whole
matter to Congress, with the hope that a plan may be devised for the
administration of justice in all such parts of the insurgent States and
Territories as may be under the control of this Government, whether by
Abraham Lincoln
51
a voluntary return to allegiance and order or by the power of our arms;
this, however, not to be a permanent institution, but a temporary sub-
stitute, and to cease as soon as the ordinary courts can be reestablished
in peace.
It is important that some more convenient means should be provided,
if possible, for the adjustment of claims against the Government, espe-
cially in view of their increased number by reason of the war. It is as
much the duty of Government to render prompt justice against itself in
favor of citizens as it is to administer the same between private indi-
viduals. The investigation and adjudication of claims in their nature
belong to the judicial department. Besides, it is apparent that the
attention of Congress wall be more than usually engaged for some time
to come with great national questions. It was intended by the organiza-
tion of the Court of Claims mainly to remove this branch of business
from the halls of Congress; but while the court has proved to be an
effective and valuable means of investigation, it in great degree fails to
effect the object of its creation for want of power to make its judgments
final.
Fully aware of the delicacy, not to say the danger, of the subject, I
commend to your careful consideration whether this power of making
judgments final may not properly be given to the court, reserving the
right of appeal on questions of law to the Supreme Court, with such other
provisions as experience may have shown to be necessary.
I ask attention to the report of the Postmaster- General, the following
being a summary statement of the condition of the Department:
The revenue from all sources during the fiscal year ending June 30,
1 86 1, including the annual permanent appropriation of $700,000 for the
transportation of "free mail matter," was $9,049,296.40, being about 2
per cent less than the revenue for i860.
The expenditures were $13,606,759.11, showing a decrease of more
than 8 per cent as compared with those of the previous year and leaving
an excess of expenditure over the revenue for the last fiscal year of
$4,557,462.71.
The gross revenue for the year ending June 30, 1863, is estimated at
an increase of 4 per cent on that of 1861, making $8,683,000, to which
should be added the earnings of the Department in carrying free matter,
viz, $700,000, making $9,383,000.
The total expenditures for 1863 are estimated at $12,528,000, leaving
an estimated deficiency of $3,145,000 to be supplied from the Treasury
in addition to the permanent appropriation.
The present insurrection shows, I think, that the extension of this
District across the Potomac River at the time of establishing the capital
here was eminently wise, and consequently that the relinquishment of
that portion of it which lies within the State of Virginia was unwise and
dangerous. I submit for your consideration the expediency of regaining
52 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
that part of the District and the restoration of the original boundaries
thereof through negotiations with the State of Virginia.
The report of the Secretary of the Interior, with the accompanying
documents, exhibits the condition of the several branches of the public
business pertaining to that Department. The depressing influences of
the insurrection have been specially felt in the operations of the Patent
and General I^and Offices. The cash receipts from the sales of public
lands during the past year have exceeded the expenses of our land sys-
tem only about $200,000. The sales have been entirely sUvSpended in
the Southern States, while the interruptions to the business of the coun-
try and the diversion of large numbers of men from labor to military
service have obstructed settlements in the new States and Territories of
the Northwest.
The receipts of the Patent Office have declined in nine months about
$100,000, rendering a large reduction of the force employed necessary to
make it self-sustaining.
The demands upon the Pension Office will be largely increased by the
insurrection. Numerous applications for pensions, based upon the casual-
ties of the existing war, hiave already been made. There is reason to
believe that many who are now upon the pension rolls and in receipt
of the bounty of the Government are in the ranks of the insurgent army
or giving them aid and comfort. The Secretary of the Interior has
directed a suspension of the payment of the pensions of such persons
upon proof of their disloyalty. I recommend that Congress authorize
that officer to cause the names of such persons to be stricken from the
pension rolls.
The relations of the Government with the Indian tribes have been
greatly disturbed by the insurrection, especially in the southern superin-
tendency and in that of New Mexico. The Indian country south of
Kansas is in the possession of insurgents from Texas and Arkansas.
The agents of the United States appointed since the 4th of March for this
superintendency have been unable to reach their posts, while the most
of those who were in office before that time have espoused the insurrec-
tionary cause, and assume to exercise the powers of agents by virtue of
commissions from the insurrectionists. It has been stated in the public
press that a portion of those Indians have been organized as a military
force and are attached to the army of the insurgents. Although the
Government has no official information upon this subject, letters have
been written to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs by several prominent
chiefs giving assurance of their loyalty to the United States and express-
ing a wish for the presence of Federal troops to protect them. It is
believed that upon the repossession of the country by the Federal forces
the Indians will readily cease all hostile demonstrations and resume their
former relations to the Government.
Agriculture, confessedly the largest interest of the nation, has not a
Abraham Lincoln 53
department nor a bureau, but a clerkship only, assigned to it in the Gov-
ernment. While it is fortunate that this great interest is so independent
in its nature as to not have demanded and extorted more from the Gov-
ernment, I respectfully ask Congress to consider whether something more
can not be given voluntarily with general advantage.
Annual reports exhibiting the condition of our agriculture, commerce,
and manufactures would present a fund of information of great practical
value to the country. While I make no suggestion as to details, I ven-
ture the opinion that an agricultural and statistical bureau might profit-
ably be organized.
The execution of the laws for the suppression of the African slave
trade has been confided to the Department of the Interior. It is a sub-
ject of gratulation that the efforts which have been made for the suppres-
sion of this inhuman traffic have been recently attended with unusual
success. Five vessels being fitted out for the slave trade have been seized
and condemned. Two mates of vessels engaged in the" trade and one per-
son in equipping a vessel as a slaver have been convicted and subjected to
the penalty of fine and imprisonment, and one captain, taken with a
cargo of Africans on board his vessel, has been convicted of the highest
grade of offense under our laws, the punishment of which is death.
The Territories of Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada, created by the last
Congress, have been organized, and civil administration has been inaugu-
rated therein under auspices especially gratifying when it is considered
that the leaven of treason was found existing in some of these new coun-
tries when the Federal officers arrived there.
The abundant natural resources of these Territories, with the security
and protection afforded by organized government, will doubtless invite
to them a large immigration when peace shall restore the business of the
country to its accustomed channels. I submit the resolutions of the legis-
lature of Colorado, which evidence the patriotic spirit of the people of the
Territory. So far the authority of the United States has been upheld in
all the Territories, as it is hoped it will be in the future. I commend their
interests and defense to the enlightened and generou's care of Congress.
I recommend to the favorable consideration of Congress the interests
of the District of Columbia. The insurrection has been the cause of
much suffering and sacrifice to its inhabitants, and as they have no rep-
resentative in Congress that body should not overlook their just claims
upon the Government.
At your late session a joint resolution was adopted authorizing the
President to take measures for facilitating a proper representation of the
industrial interests of the United States at the exhibition of the industry
of all nations to be holden at I^ondon in the year 1862. I regret to say I
have been unable to give personal attention to this subject — a subject at
once so interesting in itself and so extensively and intimately connected
with the material prosperity of the world. Through the Secretaries of
54 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
State and of the Interior a plan or system has been devised and partly
matured, and which will be laid before you.
Under and by virtue of the act of Congress entitled "An act to con-
fiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," approved August 6,
1 86 1, the legal claims of certain persons to the labor and service of certain
other persons have become forfeited, and numbers of the latter thus liber-
ated are already dependent on the United States and must be provided for
in some way. Besides this, it is not impossible that some of the States
will pass similar enactments for their own benefit respectively, and by
operation of which persons of the same class will be thrown upon them
for disposal. In such case I recommend that Congress provide for accept-
ing such persons from such States, according to some mode of valuation,
in lieu, pro tanto, of direct taxes, or upon some other plan to be agreed on
with such States respectively; that such persons, on such acceptance by
the General Government, be at once deemed free, and that in any event
steps be taken for colonizing both classes (or the one first mentioned if
the other shall not be brought into existence) at some place or places in
a climate congenial to them. It might be well to consider, too, whether
the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as
individuals may desire, be included in such colonization.
To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring of ter-
ritory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to be expended
in the territorial acquisition. Having practiced the acquisition of terri-
tory for nearly sixty years, the question of constitutional power to do so
is no longer an open one with us. The power was questioned at first by
Mr. Jefferson, who, however, in the purchase of lyouisiana, yielded his
scruples on the plea of great expediency. If it be said that the only
legitimate object of acquiring territory is to furnish homes for white men,
this measure effects that object, for the emigration of colored men leaves
additional room for white men remaining or coming here. Mr. Jefferson,
however, placed the importance of procuring Louisiana more on political
and commercial grounds than on providing room for population.
On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money with
the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to abso-
lute necessity — that without which the Government itself can not be
perpetuated?
The war continues. In considering the policy to be adopted for sup-
pressing the insurrection I have been anxious and careful that the inev-
itable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and
remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have therefore in every case
thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as the
primary object of the contest on our part, leaving all questions which
are not of vital military importance to the more deliberate action of the
Legislature.
In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered to the blockade of
Abraham Lincoln
55
the ports held by the insurgents, instead of putting in force by proclama-
tion the law of Congress enacted at the late session for closing those
ports.
So also, obeying the dictates of prudence, as well as the obligations of
law, instead of transcending I have adhered to the act of Congress to con-
fiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes. If a new law upon
the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be duly considered.
The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must
be employed. We vShould not be in haste to determine that radical and
extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are
indispensable.
The inaugural address at the beginning of the Administration and the
message to Congress at the late special session were both mainly devoted
to the domestic controversy out of which the insurrection and consequent
war have sprung. Nothing now occurs to add or subtract to or from the
principles or general purposes stated and expressed in those documents.
The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at the
assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general review of what has occurred
since may not be unprofitable. What was painfully uncertain then is
much better defined and more distinct now, and the progress of events
is plainly in the right direction. The insurgents confidently claimed a
strong support from north of Mason and Dixon's line, and the friends of
the Union were not free from apprehension on the point. This, how-
ever, was soon settled definitely, and on the right side. South of the line
noble little Delaware led off right from the first. Maryland was made
to seem against the Union. Our soldiers were assaulted, bridges were
burned, and railroads torn up within her limits, and we were many days
at one time without the ability to bring a single regiment over her soil
to the capital. Now her bridges and railroads are repaired and open to
the Government; she already gives seven regiments to the cause of the
Union, and none to the enemy; and her people, at a regular election,
have sustained the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate
vote than they ever before gave to any candidate or any question. Ken-
tucky, too, for some time in doubt, is now decidedly and, I think, un-
changeably ranged on the side of the Union. Missouri is comparatively
quiet, and, I believe, can not again be overrun by the insurrectionists.
These three States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of
which would promise a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate
of not less than 40,000 in the field for the Union, while of their citizens
certainly not more than a third of that number, and they of doubtful
whereabouts and doubtful existence, are in arms against us. After a
somewhat bloody struggle of months, winter closes on the Union people
of western Virginia, leaving them masters of their own country.
An insurgent force of about 1,500, for months dominating the narrow
peninsular region constituting the counties of Accomac and Northampton,
^6 Messages ajtd Papers of the Presidents
and known as Eastern Shore of Virginia, together with some contiguous
parts of Maryland, have laid down their arms, and the people there have
renewed their allegiance to and accepted the protection of the old flag.
This leaves no armed insurrectionist north of the Potomac or east of the
Chesapeake.
Also we have obtained a footing at each of the isolated points on the
southern coast of Hatteras, Port Royal, Tybee Island (near Savannah),
and Ship Island; and we likewise have some general accounts of popular
movements in behalf of the Union in North Carolina and Tennessee.
These things demonstrate that the cause of the Union is advancing
steadily and certainly southward.
Since your last adjournment I^ieutenant- General Scott has retired from
the head of the Army. During his long life the nation has not been
unmindful of his merit; yet on calling to mind how faithfully, ably, and
brilliantly he has served the country, from a time far back in our history,
when few of the now living had been born, and thenceforward contin-
ually, I can not but think we are still his debtors. I submit, therefore,
for your consideration what further mark of recognition is due to him,
and to ourselves as a grateful people.
With the retirement of General Scott came the Executive duty of
appointing in his stead a General in Chief of the Army. It is a fortunate
circumstance that neither in council nor country was there, so far as I
know, any difference of opinion as to the proper person to be selected.
The retiring chief repeatedly expressed his judgment in favor of General
McClellan for the position, and in this the nation seemed to give a
unanimous concurrence. The designation of General McClellan is there-
fore in considerable degree the selection of the country as well as of the
Executive, and hence there is better reason to hope there will be given
him the confidence and cordial support thus by fair implication promised,
and without which he can not with so full efficiency serve the country.
It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones,
and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is
better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior
ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other.
And the same is true in all joint operations wherein those engaged can
have none but a common end in view and can differ only as to the choice
of means. In a storm at sea no one on board cayi wish the ship to sink,
and yet not unfrequently all go down together because too many will
direct and no single mind can be allowed to control.
It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not exclu-
sively, a war upon the first principle of popular government — ^the rights
of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most grave
and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the general tone
of the insurgents. In those documents we find the abridgment of the
existing right of suffrage and the denial t(* the people of all right to
Abraham Lincohi
57
participate in the selection of public officers except the legislative boldly
advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large control of the
people in government is the source of all pohtical evil. Monarchy itself
is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people.
In my present position I could scarcely be justified were I to omit rais-
ing a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.
It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be
made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its
connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief
attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not
above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is
available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless some-
body else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor.
This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall
hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy
them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so
far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or
what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a
hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed,
nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the con-
dition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all infer-
ences from them are groundless.
I^abor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit
of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.
I^abor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher considera-
tion. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any
other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be,
a relation between labor and capital "producing mutual benefits. The
error is in assuming that the whole labor of community exists within that
relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves,
and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them. A large
majority belong to neither class — neither work for others nor have others
working for them. In most of the Southern States a majority of the whole
people of all colors are neither slaves nor masters, while in the Northern
a large majority are neither hirers nor hired. Men, with their families —
wives, sons, and daughters — work for themselves on their farms, in their
houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and
asking no favors of capital on the one hand nor of hired laborers or slaves
on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons
mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor with their own
hands and also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a
mixed and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the
existence of this mixed class.
Again, as has ialready been said, there is not of necessity any such thing
58 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for hfe. Many inde-
pendent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their Uves
were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors
for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for
himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires
another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and
prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and conse-
quent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men
living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty;
none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly
earned. I^et them beware of surrendering a political power which they
already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the
door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and
burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost.
From the first taking of our national census to the last are seventy years,
and we find our population at the end of the period eight times as great as
it was at the beginning. The increase of those other things which men
deem desirable has been even greater. We thus have at one view what
the popular principle, applied to Government through the machinery of the
States and the Union, has produced in a given time, and also what if firmly
maintained it promises for the future. There are already among us those
who if the Union be preserved will live to see it contain 250,000,000. The
struggle <?/" to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also.
With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed
in the great task which events have devolved upon us.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, December ^, 1861.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in reply
to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 31st July last,
upon the subject of increasing and extending trade and commerce of
the United States with foreign countries.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington, December /, 1861.
To the House of Represeyitatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in reply to
the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 13th July last,
in relation to the correspondence between this Government and foreign
Abraham Lincoln ■ 59
nations respecting the rights of blockade, privateering, and the recogni-
tion of the so-called Confederate States.
ABRAHAM I^INCOI^N.
Washington, December 5, 1861.
To the Se7iate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a treaty between the United States of America and His Majesty the
King of Hanover, concerning the abolition of the Stade or Brunshausen
dues, signed at Berlin on the 6th November, 1861.
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
Washington, December p, 1861.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in reply to
the resolution of the House of the 4th instant, relative to the intervention
of certain European powers in the affairs of Mexico.
ABRAHAM L'lNCOIyN.
ExKCuTivB Mansion,
Washington^ December i^, 1861.
To the Seriate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of your honorable body * ' that the
President be requested to furnish to the Senate copies of the charges,
testimony, and finding of the recent court of inquiry in the case of Colonel
Dixon S. Miles, of the United States Army," I have the honor to trans-
mit herewith the copies desired, which have been procured from the War
Department. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December 16, 1861.
To the Senate of the United States:
I submit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification,
the amendments introduced by the Constituent National Assembly of
Bolivia in its decree of ratification into the treaty of peace, friendship,
commerce, and navigation concluded with that Republic on the 13th of
May, 1858, an official translation of which decree accompanies this mes-
sage, with the original treaty. As the time within which the exchange
of ratifications should be effected is limited, I recommend, in view of
the delay which must necessaril)^ occur and the difl&culty of reaching the
seat of Government of that Republic, that the time within which such
exchange shall take place be extended in the following terms: "Within
such period as may be mutually convenient to both Governments. ' '
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
6o Messages, and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, December ly, 1861.
To the Senate and House of Represejitatives:
I transmit to the Senate and House of Representatives copies of the
correspondence between the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and
the governor of the State of Maine on the subject of the fortification
of the seacoast and Lakes. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December 77, 1861.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its advice, a copy of a draft for a conven-
tion with the RepubHc of Mexico, proposed to the Government of that
RepubHc by Mr. Corwin, the minister of the United States accredited to
that Government, together with the correspondence relating to it.
As the subject is of momentous interest to the two Governments at this
juncture, the early consideration of it by the Senate is very desirable.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, December 20, 1861.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a letter from the secretary of the executive
committee of the commission appointed to represent the interests of those
American citizens who may desire to become exhibitors at the industrial
exhibition to be held in I^ondon in 1862, and a memorial of that com-
mission, with a report of the executive committee thereof and copies of
circulars announcing the decisions of Her Majesty's commissioners in
I^ondon, giving directions to be observed in regard to articles intended
for exhibition, and also of circular forms of application, demands for
space, approvals, etc., according to the rules prescribed by the British
commissioners.
As these papers fully set forth the requirements necessary to enable
those citizens of the United States who may wish to become exhibitors
to avail themselves of the privileges of the exhibition, I commend them to
your early consideration, especially in view of the near approach of the
time when the exhibition will begin.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, December 23, 186 1.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 13th July last, requesting information respecting the Asiatic cooly
trade, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with the documents
which accompanied it. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 6i
Washington, December jo, 1861.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a correspondence which has taken place between
the Secretary of State and authorities of Great Britain and France on
the subject of the recent removal of certain citizens* of the United States
from the British mail steamer Trent by order of Captain Wilkes, in com-
mand of the United States war steamer San Jacinto.
ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
Washington, y<a;?z?^«^r>/ 2, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a letter to the Secretary of State from
James R. Partridge, secretary to the executive committee to the indus-
trial exhibition to be held in lyondon in the course of the present year,
and a copy of the correspondence to which it refers, relative to a vessel
for the purpose of taking such articles as persons in this country may
wish to exhibit on that occasion. As it appears that no naval vessel can
be spared for the purpose, I recommend that authority be given to char-
ter a suitable merchant vCvSsel, in order that facilities similar to those
afforded by the Government for the exhibition of 1851 may also be
extended to those citizens of the United States who may desire to con-
tribute to the exhibition of this year.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, D. Q,., January j, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
concluded on the 15th November, 1861, between William W. Ross,
agent on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of
the tribe of Pottawatomie Indians, with accompanying communications
from the Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
the latter of which proposes certain modifications of said treaty, which
are also referred for the consideration of the Senate.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, January 10, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the minister
of His Majesty the Emperor of Austria accredited to this Government,
and a copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary of State, rela-
tive to the questions involved in the taking from the British steamer
* James M. Mason and John Slidell, Confederate envoys to E;ngland and France, respectively,
and two others.
62 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Trent of certain citizens of the United States by order of Captain Wilkes,
of the United States Navy. This correspondence may be considered as
a sequel to that previously communicated to Congress relating to the
same subject. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, /<:?/zz^<2rj/ iy,i862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the minister
of His Majesty the King of Prussia accredited to this Government, and
a copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary of State, relating to
the capture and detention of certain citizens of the United States, pas-
sengers on board the British steamer Trent, by order of Captain Wilkes,
of the United States Navy. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C, fanuary z/, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the consideration of the Senate, a petition of
certain members of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians, complaining of the
treaty made by W. W. Ross on the 15th November last with that tribe,
which treaty was laid before the Senate for its constitutional action in
my communication to that body dated the 6th [3d] instant.
A letter of the i6th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, inclos-
ing a report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs dated the 15th instant,
in relation to the subject, is also herewith transmitted.
ABRAHAM LINCOIvN.
Washington, D. C. , fanuary, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, articles
of agreement and convention concluded at Niobrara, Nebraska Territory,
on the 14th day of November, i860, between J. Shaw Gregory, agent on
the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Poncas
tribe of Indians, being supplementary to the treaty wdth said tribe made
on the 12th day of March, 1858.
I also transmit a letter, dated the 4th instant, from the Secretary of
the Interior, inclosing a copy of a report of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs of the 20th September, 1861, in relation to the subject.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington, fanuary 2^, 1862.
To the Senate a7id House of Represe7itatives:
I submit to Congress the accompanying copy of a correspondence be-
tween the Secretary of State, the Spanish minister, and the Secretary of
I
Abraham Lincoln 63
the Navy, concerning the case of the bark Providencia, a Spanish vessel
seized on her voyage from Havana to New York by a steamer of the
United States Blockading Squadron and subsequently released. I rec-
ommend the appropriation of the amount of the award of the referee.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington, /<2;2z^arj/ 2^, 1862.
To the Senate of the U7iited States:
I lay before the Senate a dispatch which has just been received from
Mr. Corwin, our minister to Mexico. It communicates important infor-
mation concerning the war which is waged against Mexico by the com-
bined powers of Spain, France, and Great Britain.
Mr. Corwin asks instructions by which to regulate his proceedings so
as to save our national interests in the case of an adjustment of the diffi-
culties between the belligerents. I have heretofore submitted to the
Senate a request for its advice upon the question pending by treaty for
making a loan to Mexico, which Mr. Corwin thinks will in any case be
expedient. It seems to be my duty now to solicit an early action of the
Senate upon the subject, to the end that I may cause such instructions
to be given to Mr. Corwin as will enable him to act in the manner which,
while it will most carefully guard the interests of our country, will at the
same time be most beneficial to Mexico.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, Ja?iuary 28, 1862.
To the Se?iate of the United States:
I submit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification,
a treaty of extradition concluded by Mr. Corwin with the Mexican Gov-
ernment on the nth of December last.
I also submit a postal convention concluded by that gentleman at the
same time, and a copy of his dispatch of the 24th of the same month
explanatory of the provisions of both these instruments, and the reasons
for the nonratification by Mexico of the postal convention concluded in
this city on the 31st of July last and approved by the Senate on the 6th
of August.
A copy of a letter from the Postmaster- General to the Secretary of
State in relation to Mr. Corwin' s postal convention is also herewith com-
municated. The advice of the Senate as to the expediency of accepting
that convention as a substitute for the one of the 31st of July last is
requested. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, fanuary 31, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
As a sequel to the correspondence on the subject previously communi-
cated, I transmit to Congress extracts from a dispatch of the 20th ultimo
64 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
from Mr. Adams, United States minister at lyondon, to the Secretary of
State, and a copy of an instruction from Karl Russell to I^ord Lyons of the
loth instant, relative to the removal of certain citizens of the United
States from the British mail steamer Trent by order of the commander
of the United States war steamer Sa?i Jacinto.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington City, Eebruary ^, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
The third section of the "Act further to promote the -efficiency of the
Navy," approved December 21, 1861, provides —
That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the retired list of the Navy for the
command of squadrons and single ships such officers as he may believe that the good
of the service requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall receive a vote
of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry in action against an enemy, be
restored to the active list, and not otherwise.
In conformity with this law. Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, of the Navy,
was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in com-
mand of the squadron which recently rendered such important service
to the Union in the expedition to the coast of South Carolina.
Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully corre-
spond with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with happy influ-
ence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain Samuel F. Du
Pont receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his services and gallantry
displayed in the capture of Forts Walker and Beauregard, commanding
the entrance of Port Royal Harbor, on the 7th of November, 1861.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington, February 7, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 5th instant, requesting a
communication of any recent correspondence relating to the presentation
of American citizens to the Court of France, I transmit a copy of a dis-
patch of the 14th ultimo from the United States minister at Paris to the
Secretary of State and of an instruction of Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton of
the 3d instant. ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, February 12, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a special treaty between the United
States and His Majesty the King of Hanover for the abolition of the
Stade dues, which was signed at Berhn on the 6th of November last. In
Abraham Lincoht 65
this treaty, already approved by the Senate and ratified on the part of the
United States, it is stipulated that the sums specified in Articles III and
IV to be paid to the Hanoverian Government shall be paid at Berlin on
the day of the exchange of ratifications. I therefore recommend that
seasonable provision be made to enable the Executive to carry this stipu-
lation into effect. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington City, February 75, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the
Navy," approved December 21, 1861, provides —
That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the retired list of the Navy for the
command of squadrons and single ships such officers as he may believe that the good
of the service requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall receive a vote
of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry in action against an enemy, be
restored to the active list, and not otherwise.
In conformity with this law, Captain I^ouis M. Goldsborough, of the
Navy, was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in
command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, which recently
rendered such important service to the Union in the expedition to the
coast of North Carolina.
Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully cor-
respond with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with happy
influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain lyouis M.
Goldsborough receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his services and
gallantry displayed in the combined attack of the forces commanded by
him and Brigadier- General Bumside in the capture of Roanoke Island
and the destruction of rebel gunboats on the 7th, 8th, and loth of Feb-
ruary, 1862. ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, February 21, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
The President of the United States was last evening plunged into afflic-
tion by the death of a beloved child. The heads of the Departments, in
consideration of this distressing event, havef thought it would be agree-
able to Congress and to the American people that the official and private
buildings occupied by them should not be illuminated in the evening of
the 2 2d instant.
WIIvI^IAM H. SEWARD. CALEB B. SMITH.
S. P. CHASE. M. BLAIR.
EDWIN M. STANTON. EDWARD BATES.
GIDEON WELLES.
M P— vol, VI — 5
66 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, February 25, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of an instruction from Prince Gortchakoff
t6 Mr. De Stoeckl, the minister of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of
Russia accredited to this Government, and of a note of the Secretary
of State to the latter, relative to the adjustment of the question between
the United States and Great Britain growing out of the removal of cer-
tain of our citizens from the British mail steamer Trent by order of the
commander of the United States war steamer San facinto.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, February 26, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
In transmitting to Congress the accompanying copy of two letters,
bearing date the 14th of February, 1861, from His Majesty the Major
King of Siam to the President of the United States, and of the Presi-
dent's answer thereto, I submit for their consideration the question as to
the proper place of deposit of the gifts received with the royal letters
referred to. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, February 27, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
Lieutenant- General Scott has advised me that while he would cheer-
fully accept a commission as additional minister to Mexico, with a view
to promote the interests of the United States and of peace, yet his infirm-
ities are such that he could not be able to reach the capital of that coun-
try by any existing mode of travel, and he therefore deems it his duty to
decline the important mission. I had proposed for him. For this reason
I withdraw the nomination in this respect heretofore submitted to the
Senate. It is hardly necessary to add that the nomination was made
without any knowledge of it on his part.
ABRAHAM LINCOIyN.
Washington, March j, 1862,
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a dispatch to the Secretary of State
from the minister resident of the United States at lyisbon, concerning re-
cent measures which have been adopted by the Government of Portugal
intended to encourage the growth and to enlarge the area of the culture
of cottoE in its African possessions. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 67
Washington, March j, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a translation of an instruction to the minister
of His Majesty the King of Italy accredited to this Government, and a
copy of a note to that minister from the Secretary of State, relating to
the settlement of the question arising out of the capture and detention
of certain citizens of the United States, passengers on board the British
steamer Trent^ by order of Captain Wilkes, of the United States Navy.
ABRAHAM IvINCOLN.
Washington, March j, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate a translation of a note addressed to the Secretary
of State on the ist instant by General P. A. Herran, envoy extraordinary
and minister plenipotentiary of the Granadian Confederation, with a trans-
lation of the communication accompanying that note from the special com-
missioner of that Republic, together with a copy of a letter from the special
commissioner of the United States of the 26th ultimo, under the conven-
tion of the loth September, 1857, setting forth the impracticability of dis-
posing of the cases submitted to the joint commission now in session
under the convention within the period prescribed therein.
I recommend, therefore, that the Senate consent to the extension of
time for days from and after the expiration of the time limited by
the convention. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, March j, 1862.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit herewith a communication* of the Secretary of War, inclos-
ing a report of the Adjutant- General, in answer to a resolution of the
House of Representatives of the 22d of January, 1862.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington, March 5, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I submit to the Senate, for its consideration, a copy of a message ad-
drCvSsed to that body by my immediate predecessor on the 12th February,
1 86 1, relating to the award made by the joint commission under the con-
vention between the United States and Paraguay of the 4th February,
1859, together with the original ' ' journal of the proceedings ' ' of the com-
mission and a printed copy of the ' ' statements and arguments — and for
* Relating to assignment of officers of the Army to duty.
68 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the Republic," and request the advice of the Senate as to the final acqui-
escence in or rejection of the award of the commissioner by the Govern-
ment of the United States. As the "journal" is an original document,
pertaining to the archives of the Department of State, it is proper, when
the Senate shall have arrived at a conclusion on the subject, that the
volume be returned to the custody of the Secretary of State.
ABRAHAM IvINCOIyN.
March 6, 1862.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable
bodies, which shall be substantially as follows :
Resolved^ That the United States ought to cooperate with any State which may
adopt gradual aboHshment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used
by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and
private, produced by such change of system.
If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the approval
of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does command
such approval, I deem it of importance that the States and people imme-
diately interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact, so that
they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject it. The Federal
Government would find its highest interest in such a measure, as one of
the most efi&cient means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing
insurrection entertain the hope that this Government will ultimately be
forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected
region, and that all the slave States north of such part will then say,
' ' The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now
choose to go with the Southern section. ' ' To deprive them of this hope
substantially ends the rebellion, and the initiation of emancipation com-
pletely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it. The point
is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all,
initiate emancipation; but that while the offer is equally made to all,
the more northern shall by such initiation make it certain to the more
southern that in no event will the former ever join the latter in their pro-
posed confederacy. I say "initiation" because, in my judgment, grad-
ual and not sudden emancipation is better for all. In the mere financial
or pecuniary view any member of Congress with the census tables and
Treasury reports before him can readily see for himself how very soon the
current expenditures of this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all the
slaves in any named State. Such a proposition on the part of the General
Government sets up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere
with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control
of the subject in each case to the State and its people immediately inter-
ested. It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice with them.
In the annual message last December I thought fit to say ' * the Union
Abraham Lincoln 69
must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed. ' '
I said this not hastily, but deliberately. War has been made and con-
tinues to be an indispensable means to this end. A practical reacknowl-
edgment of the national authority would render the war unnecessary,
and it would at once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war
must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents which
may attend and all the ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem
indispensable or may obviously promise great efficiency toward ending
the struggle must and will come.
The proposition now made (though an offer only), I hope it may be
esteemed no offense to ask whether the pecuniary consideration tendered
would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned
than are the institution and property in it in the present aspect of affairs.
While it is true that the adoption of the propose.d resolution would be
merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical measure, it is recom-
mended in the hope that it would soon lead to important practical results.
In full view of my great responsibility to my God and to my country, I
earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the subject.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, D. C, March 7, 1862. .
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate thereon,
a treaty concluded at Paola, Kans., on the i8th day of August, between
Seth Clover, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the
delegates of the united tribes of Kaskaskia and Peoria, Piankeshaw,
and Wea Indians.
I also transmit a communication of the Secretary of the Interior of the
6th instant and accompanying papers from the Acting Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, in relation to the subject.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, March 12, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the nth instant,
requesting ' ' a copy of any correspondence on the records or files of the
Department of State in regard to railway systems in Europe," I trans-
mit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers by which it was
accompanied. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, March 14., 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
With reference to my recent message on the subject of claims of citi-
zens of the United States on the Government of Paraguay, I transmit a
70 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
copy of three memorials of the claimants and of their closing arguments
in the case, together with extracts from a dispatch from Mr. Bowlin, the
late commissioner of the United States to that country. These extracts
show that President Lopez offered and expected to pay a large sum of
money as a compromise of the claims.
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
Washington, March 14., 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I submit to Congress the accompanying copy of a correspondence be-
tween the Secretary of State, the Danish charge d'affaires, and the Sec-
retary of the Navy, concerning the case of the hor^forgen Lorentzen, a
Danish vessel seized on her voyage from Rio Janeiro to Havana by the
United States ship Morning Light and subsequently released. I recom-
mend the appropriation of the amount of the award of the referees.
ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
Washington City, March 20, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the
Navy," approved December 21, 186 1, provides —
That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the retired list of the Navy for the
command of squadrons and single ships such officers as he may believe that the good
of the service requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall receive a vote
of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry in action against an enemy, be
restored to the active list, and not otherwise.
In conformity with this law. Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, of the Navy,
was nominated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in com-
mand of the squadron which recently rendered such important service to
the Union in the expedition to the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia,
and Florida.
Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully cor-
respond with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with happy
influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain Samuel F.
Du Pont receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his service and gal-
lantry displayed in the capture since the 21st December, 1861, of various
points on the coasts of Georgia and Florida, particularly Brunswick,
Cumberland Island and Sound, Amelia Island, the towns of St. Marys,
St. Augustine, and Jacksonville and Fernandina.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 71
Washington, March 26, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit a copy of a communication* of the 21st of December last
addressed to the Secretary of State by the governor of the Territory of
Nevada, and commend to the particular attention of Congress those parts
of it which show that further legislation is desirable for the public wel-
fare in that quarter. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, March ji, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a treaty of commerce and navigation between the United States
and the Ottoman Empire, signed at Constantinople on the 25th of last
month. Extracts from a dispatch of the same date, upon the subject of
the treaty, from Mr. Morris, the United States minister at Constantino-
ple, to the Secretary of State, are also herewith communicated.
It will be noticed that the exchange of ratifications is to take place
within three months from the date of the instrument. This :cenders
it desirable that the Senate should decide in regard to it as soon as
this may be convenient, for if that decision be favorable the ratifications
of this Government must reach Constantinople prior to the expiration of
the three months adverted to. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, April 5, 1862.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
yesterday, requesting any information which may have been received at
the Department of State showing the system of revenue and finance now
existing in any foreign country, I transmit a copy of a recent dispatch
from Mr. Pike, the United States minister at The Hague. This is un-
derstood to be the only information on the subject of the resolution
recently received which has not been made public.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, April 10, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a treaty between the United States and Her Britannic Majesty for
the suppression of the slave trade. A copy of the correspondence be-
tween the Secretary of State and I<ord I^yons on the subject of the treaty
is also herewith transmitted. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
♦Containing a narrative of incidents pertaining to the government of the Territory of Nevada.
72 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, April 14., 1862.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 3d ultimo, requesting information in regard to the present condition
of Mexico, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the docu-
ments by which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, April i^, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
On the 26th of June, i860, the Senate approved of the treaty of friend-
ship and commerce between the United States and Nicaragua, signed on
the i6th of March, 1859, with certain amendments.
On the next day, namely, June 27, i860, the Senate adopted a resolu-
tion extending the period for the exchange of the ratifications of the
treaty for six months from that date; that is, until the 27th of December,
i860.
Although the amendments of the Senate were immediately transmitted
to our minister in Nicaragua for submission to the Government of that
Republic, he failed, notwithstanding earnest efforts, to induce that Gov-
ernment to call an extra session of Congress to take into consideration
the amendments of the Senate of the United States within the supple-
mentary time named in the resolution of June 27, i860, for the exchange
of ratifications.
It was not until the 25th of March, 1861, nearly three months after the
expiration of the six months extended by the Senate resolution, that
the Congress of Nicaragua acted favorably upon the amendments of the
Senate of the United States.
A translation of the decree of the Nicaraguan Government approving
the treaty as amended, with an additional amendment, is herewith inclosed.
It will be perceived that while the ratification of Nicaragua recites lit-
erally the second amendment of the Senate and accepts it with an addi-
tional clause, it does not in explicit terms accept the first amendment of
the Senate, striking out the last clause of the sixteenth article.
That amendment is of so much importance that the adoption or rejec-
tion of it by the Government of Nicaragua should not be left to construc-
tion or inference.
The final amendment of that Government properly extended the time
of exchanging ratifications for an additional twelve months. That time
has expired. For obvious reasons connected with our internal affairs,
the subject has not sooner been submitted to the Senate, but the treaty
is now laid before that body, with this brief historical sketch and the
decree of the Nicaraguan Government, for such further advice as may be
deemed necessary and proper in regard to the acceptance or rejection of
the amendments of Nicaragua. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 73
Washington, April 75, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
In consequence of the delay attending the approval by the Senate of
the extradition treaty with Mexico signed on the nth December last,
it is impossible to effect the exchange of ratifications of that and the
postal convention of the same date within the period assigned by those
instruments.
I recommend, therefore, the passage of a resolution at the earliest
practicable moment extending the time specified in the eighth article of
the extradition treaty and in the twelfth article of the postal convention
for the exchange of ratifications for sixty days from and after the nth
June next, the date of the expiration of the period named for that purpose
in both instruments. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C, April 75, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the consideration and such constitutional
action as the Senate may deem proper to take, a treaty negotiated on
the 6th March, 1861, between late Agent Vanderslice, on the part of the
United States, and certain delegates of the Sac and Fox of the Missouri
and the Iowa tribes of Indians; also certain petitions of said tribes, pray-
ing that the treaty may be ratified with an amendment as set forth in
said petitions. A letter of the Secretary of the Interior, with a report
of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and letter of the present agent of
the Indians, accompany the treaty and petitions.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
ApriIv 16, 1862.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
The act entitled "An act for the release of certain persons held to
service or labor in the District of Columbia ' ' has this day been approved
and signed.
I have never doubted the constitutional authority of Congress to abolish
slavery in this District, and I have ever desired to see the national capital
freed from the institution in some satisfactory way. Hence there has
never been in my mind any question upon the subject except the one of
expediency, arising in view of all the circumstances. If there be matters
within and about this act which might have taken a course or shape more
satisfactory to my judgment, I do not attempt to specify them. I am
gratified that the two principles of compensation and colonization are
both recognized and practically applied in the act.
In the matter of compensation, it is provided that claims may be pre-
sented within ninety days from the passage of the act, "but not there-
after;" and there is no saving for minors, femes covert, insane or absent
74 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
persons. I presume this is an omission by mere oversight, and I recom-
mend that it be supphed by an amendatory or supplemental act.
ABRAHAM IvINCOIyN.
Washington, April i8, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a correspondence between the Secre-
tary of State and Benjamin E. Brewster, of Philadelphia, relative to the
arrest in that city of Simon Cameron, late Secretary of War, at the suit
of Pierce Butler, for trespass vi et armis, assault and battery, and false
imprisonment. ^ ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BxE^cuTivK Mansion,
Washington^ April 2^^ 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
In obedience to your resolution of the 17th instant, I herewith com-
municate the testimony and judgment of the recent naval court of in-
quiry in the case of Lieutenant Charles K. Fleming, of the United States
Navy; also the testimony and finding of the naval retiring board in the
case of the said Lieutenant Fleming.
I have the honor to state that the judgment and finding aforesaid have
not been approved by me. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, April 26, 1862.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 24th of February last, requesting information in regard to insurgent
privateers in foreign ports, I transmit a report from the Secretary of
State and the documents by which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ExBCuTivB Mansion,
To the Senate of the United States: Washington, May t, 1862.
In answer to the resolution of the Senate in relation to Brigadier-
General Stone, I have the honor to state that he was arrested and im-
prisoned under my general authority, and upon evidence which, whether
he be guilty or innocent, required, as appears to me, such proceedings to
be had against him for the public safety. I deem it incompatible with
the public interest, as also, perhaps, unjust to General Stone, to make a
more particular statement of the evidence.
He has not been tried because in the state of military operations at the
Abraham Lincoln 75
time of his arrest and since the officers to constitute a court-martial and
for witnesses could not be withdrawn from duty without serious injury
to the service. He will be allowed a trial without any unnecessary delay,
the charges and specifications will be furnished him in due season, and
every facility for his defense will be afforded him by the War Department.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
BxKCuTivK Mansion,
To the Senate of the United States: Washington, May z, 1862.
In accordance with the suggestion of the Secretary of the Treasury
contained in the accompanying letter, I have the honor to transmit the
inclosed petition and report thereon of the Third Auditor for the consid-
eration of Congress. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C, May 14, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
The third section of the "Act further to promote the efficiency of the
Navy," approved 21st of December, 1861, provides —
That the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, shall have the authority to detail from the retired list of the Navy for the
command of squadrons and single ships such officers as he .may believe that the good
of the service requires to be thus placed in command; and such officers may, if upon
the recommendation of the President of the United States they shall receive a vote
of thanks of Congress for their services and gallantry in action against an enemy,
be restored to the active list, and not otherwise.
In conformity with this law. Captain David G. Farragut was nomi-
nated to the Senate for continuance as the flag-officer in command of the
squadron which recently rendered such important service to the Union
by his successful operations on the Lower Mississippi and capture of New
Orleans.
Believing that no occasion could arise which would more fully cor-
respond with the intention of the law or be more pregnant with happy
influence as an example, I cordially recommend that Captain D. G. Far-
ragut receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his services and gallantry
displayed in the capture since 21st December, 1 861, of Forts Jackson and
St. Philip, city of New Orleans, and the destruction of various rebel gun-
boats, rams, etc. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C, May 14, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I submit herewith a list of naval officers who commanded vessels engaged
in the recent brilliant operations of the squadron commanded by Flag-Offi-
cer Farragut, which led to the capture of Forts Jackson and St. Philip,
76 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
city of Kew Orleans, and the destruction of rebel gunboats, rams, etc. , in
April, 1862. For their services and gallantry on those occasions I cor-
dially recommend that they should by name receive a vote of thanks of
Congress.
WST.
Captain Theodorus Bailey.
Captain Henry W. Morris.
Captain Thomas T. Craven.
Commander Henry H. Bell.
Commander Samuel Phillips Lee.
Commander Samuel Swartwout.
Commander Melancton Smith.
Commander Charles Stewart Boggs.
Commander John De Camp.
Commander James Alden.
Commander David D. Porter.
Commander Richard Wainwright.
Commander William B. Renshaw.
Lieutenant Commanding Abram D. Harrell.
Lieutenant Commanding Edward Donaldson.
Lieutenant Commanding George H. Preble.
Lieutenant Commanding Edward T. Nichols.
Lieutenant Commanding Jonathan M. Wainwright.
Lieutenant Commanding John Guest.
Lieutenant Commanding Charles H. B. Caldwell.
Lieutenant Commanding Napoleon B. Harrison.
Lieutenant Commanding Albert N. Smith.
Lieutenant Commanding Pierce Crosby.
Lieutenant Commanding George M. Ransom.
Lieutenant Commanding Watson Smith.
Lieutenant Commanding John H. Russell.
Lieutenant Commanding Walter W . Queen.
Lieutenant Commanding K. Randolph Breese.
Acting Lieutenant Commanding Selim E. Woodworth.
Acting Lieutenant Commanding Charles H. Baldwin.
ABRAHAM I.INCOIvN.
Ex^cuTiv:^ Office, May, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
1 transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty
negotiated on the 13th of March, 1862, between H. W. Farnsworth, a
commissioner on the part of the United States, and the authorized repre-
sentatives of the Kansas tribe of Indians.
A communication from the Secretary of the Interior, together with a
letter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, suggesting certain amend-
ments to the treaty and inclosing papers relating thereto, are also trans-
mitted.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
I
Abraham Lmcoln yy
To the Senate: Washington, May 21, 1862.
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 14th instant, requesting
information in regard to arrests in the State of Kentucky, I transmit a
report from the Secretary of War, to whom the resolution was referred.
ABRAHAM UNCOIvN.
Washington, May 22^ 1862.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 20th instant, requesting information in regard to the indemnity ob-
tained by the consul-general of the United States at Alexandria, Egypt,
for the maltreatment of Faris- El- Hakim, an agent in the employ of the
American missionaries in that country, I transmit a report from the Sec-
retary of State and the documents by which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM LINCOIvN.
Washington, May 23, 1862.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to the reso-
lution of the House of Representatives of the 2 2d instant, calling for
further correspondence relative to Mexican affairs.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
[The same message was sent to the Senate, in answer to a resolution
of that body.]
Washington, May 26, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
The insurrection which is yet existing in the United States and aims
at the overthrow of the Federal Constitution and the Union was clan-
destinely prepared during the winter of i860 and 1861, and assumed an
open organization in the form of a treasonable provisional government
at Montgomery, in Alabama, on the 18th day of February, 1861. On
the 1 2th day of April, 1861, the insurgents committed the flagrant act of
civil war by the bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter, which cut
off the hope of immediate conciliation. Immediately afterwards all the
roads and avenues to this city were obstructed, and the capital was put
into the condition of a siege. The mails in every direction were stopped,
and the lines of telegraph cut off by the insurgents, and military and
naval forces which had been called out by the Government for the de-
fense of Washington were prevented from reaching the city by organized
and combined treasonable resistance in the State of Maryland. There
78 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
was no adequate and effective organization for the public defense. Con-
gress had indefinitely adjourned. There was no time to convene them.
It became necessary for me to choose whether, using only the existing
means, agencies, and processes which Congress had provided, I should
let the Government fall at once into ruin or whether, availing m3^self of
the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of insurrection,
I would make an effort to save it, with all its blessings, for the present
age and for posterity.
I thereupon summoned vny constitutional advisers, the heads of all the
Departments, to meet on Sunday, the 20th day of April, 1861, at the office
of the Navy Department, and then and there, with their unanimous con-
currence, I directed that an armed revenue cutter should proceed to sea
to afford protection to the commercial marine, and especially the Califor-
nia treasure ships then on their way to this coast. I also directed the
commandant of the navy-yard at Boston to purchase or charter and arm
as quickly as possible five steamships for purposes of public defense. I
directed the commandant of the navy-yard at Philadelphia to purchase or
charter and arm an equal number for the same purpose. I directed the
commandant at New York to purchase or charter and arm an equal num-
ber. I directed Commander Gillis to purchase or charter and arm and
put to sea two other vessels. Similar directions were given to Commo-
dore Du Pont, with a view to the opening of passages by water to and
from the capital. I directed the several officers to take the advice and
obtain the aid and efficient services in the matter of His Excellency
Edwin D. Morgan, the governor of New York, or in his absence George
D. Morgan, Wilham M. Evarts, R. M. Blatchford, and Moses H. Grinnell,
who were by my directions especially empowered by the Secretary of
the Navy to act for his Department in that crisis in matters pertaining
to the forwarding of troops and supplies for the public defense.
On the same occasion I directed that Governor Morgan and Alexander
Cummings, of the city of New York, should be authorized by the Secre-
tary of War, Simon Cameron, to make all necessary arrangements for the
transportation of troops and munitions of war, in aid and assistance of
the officers of the Army of the United States, until communication by
mails and telegraph should be completely reestablished between the cities
of Washington and New York. No security was required to be given
by them, and either of them was authorized to act in case of inability to
consult with the other.
On the same occasion I authorized and directed the Secretary of the
Treasury to advance, without requiring security, $2,000,000 of public
money to John A. Dix, George Opdyke, and Richard M. Blatchford, of
New York, to be used by them in meeting such requisitions as should be
directly consequent upon the military and naval measures necessary for the
defense and support of the Government, requiring them only to act with-
out compensation and to report their transactions when duly called upon.
Abraham Lincoln
79
The several Departments of the Government at that time contained so
large a number of disloyal persons that it would have been impossible to
provide safely through official agents only for the performance of the
duties thus confided to citizens favorably known for their ability, loyalty,
and patriotism.
The several orders issued upon these occurrences were transmitted by
private messengers, who pursued a circuitous way to the seaboard cities,
inland across the States of Pennsylvania and Ohio and the northern lakes.
I believe that by these and other similar measures taken in that crisis,
some of which were without any authority of law, the Government was
saved from overthrow. I am not aware that a dollar of the public funds
thus confided without authority of law to unofficial persons was either
lost or wasted, although apprehensions of such misdirection occurred to
me as objections to those extraordinary proceedings, and were necessarily
overruled.
I recall these transactions now because my attention has been directed
to a resolution which was passed by the House of Representatives on the
30th day of last month, which is in these words:
Resolved, That Simon Cameron, late Secretary of War, by investing Alexander
Cummings with the control of large sums of the public money and authority to pur-
chase military supplies without restriction, without requiring from him any guaranty
for the faithful performance of his duties, when the services of competent public
officers were available, and by involving the Government in a vast number of con-
tracts with persons not legitimately engaged in the business pertaining to the subject-
matter of such contracts, especially in the purchase of arms for future delivery, has
adopted a policy highly injurious to the public service, and deserves the censure' of
the House.
Congress will see that I should be wanting equally in candor and in
justice if I should leave the censure expressed in this resolution to rest
exclusively or chiefly upon Mr. Cameron. The same sentiment is unani-
mously entertained by the heads of Departments who participated in the
proceedings which the House of Representatives has censured. It is due
to Mr. Cameron to say that although he fully approved the proceedings
they were not moved nor suggested by himself, and that not only the
President, but all the other heads of Departments, were at least equally
responsible with him for whatever error, wrong, or fault was committed
in the premises. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, May 30, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a treaty of amity, commerce, consular privileges, and extradition
between the United States and the Republic of Salvador, signed in this
city on the 29th instant. It is believed that though this instrument con-
tains no stipulation which may not be found in some subsisting treaty
8o Messages and Papers of the Presidents
between the United States and foreign powers, it will prove to be mutu-
ally advantageous. Several of the Republics of this hemisphere, among
which is Salvador, are alarmed at a supposed sentiment tending to reac-
tionary movements against republican institutions on this continent. It
seems, therefore, to be proper that we should show to any of them who
may apply for that purpose that, compatibly with our cardinal policy and
with an enlightened view of our own interests, we are willing to encour-
age them by strengthening our ties of good will and good neighborhood
with them.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, /7^;2^ 4., 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 29th ultimo,
adopted in executive session, requesting information in regard to the
claims of citizens of the United States on Paraguay and the correspond-
ence relating thereto, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and
the documents by which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington, /w«^ 4., 1862.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of War, in answer to the
resolution of the House of Representatives of the 2d of June, in relation
to the authority and action of the Hon. Kdward Stanly, military governor
of North Carolina.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, /2^;2^ 10, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a treaty for the suppression of the
African slave trade, between the United States and Her Britannic Maj-
esty, signed in this city on the 7th of April last, and the ratifications of
which were exchanged at London on the 20th ultimo.
A copy of the correspondence which preceded the conclusion of the
instrument between the Secretary of State and Lord Lyons, Her Britan-
nic Majesty's envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, is also
herewith transmitted.
It is desirable that such legislation as may be necessary to carry the
treaty into effect should be enacted as soon as may comport with the con-
venience of Congress.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 8i
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, June 12, 1862.
To the Honorable House of Representatives:
In obedience to the resolution of your honorable body of the 9th instant,
requesting certain information in regard to the circuit court of the United
States for the State of California, and the judge of said court, I have the
honor to transmit a letter of the Attorney- General, with copies of two
other letters and of an indorsement of my own upon one of them; all
which, taken together, contain all the information within my power to
give upon the subject. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
KxKcu'TrvK Mansion,
Washington, June zj, 1862.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
I herewith transmit a memorial addressed and presented to me in behalf
of the State of New York in favor of enlarging th^ locks of the Erie and
Oswego Canal. While I have not given nor have leisure to give the sub-
ject a careful examination, its great importance is obvious and unques-
tionable. The large amount of valuable statistical information which is
collated and presented in the memorial will greatly facilitate the mature
consideration of the subject, which I respectfully ask for it at your hands,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ExKCUTivE Mansion,
Washington City, June ly, 1862.
The Spkakb^r of thk House: of Rbprbsentativks:
The resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th instant,
asking whether any legislation is necessary in order to give effect to the
provisions of the act of April 16, 1862, providing for the reorganization
of the Medical Department of the Army, was referred to the Secretary of
War, whose report thereon is herewith communicated.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, June 23, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
On the 7th day of December, 1861, 1 submitted to the Senate thfe proj-
ect of a treaty between the United States and Mexico which had been
proposed to me by Mr. Corwin, our minister to Mexico, and respectfully
requested the advice of the Senate thereupon.
On the 25th day of February last a resolution was adopted by the Sen-
ate to the effect ' ' that it is not advisable to negotiate a treaty that will
M P — ^voi, VI — 6
82 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
require the United States to assume any portion of the principal or interest
of the debt of Mexico, or that will require the concurrence of European
powers."
' This resolution having been duly communicated to me, notice thereof
was immediately given by the Secretary of State to Mr. Corwin, and he
was informed that he was to consider his instructions upon the subject
referred to modified by this resolution and would govern his course ac-
cordingly. That dispatch failed to reach Mr. Corwin, by reason of the
disturbed condition of Mexico, until a very recent date, Mr. Corwin being
without instructions, or thus practically left without instructions, to nego-
tiate further with Mexico.
In view of the very important events occurring there, he has thought
that the interests of the United States would be promoted by the conclu-
sion of two treaties which should provide for a loan to that Republic.
He has therefore signed such treaties, and they having been duly ratified
by the Government of Mexico he has transmitted them to me for my
consideration. The action of the Senate is of course conclusive against
an acceptance of the treaties on my part. I have, nevertheless, thought
it just to our excellent minister in Mexico and respectful to the Govern-
ment of that Republic to lay the treaties before the Senate, together with
the correspondence which has occurred in relation to them. In perform-
ing this duty I have only to add that the importance of the subject thus
submitted to the Senate can not be overestimated, and I shall cheerfully
receive and consider with the highest respect any further advice the Sen-
ate may think proper to give upon the subject.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, June 26, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
The accompanying treaty, made and concluded at the city of Wash-
ington on the 24th day of June, 1862, between the United States and the
united bands of the Ottawa Indians of Blanchards Fork and of Roche
de Boeuf , in Kansas, is transmitted for the consideration and constitu-
tional action of the Senate, agreeably to recommendation of inclosed
letter from the Secretary of the Interior of this date.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, July i, 1862.
To the Se7iate and House of Representatives:
I most cordially recommend that Captain Andrew H. Foote, of the
United States Na\^, receive a vote of thanks of Congress for his eminent
services in organizing the flotilla on the Western waters, and for his
Abraham Lincoln 83
gallantry at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Island No. 10, and at various
other places, whilst in command of the naval forces, embracing a period
of nearly ten months. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C. , July 5, 1862,
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate thereon,
a treaty negotiated in this city on the 3d instant with the Sac and Fox
Indians of the Mississippi.
Letters from the Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner of Indian
Affairs accompany the treaty. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, //^/v p, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification,
a postal convention with Costa Rica, concluded at San Jose on the 9th
June last. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C. , July 11, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
negotiated at the Kickapoo Agency on the 28th of June, 1862, between
Charles B. Keith, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the
chiefs, headmen, and delegates of the Kickapoo Indians of Kansas.
A letter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the loth instant is also
transmitted, suggesting amendments to the treaty for the consideration
of the Senate. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C.July 11, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I recommend that the thanks of Congress be given to the following
officers of the United States Navy:
Captain James L. Lardner, for meritorious conduct at the battle of Port
Royal and distinguished services on the coast of the United States against
the enemy.
Captain Charles Henry Davis, for distinguished services in conflict with
the enemy at Fort Pillow, at Memphis, and for successful operations at
other points in the waters of the Mississippi River.
84 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Commander John A. Dahlgren, for distinguished services in the line
of his profession, improvements in ordnance, and zealous and efficient
labors in the ordnance branch of the service.
Commander Stephen C. Rowan, for distinguished services in the waters
of North Carolina, and particularly in the capture of Newbern, being in
chief command of the naval forces.
Commander David D. Porter, for distinguished services in the concep-
tion and preparation of the means used for the capture of the forts below
New Orleans, and for highly meritorious conduct in the management
of the mortar flotilla during the bombardment of Forts Jackson and St.
Philip.
Captain Silas H. Stringham, now on the retired list for distinguished
services in the capture of Forts Hatteras and Clark.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington,/?/^ 12, 1862.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report of the Secretary of State upon the subject of the
resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th ultimo, requesting
information in regard to the relations between the United States and
foreign powers. ABRAHAM I.INCOLN.
Washington, D. C.fuly 14., 1862.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
Herewith is a draft of a bill to compensate any State which may abolish
slavery within its limits, the passage of which substantially as presented
I respectfully and earnestly recommend.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled, That whenever the President of the United States
shall be satisfied that any State shall have lawfully abolished slavery within and
throughout such State, either immediately or gradually, it shall be the duty of the
President, assisted by the Secretary of the Treasury, to prepare and deliver to such
State an amount of 6 per cent interest-bearing bonds of the United States equal to
the aggregate value at % per head of all the slaves within such State as reported
by the census of the year i860; the whole amount for any one State to be delivered at
once if the abolishment be immediate, or in equal annual installments if it be gradual,
interest to begin running on each bond at the time of its delivery, and not before.
And be it further enacted, That if any State, having so received any such bonds, •
shall at any time afterwards by law reintroduce or tolerate slavery within its limits
contrary to the act of abolishment upon which such bonds shall have been received,
said bonds so received by said State shall at once be null and void, in whosesoever
hands they may be, and such State shall refund to the United States all interest which
may have been paid on such bonds.
Abraham Lincoln 85
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Hon. Solomon Foot, Washington, July 15. 1862.
President pro tempore of the Senate.
Sir: Please inform the Senate that I shall be obliged if they will post-
pone the adjournment at least one day beyond the time which I understand
to be now fixed for it.
Your obedient servant, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
[The same message was addressed to Hon. Galusha A. Grow, Speaker
of the House of Representatives.]
July 17, 1862.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
Considering the bill for "An act to suppress insurrection, to punish
treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and
for other purposes," and the joint resolution explanatory of said act as
being substantially one, I have approved and signed both.
Before I was informed of the passage of the resolution I had prepared
the draft of a message stating objections to the bill becoming a law, a
copy of which draft is herewith transmitted.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Fellow-Citizens of the House of Representatives:
I herewith return to your honorable body, in which it originated, the bill for an act
entitled "An act to suppress treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property
of rebels, and for other purposes," together with my objections to its becoming a law.
There is much in the bill to which I perceive no objection. It is wholly prospec-
tive, and touches neither person nor property of any loyal citizen, in which particulars
it is just and proper. The first and second sections provide for the conviction and pun-
ishment of persons who shall be guilty of treason and persons who shall ' * incite, set
on foot, assist, or engage in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the
United States or the laws thereof, or shall give aid and cornfort thereto, or shall
engage in or give aid and comfort to any such existing rebellion or insurrection."
By fair construction persons within these sections are not to be punished without
regular trials in duly constituted courts, under the forms and all the substantial pro-
visions of law and of the Constitution applicable to their several cases. To this I per-
ceive no objection, especially as such persons would be within the general pardoning
power and also the special provision for pardon and amnesty contained in this act.
It is also provided that the slaves of persons convicted under these sections shall be
free. I think there is an unfortunate form of expression rather than a substantial
objection in this. It is startling to say that Congress can free a slave within a State,
and yet if it were said the ownership of the slave had first been transferred to the
nation and that Congress had then liberated him the difficulty would at once vanish.
And this is the real case. The traitor against the General Government forfeits his slave
at least as justly as he does any other property, and he forfeits both to the Government
against which he offends. The Government, so far as there can be ownership, thus
owns the forfeited slaves, and the question for Congress in regard to them is, "Shall
they be made free or be sold to new masters? " I perceive no objection to Congress
86 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
deciding in advance that they shall be free. To the high honor of Kentucky, as I am
informed, she has been the owner of some slaves by escheat and has sold none, but
liberated all. I hope the same is true of some other States. Indeed I do not believe
it would be physically possible for the General Government to return persons so cir-
cumstanced to actual slavery. I believe there would be physical resistance to it
which could neither be turned aside by argument nor driven away by force. In this
view I have no objection to this feature of the bill. Another matter involved in these
two sections, and running through other parts of the act, will be noticed hereafter.
I perceive no objection to the third and fourth sections.
So far as I wish to notice the fifth and sixth sections, they may be considered
together. That the enforcement of these sections would do no injustice to the per-
sons embraced within them is clear. That those who make a causeless war should
be compelled to pay the cost of it is too obviously just to be called in question. To
give governmental protection to the property of persons who have abandoned it and
gone on a crusade to overthrow that same government is absurd if considered in the
mere light of justice. The severest justice may not always be the best policy. The
principle of seizing and appropriating the property of the persons embraced within
these sections is certainly not very objectionable, but a justly discriminating appli-
cation of it would be very difficult, and to a great extent impossible. And would it not
be wise to place a power of remission somewhere, so that these persons may know
they have vSomething to lose by persisting and something to save by desisting? I am
not sure whether such power of remission is or is not within section 13.
Without any special act of Congress, I think our military commanders, when, in
military phrase, "they are within the enemy's country," should in an orderl}'^ man-
ner seize and use whatever of real or personal property may be necessary or conven-
ient for their commands, at the same time preserving in some way the evidence of what
they do.
What I have said in regard to slaves while commenting on the first and second
sections is applicable to the ninth, with the difference that no provision is made in
the whole act for determining whether a particular individual slave does or does not
fall within the classes defined in that section. He is to be free upon certain condi-
tions, but whether those conditions do or do not pertain to him no mode of ascer-
taining is provided. This could be easily supplied.
To the tenth section I make no objection. The oath therein required seems to be
proper, and the remainder of the section is substantially identical with a law already
existing.
The eleventh section simply assumes to confer discretionary powers upon the Exec-
utive. Without the la^ I have no hesitation to go as far in the direction indicated
as I may at any time deem expedient. And I am ready to say now, I think it is proper
for our military commanders to employ as laborers as many persons of African descent
as can be used to advantage.
The twelfth and thirteenth sections are somewhat better than objectionable, and
the fourteenth is entirely proper if all other parts of the act shall stand.
That to which I chiefly object pervades most parts of the act, but more distinctly
appears in the first, second, seventh, and eighth sections. It is the sum of those pro-
visions which results in the divesting of title forever. For the causes of treason and
the ingredients of treason not amounting to the full crime it declares forfeiture
extending beyond the lives of the guilty parties, whereas the Constitution of the
United States declares that "no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood,
or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." True, there seems to
be no formal attainder in this case; still, I think the greater punishment can not be
constitutionally inflicted in a different form for the same offense. With great respect
I am constrained to say I think this feature of the act is unconstitutional. It would
not be difficult to modify it.
Abraham Lincoln 87
I may remark that this provision of the Constitution, put in language borrowed
from Great Britain, applies only in this country to real or landed estate.
Again, this act, by proceedings in rem, forfeits property for the ingredients of trea-
son without a conviction of the supposed criminal or a personal hearing given him
in any proceeding. That we may not touch property lying within our reach because
we can not give personal notice to an owner who is absent endeavoring to destroy
the Government is certainly not very satisfactory. Still, the owner may not be thus
engaged; and I think a reasonable time should be provided for such parties to appear
and have personal hearings. Similar provisions are not uncommon in connection
with proceedings in refu.
For the reasons stated, I return the bill to the House, in which it originated.
JUI.Y 17, 1862.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
I have inadvertently omitted so long to inform you that in March last
Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, of New York, gratuitously , presented to the
United States the ocean steamer Vanderbilt, by many esteemed the finest
merchant ship in the world. She has ever since been and still is doing
valuable service to the Government. For the patriotic act in making
this magnificent and valuable present to the country, I recommend that
some suitable acknowledgment be made.
ABRAHAM lylNCOI^N.
VETO MESSAGES.
To the Senate of the United States: ^^^ ^3, 1862.
The bill which has passed the House of Representatives and the Sen-
ate entitled "An act to repeal that part of an act of Congress which pro-
hibits the circulation of bank notes of a less denomination than j§5 in the
District of Columbia" has received my attentive consideration, and I
now return it to the Senate, in which it originated, with the following
objections:
I . The bill proposes to repeal the existing legislation prohibiting the
circulation of bank notes of a less denomination than $5 within the Dis-
trict of Columbia without permitting the issuing of such bills by banks
not now legally authorized to issue them. In my judgment it will be
found impracticable in the present condition of the currency to make
such a discrimination. The banks have generally suspended specie pay-
ments, and a legal sanction given to the circulation of the irredeemable
notes of one class of them will almost certainly be so extended in prac-
tical operation as to include those of all classes, whether authorized or
unauthorized. If this view be correct, the cturrency of the District,
88 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
should this act become a law, will certainly and greatly deteriorate, to
the serious injury of honest trade and honest labor.
2. This bill seems to contemplate no end which can not be otherwise
more certainly and beneficially attained. During the existing war it is
peculiarly the duty of the National Government to secure to the people
a sound circulating medium. This duty has been under existing circum-
stances satisfactorily performed, in part at least, by authorizing the issue
of United States notes, receivable for all Government dues except cus-
toms, and made a legal tender for all debts, public and private, except
interest on public debt. The object of the bill submitted to me, namely,
that of providing a small-note currency during the present suspension,
can be fully accomplished by authorizing the issue, as part of any new
emission of United States notes made necessary by the circumstances of the
country, of notes of a similar character but of less denomination than $5.
Such an issue would answer all the beneficial purposes of the bill, would
save a considerable amount to .the Treasury in interest, would greatly
facilitate payments to soldiers and other creditors of small sums, and
would furnish to the people a currency as safe as their own Government.
Entertaining these objections to the bill, I feel myself constrained to
withhold from it my approval and return it for the further consideration
and action of Congress. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Executive Mansion, /z^/j/ 2, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith return to your honorable body, in which it originated, an
act entitled ' 'An act to provide for additional medical ofiicers of the vol-
unteer service," without my approval.
My reason for so doing is that I have approved an act of the same title
passed by Congress after the passage of the one first mentioned for the
express purpose of correcting errors in and superseding the same, as I
am informed. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
PROCLAMATIONS.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
It is recommended to the people of the United States that they as-
semble in their customary places of meeting for public solemnities on
the 2 2d day of February instant and celebrate the anniversary of the
Abraham Lincoln 89
birth of the Father of his Country by causing to be read to them his
immortal Farewell Address.
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at Washing-
P 1 ton, the 19th day of February, A. D. 1862, and of the Inde-
pendence of the United States of America the eighty-sixth.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
By the President:
WiivWAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land
and naval forces engaged in suppressing an internal rebellion, and at the
same time to avert from our country the dangers of foreign intervention
and invasion.
It is therefore recommended to the people of the United States that
at their next weekly assemblages in their accustomed places of public
worship which shall occur after notice of this proclamation shall have
been received they, especially acknowledge and render thanks to our
Heavenly Father for these inestimable blessings, that they then and there
implore spiritual consolation in behalf of all who have been brought into
affliction by the casualties and calamities of sedition and civil war, and
that they reverently invoke the divine guidance for our national coun-
sels, to the end that thej^ may speedily result in the restoration of peace,
harmony, and unity throughout our borders and hasten the establish-
ment of fraternal relations among all the countries of the earth.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -I Done at the city of Washington, this loth day of April, A. D.
1862, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^*^- ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
By the President:
WiiyiviAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIyAMATION.
Whereas by my proclamation of the 19th of April, 1861, it was de-
clared that the ports of certain States, including those of Beaufort, in
the State of North Carolina; Port Royal, in the State of South Carolina;
90 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
and New Orleans, in the State of Louisiana, were, for reasons therein
set forth, intended to be placed under blockade; and
Whereas the said ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans
have since been blockaded; but as the blockade of the same ports may
now be safely relaxed with advantage to the interests of commerce:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth
section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July last, entitled
"An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports, and
for other purposes, ' ' do hereby declare that the blockade of the said ports
of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans shall so far cease and deter-
mine, from and after the ist day of June next, that commercial inter-
course with those ports, except as to persons, things, and information
contraband of war, may from that time be carried on subject to the
laws of the United States and to the limitations and in pursuance of
the regulations which are prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury
in his order of this date, which is appended to this proclamation.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 12th day of May, A. D.
1862, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^"^^^^ ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
Wii.i,iAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
REGUI^ATIONS REI.ATING TO TrADE WITH PoRTS OPENED BY PROCI^AMATION.
Treasury Department, May 12, 1862.
1. To vessels clearing from foreign ports and destined to ports opened by the proc-
lamation of the President of the United States of this date, namely, Beaufort, in North
CaroHna; Port Royal, in South Carolina, and New Orleans, in lyouisiana, licenses
will be granted by consuls of the United States upon satisfactory evidence that the
vessels so licensed will convey no persons, property, or information contraband of
war either to or from the said ports, which licenses shall be exhibited to the collector
of the port to which said vessels may be respectively bound immediately on arrival,
and, if required, to any officer in charge of the blockade; and on leaving either of
said ports every vessel will be required to have a clearance from the collector of the
customs, according to law, showing no violation of the conditions of the license.
Any violation of said conditions will involve the forfeiture and condemnation of the
vessel and cargo and the exclusion of all parties concerned from any further privilege
of entering the United States during the war for any purpose whatever.
2. To vessels of the United States clearing coastwise for the ports aforesaid licenses
can only be obtained from the Treasury Department.
3. In all other respects the existing blockade remains in full force and effect as
hitherto established and maintained, nor is it relaxed by the proclamation except in
regard to the ports to which the relaxation is by that instrument expressly applied.
S. P. CHAS^, Secretary of the Treasury.
Abraham Lincoln 91
By thk President of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas there appears in the public prints what purports to be a
proclamation of Major-General Hunter, in the words and figures follow-
ing, to wit-
Headquarters Department of the South,
Hiltoti Head, S, C, May p, 1862.
General Orders, No. 11. — The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina,
comprising the Military Department of the South, having deliberately declared them-
selves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having
taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to
declare them under martial lav^r. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of
April, 1862. Slavery and martial law^ in a free country are altogether incompatible;
the persons in these three States — Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina — heretofore
held as slaves are therefore declared forever free.
DAVID HUNTER,
Major-General Commanding.
Official:
ED. W. SMITH,
Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.
And whereas the same is producing some excitement and misunder-
standing:
Therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, pro-
claim and declare that the Government of the United States had no knowl-
edge, information, or belief of an intention on the part of General Hunter
to issue such a proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that
the document is genuine; and, further, that neither General Hunter nor
any other commander or person has been authorized by the Government
of the United States to make proclamations declaring the slaves of any
State free, and that the supposed proclamation now in question, whether
genuine or false, is altogether void so far as respects such declaration.
I further make known that whether it be competent for me, as Com-
mander in Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any
State or States free, and whether at any time, in any case, it shall have
become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government
to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my respon-
sibility, I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified in leaving
to the decision of commanders in the field. These are totally different
questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps.
On the 6th day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to
Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as follows:
Resolved, That the United States ought to cooperate vv^ith any State which may
adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be
used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public
and private, produced by such change of system.
92 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large
majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic,
definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people most
immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of those
States I now earnestly appeal — I do not argue; I beseech you to make
the arguments for yourselves; you can not, if you would, be blind to the
signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of
them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics.
This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no
reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contem-
plates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wreck-
ing anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been
done by one effort in all past time as, in the providence of God, it is
now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament
that you have neglected it.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 19th day of May, A. D.
1862, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^*^' ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
By the President :
WII.I.IAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By THE) Prejsidbnt of the United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas in and by the second section of an act of Congress passed on
the 7th day of June, A. D. 1862, entitled *' An act for the collection of
direct taxes in insurrectionary districts within the United States, and for
other purposes, " it is made the duty of the President to declare, on or
before the ist day of July then next following, by his proclamation, in
what States and parts of States insurrection exists:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham lyincoln. President of
the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the
States of South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, I^ouisiana, Texas,
Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and the State of Vir-
ginia except the following counties — Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall,
Wetzel, Marion, MonongaHa, Preston, Taylor, Pleasants, Tyler, Ritchie,
Doddridge, Harrison, Wood, Jackson, Wirt, Roane, Calhoun, Gilmer,
Barbour, Tucker, Lewis, Braxton, Upshur, Randolph, Mason, Putnam,
Kanawha, Clay, Nicholas, Cabell, Wayne, Boone, Logan, Wyoming,
Webster, Fayette, and Raleigh — are now in insurrection and rebellion,
and by reason thereof the civil authority of the United States is ob-
structed so that the provisions of the "Act to provide increased revenue
Abraham Lincoln 93
from imports, to pay the interest on the public debt, and for other pur-
poses," approved August 5, 1861, can not be peaceably executed; and
that the taxes legally chargeable upon real estate under the act last
aforesaid lying within the States and parts of States as aforesaid, to-
gether with a penalty of 50 per centum of said taxes, shall be a lien
upon the tracts or lots of the same, severally charged, till paid.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P -| Done at the city of Washington, this ist day of July, A. D.
1862, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-sixth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
F. W. Skward,
Acting Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
In pursuance of the sixth section of the act of Congress entitled "An
act to suppress insurrection and to punish treason and rebellion, to seize
and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes, ' ' approved July
17, 1862, and which act and the joint resolution explanatory thereof are
herewith published, I, Abraham I^incoln, President of the United States,
do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of
said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or
abetting the existing rebellion or any rebellion against the Government
of the United States and to return to their proper allegiance to the United
States on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said sixth
section provided.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed,
r -I Done at the city of Washington, this 25th day of July, A. D.
1862, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
seventh. ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
By the President:
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
[From Statutes at I^arge (Uttle, Brown & Co.), Vol. XII, p. 589.]
AN ACT to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the prop-
erty of rebels, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled^ That every person who shall hereafter commit the
crime of treason against the United States, and shall be adjudged guilty thereof,
shall suffer death, and all his slaves, if any, shall be declared and made free; or, at
94 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the discretion of the court, he shall be imprisoned for not less than five years and
fined not less than |io,ooo, and all his slaves, if any, shall be declared and made free;
said fine shall be levied and collected on any or all of the property, real and personal,
excluding slaves, of which the said person so convicted was the owner at the time of
committing the said crime, any sale or conveyance to the contrary notwithstanding.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall hereafter incite, .set on
foot, assist, or engage in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the
United States or the laws thereof, or shall give aid or comfort thereto, or shall engage
in or give aid and comfort to any such existing rebellion or insurrection, and be
convicted thereof, such person shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not
exceeding ten years, or by a fine not exceeding |io,ooo, and by the liberation of all
his slaves, if any he have; or by both of said punishments, at the discretion of the
court.
Skc. 3. And be it further enacted , That every person guilty of either of the offenses
described in this act shall be forever incapable and disqualified to hold any office
under the United States.
Sec. 4. Afid be it further enacted, That this act shall not be construed in any way
to aifect or alter the prosecution, conviction, or punishment of any person or persons
guilty of treason against the United States before the passage of this act, unless such
person is convicted under this act.
Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That to insure the speedy termination of the
present rebellion it shall be the duty of the President of the United States to cause
the seizure of all the estate and property, money, stocks, credits, and effects of the
persons hereinafter named in this section, and to apply and use the same and the pro-
ceeds thereof for the support of the Army of the United States; that is to say:
First. Of any person hereafter acting as an officer of the army or navy of the rebels
in arms against the Government of the United States.
Secondly. Of any person hereafter acting as president, vice-president, member of
congress, judge of any court, cabinet officer, foreign minister, commissioner, or con-
sul of the so-called Confederate States of America.
Thirdly. Of any person acting as governor of a State, member of a convention
or legislature, or judge of any court of any of the so-called Confederate States of
America,
Fourthly. Of any person who, having held an office of honor, trust, or profit in
the United States, shall hereafter hold an office in the so-called Confederate States of
America.
Fihhly, Of any person hereafter holding any office or agency under the govern-
ment of the so-called Confederate States of America, or under any of the several
States of the said Confederacy, or the laws thereof, whether such office or agency be
national. State, or nmnicipal in its name or character: Provided, That the persons
thirdly, fourthly, and fifthly above described shall have accepted their appointment
or election since the date of the pretended ordinance of secession of the State, or
shall have taken an oath of allegiance to or to support the constitution of the so-
called Confederate States,
Sixthly. Of any person who, owning property in any loyal State or Territory of
the United States, or in the District of Columbia, shall hereafter assist and give aid
and comfort to such rebellion; and all sales, transfers, or conveyances of any such
property shall be null and void; and it shall be a sufficient bar to any suit brought
by such person for the possession or the use of such property, or any of it, to allege
and prove that he is one of the persons described in this section.
Sec. 6, And be it further, enacted, That if any person within any State or Terri-
tory of the United States, other than those named as aforesaid, after the passage of
this act, being engaged in armed rebellion against the Government of the United
States, or aiding or abetting such rebellion, shall not, within sixty days after public
Abraham Lincoln 95
warning and proclamation duly given and made by the President of the United States,
cease to aid, countenance, and abet such rebellion, and return to his allegiance to the
United States, all the estate and property, moneys, stocks, and credits of such per-
son shall be liable to seizure as aforesaid, and it shall be the duty of the President to
seize and use them as aforesaid, or the proceeds thereof. And all sales, transfers, or
conveyances of any such property after the expiration of the said sixty days from
the date of such warning and proclamation shall be null and void; and it shall be a
sufficient bar to any suit brought by such person for the possession or the use of such
property, or any of it, to allege and prove that he is one of the persons described in
this section.
Sec. 7, And be it further enacted. That to secure the condemnation and sale of
any of such property, after the same shall have been seized, so that it may be made
available for the purpose aforesaid, proceedings in retn shall be instituted in the name
of the United States in any district court thereof, or in any Territorial court, or in the
United States district court for the District of Columbia, within which the property
above described, or any part thereof, may be found, or into which the same, if mova-
ble, may first be brought, which proceedings shall conform as nearly as may be to
proceedings in admiralty or revenue cases; and if said property, whether real or per-
sonal, shall be found to have belonged to a person engaged in rebellion, or who has
given aid or comfort thereto, the same shall be condemned as enemies' property and
become the property of the United States, and may be disposed of as the court shall
decree and the proceeds thereof paid into the Treasury of the United States for the
purposes aforesaid.
Skc. 8. And be it further enacted, That the several courts aforesaid shall have
power to make such orders, establish such forms of decree and sale, and direct such
deeds and conveyances to be executed and delivered by the marshals thereof where
real estate shall be the subject of sale as shall fitly and efficiently effect the purposes
of this act, and vest in the purchasers of such property good and valid titles thereto.
And the said courts shall have power to allow such fees and charges of their officers
as shall be reasonable and proper in the premises.
Sec. 9. And be it further enacted , That all slaves of 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 the 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, Terri-
tory, or the 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 per-
son to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his 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.
Sec. II. And be it further enacted. That the President of the United States is
authorized to employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary
and proper for the suppression of this rebellion, and for this purpose he may organ-
ize and use them in such manner as he may judge bast for the public welfare.
g6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
SKC. 12. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States is
hereby authorized to make provision for the transportation, colonization, and settle-
ment, in some tropical country beyond the limits of the United States, of such per-
sons of the African race, made free by the provisions of this act, as may be willing
to emigrate, having first obtained the consent of the Government of said country to
their protection and settlement within the same, with all the rights and privileges of
freemen.
Sec. 13. And be it further enacted, That the President is hereby authorized, at any
time hereafter, by proclamation, to extend to persons who may have participated in
the existing rebellion in any State or part thereof pardon and amnesty, with such
exceptions and at such time and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for
the public welfare.
Skc. 14. And be it further enacted, That the courts of the United States shall have
full power to institute proceedings, make orders and decrees, issue process, and do
all other things necessary to carry this act into effect.
Approved, July 17, 1862.
[From Statutes at I^arge (I^ittle, Brown & Co.), Vol. XII, p. 627.]
JOINT RHSOIyUTlON explanatory of "An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and
rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes."
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled. That the provisions of the third clause of the fifth
section of "An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize
and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes" shall be so construed
as not to apply to any act or acts done prior to the passage thereof, nor to include
any member of a State legislature or judge of any State court who has not in accept-
ing or entering upon his office taken an oath to support the constitution of the so-
called " Confederate States of America;" nor shall any punishment or proceedings
under said act be so construed as to work a forfeiture of the real estate of the offender
beyond his natural life.
Approved, July 17, 1862.
By the Prksidknt of the: United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
I, Abraham lyincoln, 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 prosecuted 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 peo-
ple whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and
which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may vol-*
untarily 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.
Abraham Lincoln 97
That on the ist day of January, A. D. 1863, 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 vShall be then, thencefor-
ward, 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 ist day of January aforesaid, by proc-
lamation, 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 quali-
fied 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 13, 1862, and
which act is in the words and figure 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 observed as such:
Art. — . 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 com-
mands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor who may have
escaped from any persons to whom such service or 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 further enacted. That this act shall take effect from and after its
passage.
Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled '*An act to sup-
press insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate
the property of rebels, and fgr other purposes," approved July 17, 1862,
and which sections are in the words and figures following:
Skc. 9. And be it further enacted. That all slaves of 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 the 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.
Skc 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any State, Terri-
tory, or the District of Columbia from any other State shall be delivered up or in
M P — vol, VI — 7
9$ Messages and Papers of the Presidents
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 per-
son to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his 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 the re-
bellion shall, upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between
the United States and their respective States and people, if that relation
shall have been suspended or disturbed, be compensated for all losses by
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,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 2 2d day of September,
A. D. 1862, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WiiyiyiAM H. Sejward, Secretary of State.
By thk Prssidknt of thk United Statks of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas it has become necessary to call into service not only volun-
teers, 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 insurrec-
tion, 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 per-
sons arrested, or who are now or hereafter during the rebellion shall be
Abraham Lincoln 99
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.
(- T 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. ABRAHAM LINCOLN
By the President:
WlI^IylAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
Major- General H. W. HallKCk,
Commanding in the Department of Missouri.
Gknkrai,: As an insurrection exists in the United States and is in
arms in the State of Missouri, you are hereby authorized and empowered
to suspend the writ of habeas corpus within the limits of the military
division under your command and to exercise martial law as you find it
necessary, in your discretion, to secure the public safety and the authority
of the United States.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
r 1 of the United States to be affixed, at Washington, this 2d day of
December, A. D. 1861.
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
By the President:
WiLUAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
Gknkrai. Ordkrs, No. hi.
Headquarters of thk Army,
Adjutant- Gknkrai.'s Offick,
Washing to7i, December jo, 186 1.
•^ % -}(. :^ -^ ^ ^
JOINT RESOIyUTION expressive of the recognition by Congress of the gallant and patriotic
services of the late Brigadier-General Nathaniel lyyon and the officers and soldiers under his
command at the battle of Springfield, Mo.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of Amer-
ica in Congress assembled ^ i. That Congress deems it just and proper to enter upon
its records a recognition of the eminent and patriotic services of the late Brigadier-
General Nathaniel Lyon. The country to whose service he devoted his life will
guard and preserve his fame as a part of its own glory.
icx) Messages and Papers of the Preside^tts
2. That the thanks of Congress are hereby given to the brave officers and soldiers
who, under the command of the late General Lyon, sustained the honor of the flag
and achieved victory against overwhelming numbers at the battle of Springfield, in
Missouri; and that, in order to commemorate an event so honorable to the country
and to themselves, it is ordered that each regiment engaged shall be authorized to
bear upon its colors the word "Springfield," embroidered in letters of gold. And
the President of the United States is hereby requested to cause these resolutions to
be read at the head of every regiment in the Army of the United States.
The President of the United States directs that the foregoing joint res-
olution be read at the head of every regiment in the Army of the United
States.
By command of Major- General McClellan:
I,. THOMAS,
A dju tant- General.
War Dkpartmknt, /<27Z2/^rF 22, 1862.
The President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, has re-
ceived information of a brilliant victory by the United States forces over
a large body of armed traitors and rebels at Mill Springs, in the State of
Kentucky. He returns thanks to the gallant officers and soldiers who
won that victory, and when the official reports shall be received the mili-
tary and personal valor displayed in battle will be acknowledged and
rewarded in a fitting manner.
The courage that encountered and vanquished the greatly superior
numbers of the rebel force, pursued and attacked them in their intrench-
ments, and paused not until the enemy was completely routed merits
and receives commendation.
The purpose of this war is to attack, pursue, and destroy a rebellious
enemy and to deliver the country from danger menaced by traitors.
Alacrity, daring, courageous spirit, and patriotic zeal on all occasions and
under every circumstance are expected from the Army of the United
States. In the prompt and spirited movements and daring battle of Mill
Springs the nation will realize its hopes, and the people of the United
States will rejoice to honor every soldier and officer who proves his cour-
age by charging with the bayonet and storming intrenchments or in the \
blaze of the enemy's fire.
By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
' Secretary of War,
President's Genkrai. War Ordkr No. i.
ExKcuTivE Mansion,
Washington, fanuary ^7, 1862.
Ordered, That the 22d day of February, 1862, be the day for a general
movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the
J
Abraham Lincoln loi
insurgent forces; that especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe,
the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near
Munfordville, Ky., the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval force in
the Gulf of Mexico be ready to move on that day.
That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective com-
manders, obey existing orders for the time and be ready to obey addi-
tional orders when duly given.
That the heads of Departments, and especially the Secretaries of War
and of the Navy, with all their subordinates, and the General in Chief,
with all other commanders and subordinates of land and naval forces,
will severally be held to their strict and full responsibilities for prompt
execution of this order. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
PrKSidknt's SpkciaIv War Order No. i.
Executive: Mansion,
Washington, January jz, 1862.
Ordered, That all the disposable force of the Army of the Potomac,
after providing safely for the defense of Washington, be formed into an
expedition for the immediate object of seizing and occupying a point
upon the railroad southwestward of what is known as Manassas Junc-
tion; all details to be in the discretion of the General in Chief, and the
expedition to move before or on the 2 2d day of February next.
A. I.INCOI.N.
War Department,
Washington City, February 11, 1862.
Ordered, That D. C. McCallum be, and he is hereby, appointed military
director and superintendent of railroads in the United States, with author-
ity to enter upon, take possession of, hold, and use all railroads, engines,
cars, locomotives, equipments, appendages, and appurtenances that may
be required for the transport of troops, arms, ammunition, and military
supphes of the United States, and to do and perform all acts and things
that may be necessary or proper to be done for the safe and speedy trans-
port aforesaid.
By order of the President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States: KDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
War Department, February ij, 1862.
Ordered, i . That all applications to go south across the military lines
of the United States be made to Major-General John A. Dix, command-
ing at Baltimore, who will grant or refuse the same at his discretion.
I02 Messages aitd Papers of the Presidents
2. That all prisoners of war and other persons imprisoned by authority
of any department of the Government who shall be released on parole or
exchange shall report themselves immediately on their arrival at Balti-
more to Major- General Dix and be subject to his direction while remain-
ing in that city. Any failure to observe this order will be taken as a
forfeiture of the parole or exchange.
The regulation heretofore existing which required passes across the
military lines of the United States to be signed by the Secretary of State
and countersigned by the General Commanding is rescinded.
By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
ExKCuTivE) Order No. i,Rki.ating to Pontic ai. Prisoners.
War Department,
Washington^ February z^, 1862.
The breaking out of a formidable insurrection based on a conflict of
political ideas, being an event without precedent in the United States,
was necessarily attended by great confusion and perplexity of the public
mind. Disloyalty before unsuspected suddenly became bold, and treason
astonished the world by bringing at once into the field military forces
superior in number to the standing Army of the United States.
Every department of the Government was paralyzed by treason.
Defection appeared in the Senate, in the House of Representatives, in
the Cabinet, in the Federal courts; ministers and consuls returned from
foreign countries to enter the insurrectionary councils or land or naval
forces; commanding and other officers of the Army and in the Navy be-
trayed our councils or deserted their posts for commands in the insurgent
forces. Treason was flagrant in the revenue and in the post-office serv-
ice, as well as in the Territorial governments and in the Indian reserves.
Not only governors, judges, legislators, and ministerial officers in the
States, but even whole States rushed one after another with apparent
unanimity into rebellion. The capital was besieged and its connection
with all the States cut off.
Even in the portions of the country which were most loyal political
combinations and secret societies were formed furthering the work of dis-
union, while, from motives of disloyalty or cupidity or from excited pas-
sions or perverted sympathies, individuals were found furnishing men,
money, and materials of war and supplies to the insurgents' military and
naval forces. Armies, ships, fortifications, navy-yards, arsenals, military
posts, and garrisons one after another were betrayed or abandoned to the
insurgents.
Congress had not anticipated, and so had not provided for, the emer-
gency. The municipal authorities were powerless and inactive. The
Abraham Lincoln 103
judicial machinery seemed as if it had been designed, not to sustain the
Government, but to embarrass and betray it.
Foreign intervention, openly invited and industriously instigated by the
abettors of the insurrection, became imminent, and has only been pre-
vented by the practice of strict and impartial justice, with the most perfect
moderation, in our intercourse with nations.
The public mind was alarmed and apprehensive, though fortunately
not distracted or disheartened. It seemed to be doubtful whether the
Federal Government, which one year before had been thought a model
worthy of universal acceptance, had indeed the ability to defend and
maintain itself.
Some reverses, which, perhaps, were unavoidable, suffered by newly
levied and inefficient forces, discouraged the loyal and gave new hopes
to the insurgents. Voluntary enlistments seemed about to cease and
desertions commenced. Parties speculated upon the question whether
conscription had not become necessary to fill up the armies of the United
States.
In this emergency the President felt it his duty to employ with energy
the extraordinary powers which the Constitution confides to him in cases
of insurrection. He called into the field such military and naval forces,
unauthorized by the existing laws, as seemed necessary. He directed
measures to prevent the use of the post-office for treasonable correspond-
ence. He subjected passengers to and from foreign countries to new
passport regulations, and he instituted a blockade, suspended the writ of
habeas corpits in various places, and caused persons who were represented
to him as being or about to engage in disloyal and treasonable practices
to be arrested by special civil as well as military agencies and detained
in military custody when necessary to prevent them and deter others
from such practices. Examinations of such cases were instituted, and
some of the persons so arrested have been discharged from time to time
under circumstances or upon conditions compatible, as was thought, with
the public safety.
Meantime a favorable change of public opinion has occurred. The line
between loyalty and disloyalty is plainly defined. The whole structure
of the Government is firm and stable. Apprehension of public danger
and facilities for treasonable practices have diminished with the passions
which prompted heedless persons to adopt them. The insurrection is
believed to have culminated and to be declining.
The President, in view of these facts, and anxious to favor a return to
the normal course of the Administration as far as regard for the public
welfare will allow, directs that all political prisoners or state prisoners
now held in military custody be released on their subscribing to a
parole engaging them to render no aid or comfort to the enemies in
hostility to the United States.
The Secretary of War will, however, in his discretion, except from the
I04 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
effect of this order any persons detained as spies in the service of the insur-
g-ents, or others whose release at the present moment may be deemed
incompatible with the public safety.
' To all persons who shall be so released and who shall keep their parole
the President grants an amnesty for any past offenses of treason or dis-
loyalty which they may have committed.
Extraordinary arrests will hereafter be made under the direction of the
military authorities alone.
By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
Thk Prksidejnt's Thanks to thk Forcks that Capturkd Fort
HE)NRY and RoANOKK ISI.AND.
Washington City, D. C, February 75, 1862.
The President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, returns
thanks to Brigadier- General Burnside and Flag-Ofhcer Goldsborough,
and to Brigadier- General Grant and Flag-Ofl&cer Foote, and the land and
naval forces under their respective commands, for their gallant achieve-
ments in the capture of Fort Henry and at Roanoke Island. While it will
be no ordinary pleasure for him to acknowledge and reward in a becoming
manner the valor of the living, he also recognizes his duty to pay fitting
honor to the memory of the gallant dead. The charge at Roanoke Island,
like the bayonet charge at Mill Springs, proves that the close grapple
and sharp steel of loyal and patriotic soldiers must always put rebels and
traitors to flight.
The late achievements of the Navy show that the flag of the Union,
once borne in proud glory around the world by naval heroes, will soon
again float over every rebel city and stronghold, and that it shall forever
be honored and respected as the emblem of liberty and union in every
land and upon every sea.
By order of the President: ^m^i^ m. STANTON.
Secretary of War,
GIDEON WELIyES,
Secretary of the Navy.
War Dkpartmbnt,
Washington City, D. C, February z/, 1862.
Brigadier- General F. W. Lander:
The President directs me to say that he has observed with pleasure the
activity and enterprise manifested by yourself and the ofiicers and soldiers
of your command. You have shown how much may be done in the worst
weather and worst roads by a spirited officer at the head of a small force
Abraham Lincoln 105
of brave men, unwilling to waste life in camp when the enemies of their
country are within reach. Your brilliant success is a happy presage of
what may be expected when the Army of the Potomac shall be led to the
field by their gallant general. ^Tyy^x^ M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
Gkn:^rai, Ord:hrs, No. 16.
Hkadquartbrs of thk Army,
Adjutant- GbneraIv's Office),
Washington^ February 18, 1862.
I. The following concurrent resolutions of the two Houses of the Con-
gress of the United States are published for the information of the Army:
Resolved^ That the two Houses will assemble in the Chamber of the House of
Representatives on Saturday, the 22d day of February instant, at 12 o'clock merid-
ian, and that in the presence of the two Houses of Congress thus assembled the
Farewell Address of George Washington to the people of the United States shall be
read; and that the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Repre-
sentatives be requested to invite the President of the United States, the heads of the
several Departments, the judges of the Supreme Court, the representatives from all
foreign governments near this Government, and such officers of the Army and Navy
and distinguished citizens as may then be at the seat of Government to be present
on that occasion.
Resolved, That the President of the United States, Commander in Chief of the
Army and Navy, be requested to direct that orders be issued for the reading to
the Army and Navy of the United States of the Farewell Address of George Wash-
ington, or such parts thereof as he may select, on the 22d day of February instant.
II. In compliance with the foregoing resolutions, the President of the
United States, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, orders that
the following extracts from the Farewell Address of George Washington
be read to the troops at every military post and at the head of the several
regiments and corps of the Army:
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recom-
mendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to
you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of yoiu" real independence,
the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your
prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to fore-
see that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken,
many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth, as
this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and
external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and
insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the
immense value of yom* national union to yoiur collective and individual happiness;
that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accus-
toming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political
safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discoun-
tenancing whatever may sug-g^est even a suspicion that it can in any event be aban-
doned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate
io6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now
link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth
or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affec-
tions. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must
always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from
local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion,
manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and
triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work of
joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
■X- * -Jt -x- * * -x-
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular
interest in union, all the parts combined can not fail to find in the united mass of
means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security
from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations,
and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from
those broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict neighboring
countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships
alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attach-
ments, and intrigues would stimulate and imbitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid
the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of
government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly
hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be consid-
ered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to
you the preservation of the other.
•X- -x- -se -x- -jt -x- -at
To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is indis-
pensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate sub-
stitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which
all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you
have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a Constitution of Govern-
ment better calculated than your former for an intimate union and for the efficacious
management of your common concerns. This Government, the offspring of our own
choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature delib-
eration, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting
security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment,
has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority,
compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the
fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right
of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the con-
stitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of
the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and
the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every indi-
vidual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations,
under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counter-
act, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are
destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to
organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place ,
of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and
enterprising minority of the community, and, according to the alternate triumphs of
different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted
and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and whole-
some plans, digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
Abraham IJncohi 107
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and
morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of
patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness — these
firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with
the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all
their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where
is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation
desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And
let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without
religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds
of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national
morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular
government. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of
free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon
attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote, then, as an object of pri-
mary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion
as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that
public opinion should be enlightened.
* ^ ^t * ^t * *
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony
with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it be that good pol-
icy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no
distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel
example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who
can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly
repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?
Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with
its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which
ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
* 4f * -x- * ^ *
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, human-
ity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial
hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the
natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of
commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed, in order to
give trade a stable course, to define the rights of om: merchants, and to enable the
Government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present
circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be from
time to time abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested
favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for what-
ever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance it may place itself
in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being
reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error
than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion
which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend
I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish — that
they will control the usual current of the passions or prevent our nation from run-
ning the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may
even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occa-
sional good— that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit,
to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of
io8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
pretended patriotism — this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your
welfare by which they have been dictated.
* -x- ^ * -x- * *
, Though in reviewing the incidents of my Administration I am unconscious of inten-
tional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that
I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the
Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry
with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence,
and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal,
the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon
be to the mansions of rest.
Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love
toward it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and
his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that
retreat in which I promise myself to realize without alloy the sweet enjoyment of
partaking in the midst of my fellow-citizens the benign influence of good laws under
a free government — the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I
trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
By command of Major- General McClellan:
I,. THOMAS,
Adjutant- General.
War Department,
Washington City, D. C, February i8, 1862.
Ordered by the President, Commander i?i Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States, That on the 2 2d day of February, in the Hall of the
House of Representatives, immediately after the Farewell Address of
George Washington shall have been read, the rebel flags lately captured
by the United States forces shall be presented to Congress by the Adju-
tant-General, to be disposed of as Congress may direct.
By order of the President: ^^^^^ ^_ STANTON,
Secretary of War.
War Department,
Washington City, February ^5, 1862.
Ordered, first. On and after the 26th day of February instant the
President, by virtue of the act of Congress, takes military possession of
all the telegraph lines in the United States.
Second. All telegraphic communications in regard to military opera-
tions not expressly authorized by the War Department, the General Com-
manding, or the generals commanding armies in the field, in the several
departments, are absolutely forbidden.
Third. All newspapers publishing military news, however obtained and
by whatever medium received, not authorized by the official authority
mentioned in the preceding paragraph will be excluded thereafter from
Abraham Lincoln 109
receiving information by telegraph or from transmitting their papers by
railroad.
Fourth. Edward S. Sanford is made military supervisor of telegraphic
messages throughout the United States. Anson Stager is made military
superintendent of all telegraph lines and offices in the United States.
Fifth. This possession and control of the telegraph lines is not intended
to interfere in any respect with the ordinary affairs of the companies or
with private business.
By order of the President: ^Tmm M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
War Dkpartmejnt,
Washington^ February ^7, 1862.
It is ordered, first. That a special commission of two persons, one of
military rank and the other in civil life, be appointed to examine the
cases of the state prisoners remaining in the military custody of the
United States, and to determine whether, in view of the public safety and
the existing rebellion, they should be discharged or remain in military
custody or be remitted to the civil tribunals for trial.
Second. That Major-General John A. Dix, commanding in Baltimore,
and the Hon. Edwards Pierrepont, of New York, be, and they are hereby,
appointed commissioners for the purposes above mentioned, and they are
authorized to examine, hear, and determine the cases aforesaid, ex parte
and in a summary manner, at such times and places as in their discretion
they may appoint, and make full report to the War Department.
By order of the President: V.Tmm M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
By thk President of the United States.
Washington, February 28, 1862.
Considering that the existing circumstances of the country allow a
partial restoration of commercial intercourse between the inhabitants of
those parts of the United States heretofore declared to be in insurrection
and the citizens of the loyal States of the Union, and exercising the
authority and discretion confided to me by the act of Congress approved
July 13, 1 86 1, entitled "An act further to provide for the collection of
duties on imports, and for other purposes," I hereby license and permit
such commercial intercourse in all cases within the rules and regulations
which have been or may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury
for the conducting and carrying on of the same on the inland waters and
ways of the United States. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
no Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Presid£;nt's Genbrai. War Ordkr No. 2.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, March 8, 1862.
Ordered, i. That the major-general commanding the Army of the
Potomac proceed forthwith to organize that part of the said army des-
tined to enter upon active operations (including the reserve, but exclud-
ing the troops to be left in the fortifications about Washington) into four
army corps, to be commanded according to seniority of rank, as follows:
First Corps to consist of four divisions, and to be commanded by Major-
General I. McDowell.
Second Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
Brigadier- General E. V. Sumner.
Third Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
Brigadier- General S. P. Heintzelman.
Fourth Corps to consist of three divisions, and to be commanded by
Brigadier- General E. D. Keyes.
2. That the divisions now commanded by the officers above assigned
to the commands of army corps shall be embraced in and form part of
their respective corps.
3. The forces left for the defense of Washington will be placed in
command of Brigadier- General James S. Wadsworth, who shall also be
military governor of the District of Columbia.
4. That this order be executed with such promptness and dispatch as
not to delay the commencement of the operations already directed to be
undertaken by the Army of the Potomac.
5. A fifth army corps, to be commanded by Major-General N. P. Banks,
will be formed from his own and General Shields' s (late General Lan-
der's) divisions. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
President's Generai, War Order No. 3.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, March 8, 1862.
Ordered, That no change of the base of operations of the Army of the
Potomac shall be made without leaving in and about Washington such a
force as in the opinion of the General in Chief and the commanders of all
the army corps shall leave said city entirely secure.
That no more than two army corps (about 50,000 troops) of said Army
of the Potomac shall be moved en route for a new base of operations until
the navigation of the Potomac from Washington to the Chesapeake Bay
shall be freed from enemy's batteries and other obstructions, or until the
President shall hereafter give express permission.
That any movements as aforesaid en route for a new base of operations
Abraham Lincoln iii
which may be ordered by the General in Chief, and which may be intended
to move upon the Chesapeake Bay, shall begin to move upon the bay as
early as the i8th day of March instant, and the General in Chief shall be
responsible that it so move as early as that day.
Ordered, That the Army and Navy cooperate in an immediate effort to
capture the enemy's batteries upon the Potomac between Washington
and the Chesapeake Bay. ^ LINCOLN
PRESIDEJNT'S SpKCIAI. WAR OrDKR No. 3.
KxKCuTivB Mansion,
Washington, March 11 , 1862.
Major- General McClellan having personally taken the field at the head
of the Army of the Potomac, until otherwise ordered he is relieved from
the command of the other military departments, he retaining command
of the Department of the Potomac.
Ordered further , That the departments now under the respective com-
mands of Generals Halleck and Hunter, together with so much of that
under General Buell as lies west of a north and south line indefinitely
drawn through Knoxville, Tenn., be consolidated and designated the
Department of the Mississippi, and that until otherwise ordered Major-
General Halleck have command of said department.
Ordered also, That the country west of the Department of the Potomac
and east of the Department of the Mississippi be a military department,
to be called the Mountain Department, and that the same be commanded
by Major- General Fremont.
That all the commanders of departments, after the receipt of this order
by them, respectively report severally and directly to the Secretary of
War, and that prompt, full, and frequent reports will be expected of all
and each of them. ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
War Dkpartme;nt, March 13, 1862.
Major- General Gkorgk B. McCIvEi.i.an:
The President, having considered the plan of operations agreed upon
by yourself and the commanders of army corps, makes no objection to
the same, but gives the following directions as to its execution:
1. Leave such force at Manassas Junction as shall make it entirely
certain that the enemy shall not repossess himself of that position and
line of communication.
2. Leave Washington entirely secure.
3. Move the remainder of the force down the Potomac, choosing a new
base at Fortress Monroe, or anywhere between here and there, or, at all
events, move such remainder of the army at once in pursuit of the enemy
by some route. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
112 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, March 28, 1862.]
Navy Department, March 75, 1862.
Lieutenant John L. Worden, United States Navy,
Commanding United States Steamer Monitor, Washington.
Sir: The naval action which took place on the loth instant between
the Monitor and Merri?nac at Hampton Roads, when your vessel, with
two guns, engaged a powerful armored steamer of at least eight guns,
and after a few hours' conflict repelled her formidable antagonist, has
excited general admiration and received the applause of the whole
country.
The President directs me, while earnestly and deeply sympathizing
with you in the injuries which you have sustained, but which it is
believed are but temporary, to thank you and your command for the
heroism you have displayed and the great service you have rendered.
The action of the loth and the performance, power, and capabilities
of the Monitor must effect a radical change in naval warfare.
Flag-Ofhcer Goldsborough, in your absence, will be furnished by the
Department with a copy of this letter of thanks and instructed to cause
it to be read to the officers and crew of the Monitor.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
GIDEON WEI.I.KS.
War Department,
Washington, D. C, April 5, 1862.
Major-General John A. Dix:
Ordered, That Major-General John A. Dix, commanding at Baltimore,
be, and he is, authorized and empowered at his discretion —
First. To assume and exercise control over the police of the city of
Baltimore; to supersede and remove the civil police or any part thereof
and establish a military police in said city.
Second. To arrest and imprison disloyal persons, declare martial law,
and suspend the writ of habeas corpus in the city of Baltimore or any
part of his command, and to exercise and perform all military power,
function, and authority that he may deem proper for the safety of his
command or to secure obedience and respect to the authority and Gov-
ernment of the United States.
By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
I
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, May 17, 1862.]
The skillful and gallant movements of Major-General John E. Wool and
the forces under his command, which resulted in the surrender of Norfolk
and the evacuation of strong batteries erected by the rebels on Sewells
Abraham Lincoln 113
Point and Craney Island and the destruction of the rebel ironclad steamer
Metrimac, are regarded by the President as among the most important
successes of the present war. He therefore orders that his thanks as
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy be communicated by the
War Department to Major- General John E. Wool and the ojSicers and
soldiers of his command for their gallantry and good conduct in the
brilliant operations mentioned.
By order of the President, made at the city of Norfolk on the nth day
of May, 1862: KDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
War DkparTmknt, May 25, 1862.
Ordered: By virtue of the authority vested by act of Congress, the
President takes military possession of all the railroads in the United States
from and after this date until further order, and directs that the respective
railroad companies, their officers and servants, shall hold themselves in
readiness for the transportation of such troops and munitions of war as
may be ordered by the military authorities, to the exclusion of all other
business.
By order of the Secretary of War: y^ ^ MHIGS
Quartermaster- General.
War Dbpartmbnt,
Washington, D. C, May 28, 1862.
Colonel HaupT.
Sir: You are hereby appointed chief of construction and transporta-
tion in the Department of the Rappahannock, with the rank of colonel,
and attached to the staff of Major- General McDowell.
You are authorized to do whatever you may deem expedient to open
for use in the shortest possible time all military railroads now or here-
after required in said department; to use the same for transportation
under such rules and regulations as you may prescribe; to appoint such
assistants and employees as you may deem necessary, define their duties
and fix their compensation; to make requisitions upon any of the mili-
tary authorities, with the approval of the Commanding General, for such
temporary or permanent details of men as may be required for the con-
struction or protection of lines of communication; to use such Govern-
ment steamers and transports as you may deem necessary; to pass free
of charge in such steamers and transports and on other military roads
all persons whose services may be required in construction or transpor-
tation; to purchase all such machinery, rolling stock, and supplies as
the proper use and operation of the said railroads may require, and cer-
tify the same to the Quartermaster- General, who shall make payment
M P— voi, VI— 8
114 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
therefor. You are also authorized to form a permanent corps of artificers,
organized, officered, and equipped in such manner as you may prescribe;
to supply said corps with rations, transportation, tools, and implements
by requisitions upon the proper departments; to employ civilians as fore-
men and assistants, under such rules and rates of compensation as you
may deem expedient; to make such additions to ordinary rations when
actually at work as you may deem necessary.
You are also authorized to take possession of and use all railroads,
engines, cars, buildings, machinery, and appurtenances within the geo-
graphical limits of the Department of the Rappahannock, and all author-
ity heretofore given to other parties which may in any way conflict with
the instructions herein contained are and will be without force and effect
in the said Department of the Rappahannock from and after this date.
By order of the President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of IVar,
War Dkpartmb^nt,
Washington City, D. C, May jo, 1862.
All regiments of militia or of three-months' volunteers who have
offered their services under the recent call of the War Department, and
who have so far perfected their organization as to be able to report for
orders at St. lyouis, at Columbus, or at Washington City by the loth of
June, will be mustered into the service of the United States for three
months from that date, the pay of each volunteer or militiaman commen-
cing from the date of his enlistment.
Under the call for three- years' volunteers 50,000 men will be accepted
as raised and reported by the respective State governors.
By order of the President: ^-^^^^ j^ STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Nkw York, fune jo, 1862.
To the Governors of the several States:
The capture of New Orleans, Norfolk, and Corinth by the national
forces has enabled the insurgents to concentrate a large force at and about
Richmond, which place we must take with the least possible delay; in fact,
there will soon be no formidable insurgent force except at Richmond.
With so large an army there, the enemy can threaten us on the Potomac
and elsewhere. Until we have reestablished the national authority, all
these places must be held, and we must keep a respectable force in front
of Washington. But this, from the diminished strength of our Army by
sickncvss and casualties, renders an addition to it necessary in order to
Abraham Lincoln 115
close the struggle which has been prosecuted for the last three months
with energy and success. Rather than hazard the misapprehension of
our military condition and of groundless alarm by a call for troops by
proclamation, I have deemed it best to address you in this form. To
accomplish the object stated we require without delay 150,000 men,
including those recently called for by the Secretary of War. Thus
reenforced our gallant Army will be enabled to realize the hopes and.
expectations of the Government and the people.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
The PrksidknT: J^^^ ^8' '^^^'
The undersigned, governors of States of the Union, impressed with the belief that
the citizens of the States which they respectively represent are of one accord in the
hearty desire that the recent successes of the Federal arms may be followed up by
measures which must insure the speedy restoration of the Union, and believing that,
in view of the present state of the important military movements now in progress
and the reduced condition of our effective forces in the field, resulting from the
usual and unavoidable casualties in the service, the time has arrived for prompt and
vigorous measures to be adopted by the people in support of the great interests com-
mitted to your charge, respectfully request, if it meets with your entire approval,
that you at once call upon the several States for such number of men as may be
required to fill up all military organizations now in the field, and add to the armies
heretofore organized such additional number of men as may, in your judgment, be
necessary to garrison and hold all the numerous cities and military positions that
have been captured by our armies, and to speedily crush the rebellion that still exists
in several of the Southern States, thus practically restoring to the civilized world
our great and good Government. All believe that the decisive moment is near at
hand, and to that end the people of the United States are desirous to aid promptly in
furnishing all reenforcements that you may deem needful to sustain our Government.
rISRAEi. Washburn, Jr., Governor of Maine; H. S. Berry, Governor of New
Hampshire; Frederick Hoi^brook, Governor of Vermont; Wii^i^iam A.
Buckingham, Governor of Connecticut; B. D. Morgan, Governor of New
York; Chari.ES S. GIvDEN, Governor of New Jersey; A, G. CurTin, Gov-
ernor of Pennsylvania; A. W. Bradford, Governor of Maryland. F. H.
PEirpoinT, Governor of Virginia; Austin Bi,air, Governor of Michigan;
J. B. TEMPI.E, President Military Board of Kentucky; Andrew Johnson,
Governor of Tennessee; H. R. Gambi^e, Governor of Missouri; O. P. Mor-
ton, Governor of Indiana; David Todd, Governor of Ohio; Ai^exander
Ramsey, Governor of Minnesota; Richard YaTES, Governor of Illinois;
Edward Sai^omon, Governor of Wisconsin.
BxBcuTivK Mansion,
Washington^ July z, 1862.
GKNTI.BMEN: Fully concurring in the wisdom of the views expressed
to me in so patriotic a manner by you in the communication of the 28th
day of June, I have decided to call into the service an additional force of
300,000 men. I suggest and recommend that the troops should be chiefly
of infantry. The quota of your State would be . I trust that they
ii6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
may be enrolled without delay, so as to bring this unnecessary and injuri-
ous civil war to a speedy and satisfactory conclusion. An order fixing
the quotas of the respective States will be issued by the War Department
to-morrow. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, July ii, 1862.
Ordered, That Major- General Henry W. HallecklDe assigned to com-
mand the whole land forces of the United States as General in Chief,
and that he repair to this capital as soon as he can with safety to the
positions and operations within the department under his charge.
A. I,INCOI.N.
Whereas, in the judgment of the President, the public safety does re-
quire that the railroad line called and known as the Southwest Branch
of the Pacific Railroad in the State of Missouri be repaired, extended, and
completed from Rolla to I^ebanon, in the direction to Springfield, in the
said State, the same being necessary to the successful and economical
conduct of the war and to the maintenance of the authority of the Gov-
ernment in the Southwest:
Therefore, under and in virtue of the act of Congress entitled ' 'An act
to authorize the President of the United States in certain cases to take
possession of railroad and telegraph lines, and for other purposes," ap-
proved January 31, 1862, it is —
Ordered, That the portion of the said railroad line which reaches from
Rolla to lycbanon be repaired, extended, and completed, so as to be made
available for the military uses of the Government, as speedily as may be.
And inasmuch as, upon the part of the said line from Rolla to the stream
called lyittle Piney a considerable portion of the necessary work has
already been done by the railroad company, and the road to this extent
may be completed at comparatively small cost, it is ordered that the said
line from Rolla to and across I^ittle Piney be first completed, and as soon
as possible.
The Secretary of War is charged with the execution of this order.
And to facilitate the speedy execution of the work, he is directed, at his
discretion, to take possession and control of the whole or such part of
the said railroad hne, and the whole or such part of the rolling stock,
offices, shops, buildings, and all their appendages and appurtenances, as
he may judge necessary or convenient for the early completion of the
road from Rolla to Lebanon.
Done at the city of Washington, July 11, 1862.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
I
Abraham Lincoln 117
Gknkrai, Orders, No. 82.
War Department,
Adjutant- General's Office,
Washington, July 21, 1862.
The following order has been received from the President of the United
States:
Representations have been made to the President by the ministers of
various foreign powers in amity with the United States that subjects of
such powers have during the present insurrection been obliged or required
by military authorities to take an oath of general or qualified allegiance
to this Government. It is the duty of all aliens residing in the United
States to submit to and obey the laws and respect the authority of the
Government. For any proceeding or conduct inconsistent with this obli-
gation and subversive of that authority they may rightfully be subjected
to military restraints when this may be necessary. But they can not be
required to take an oath of allegiance to this Government, because it con-
flicts with the duty they owe to their own sovereigns. All such obli-
gations heretofore taken are therefore remitted and annulled. Military
commanders will abstain from imposing similar obligations in future, and
will in lieu thereof adopt such other restraints of the character indicated
as they shall find necessary, convenient, and effectual for the public
safety. It is further directed that whenever any order shall be made
affecting the personal liberty of an alien reports of the same and of the
causes thereof shall be made to the War Department for the considera-
tion of the Department of State.
By order of the Secretary of War: j- yhOMAS
Adjutant-General.
War Department, July 22, 1862.
1. Ordered, That military commanders within the States of Virginia,
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas,
and Arkansas in an orderly manner seize and use any property, real or
personal, which may be necessary or convenient for their several com-
mands as supplies or for other military purposes; and that while property
may be destroyed for proper military objects, none shall be destroyed in
wantonness or malice.
2. That military and naval commanders shall employ as laborers
within and from said States so many persons of African descent as can
be advantageously used for military or ndval purposes, giving them rea-
sonable wages for their labor.
3. That as to both property and persons of African descent accounts
shall be kept sufficiently accurate and in detail to show quantities and
amounts and from whom both property and such persons shall have
ii8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents j
come, as a basis upon which compensation can be made in proper cases;
and the several Departments of this Government shall attend to and
perform their appropriate parts toward the execution of these orders.
■ By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
GknkraIv Orders, No. 89.
War Department,
Adjutant- General's Office,
Washington, fuly. ^5, 1862.
I. The following order of the President of the United States commu-
nicates information of the death of ex-President Martin Van Buren:
Washington, /«(v 25, 1862.
The President with deep regret announces to the people of the United
States the decease, at Kinderhook, N. Y., on the 24th instant, of his hon-
ored predecessor Martin Van Buren.
This event will occasion mourning in the nation for the loss of a citi-
zen and a public servant whose memory will be gratefully cherished.
Although it has occurred at a time when his country is afflicted with
division and civil war, the grief of his patriotic friends will measurably
be assuaged by the consciousness that while suffering with disease and
seeing his end approaching his prayers were for the restoration of the
authority of the Government of which he had been the head and for
peace and good will among his fellow-citizens.
As a mark of respect for his memory, it is ordered that the Executive
Mansion and the several Executive Departments, except those of War
and the Navy, be immediately placed in mourning and all business be
'suspended during to-morrow.
It is further ordered that the War and Navy Departments cause suita-
ble military and naval honors to be paid on this occasion to the memory
of the illustrious dead. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
II. On the day after the receipt of this order the troops will be paraded
at 10 o'clock a. m. and the order read to them. The national flag will be
displayed at half-staff. At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, and
afterwards at intervals of thirty minutes between rising and setting sun a
single gun, and at the close of the day a national salute of thirty-four
guns. The officers of the Army will wear crape on the left arm and on
their swords and the colors of the several regiments will be put in
mourning for the period of six months.
By order of the Secretary of War: ^ THOMAS
Adjutant-General,
Abraham Lincoln 119
Gknkrai^ Ordkr.
Navy Dkpartmknt, /«/j/ 25, 1862.
The death of ex-President Martin Van Buren is announced in the
following order of the President of the United States:
[For order see preceding page.]
In pursuance of the foregoing order, it is hereby directed that thirty
minute guns, commencing at noon, be fired on the day after the receipt
of this general order at the navy-yards, naval stations, and on board the
vessels of the Navy in commission; that their flags be displayed at half-
mast for one week, and that crape be worn on the left arm by all officers
of the Navy for a period of six months.
GIDEON WElvLES, Secretary of the Navy,
War Department,
Washington City, D. C.July jz, 1862.
The absence of officers and privates from their duty under various pre-
texts while receiving pay, at great expense and burden to the Government,
makes it necessary that efficient measures be taken to enforce their return
to duty or that their places be supplied by those who will not take pay
while rendering no service. This evil, moreover, tends greatly to discour-
age the patriotic impulses of those who would contribute to support the
families of faithful soldiers.
It is therefore ordered by the President —
I. That on Monday, the nth day of August, all leaves of absence and
furloughs, by whomsoever given, unless by the War Department, are re-
voked and absolutely annulled, and all officers capable of service are
required forthwith to join their respective commands and all privates
capable of service to join their regiments, under penalty of a dismissal
from the service, or such penalty as a court-martial may award, unless
the absence be occasioned by lawful cause.
II. The only excuses allowed for the absence of officers or privates
after the nth day of August are:
First. The order or leave of the War Department.
Second. Disability from wounds received in service.
Third. Disability from disease that renders the party unfit for military
duty. But any officer or private whose health permits him to visit water-
ing places or plages of amusement, or to make social visits or walk about
the town, city, or neighborhood in which he may be, will be considered
fit for military duty and as evading duty by absence from his command
or ranks.
III. On Monday, the i8th day of August, at 10 o'clock a. m., each
regiment and corps shall be mustered. The absentees will be marked,
three lists of the same made out, and within forty-eight hours after the
I20 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
muster one copy shall be sent to the Adjutant- General of the Army, one
to the commander of the corps, the third to be retained; and all ofl&cers
and privates fit for duty absent at that time will be regarded as absent
without cause, their pay will be stopped, and they dismissed from the
service or treated as deserters unless restored; and no officer shall be
restored to his rank unless by the judgment of a court of inquiry, to
be approved by the President, he shall establish that his absence was
with good cause.
IV. Commanders of corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and detached
posts are strictly enjoined to enforce the muster and return aforesaid.
Any officer failing in his duty herein will be deemed guilty of gross
neglect of duty and be dismissed from the service.
V. A commissioner shall be appointed by the Secretary of War to
superintend the execution of this order in the respective States.
The United States marshals in the respective districts, the mayor and
chief of police of any town or city, the sheriff of the respective counties
in each State, all postmasters and justices of the peace, are authorized to
act as special provost-marshals to arrest any officer or private soldier fit
for duty who may be found absent from his command without just cause
and convey him to the nearest military post or depot. The transporta-
tion, reasonable expenses of this duty, and $5 will be paid for each officer
or private so arrested and delivered.
By order of the President:
B. M. STANTON, Secretary of War,
War Department,
Washington City, D. C, August ^, 1862.
Ordered, I. That a draft of 300,000 militia be immediately called into
the service of the United States, to serve for nine months unless sooner
discharged. The Secretary of War will assign the quotas to the States
and establish regulations for the draft.
II. That if any State shall not by the 15th of August furnish its quota
of the additional 300,000 volunteers authorized by law the deficiency of
volunteers in that State will also be made up by special draft from the
militia. The Secretary of War will establish regulations for this purpose.
III. Regulations will be prepared by the War Department and pre-
sented to the President with the object of securing the promotion of
officers of the Army and Volunteers for meritorious and distinguished
services and of preventing the nomination or appointment in the military
service of incompetent or unworthy officers. The regulations will also
provide for ridding the service of such incompetent persons as now hold
commissions in it.
By order of the President:
KDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War,
Abraham Lincoln i2i
War Department,
Washington, D. C, August 8, 1862.
By direction of the President of the United States, it is hereby ordered
that until further order no citizen liable to be drafted into the militia
shall be allowed to go to a foreign country. And all marshals, deputy
marshals, and military officers of the United States are directed, and all
police authorities, especially at the ports of the United States on the sea-
board and on the frontier, are requested, to see that this order is faith-
fully carried into effect. And they are hereby authorized and directed to
arrest and detain any person or persons about to depart from the United
States in violation of this order, and report to Major L,. C. Turner, judge-
advocate at Washington City, for further instructions respecting the
person or persons so arrested or detained.
II. Any person liable to draft who shall absent himself from his county
or State before such draft is made will be arrested by any provost-mar-
shal or other United States or State officer, wherever he may be found
within the jurisdiction of the United States, and be conveyed to the near-
est military post or depot and placed on military duty for the term of the
draft; and the expenses of his own arrest and conveyance to such post or
depot, and also the sum of $5, as a reward to the officer who shall make
such arrest, shall be deducted from his pay.
III. The writ of habeas corpus is hereby suspended in respect to all
persons so arrested and detained, and in respect to all persons arrested for
disloyal practices. EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
War Department,
Washington City, D. C, August z/, 1862.
Order Respecting VoivUnteers and Mii^itia.
Ordered, first. That after the 15th of this month bounty and advanced
pay shall not be paid to volunteers for any new regiments, but only to
volunteers for regiments now in the field and volunteers to fill up new
regiments now organizing, but not yet full.
Second. Volunteers to fill up new regiments now organizing will be
received and paid the bounty and advanced pay until the 2 2d day of this
month, and if not completed by that time the incomplete regiments will
be consolidated and superfluous officers mustered out.
Third. Volunteers to fill up the old regiments will be received and paid
the bounty and advanced pay until the ist day of September.
Fourth. The draft for 300,000 militia called for by the President will
be made on Wednesday, the 3d day of September, between the hours of
9 a. m. and 5 p. m. , and continue from day to day between the same
hours until completed.
122 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Fifth. If the old regiments should not be filled up by volunteers be-
fore the ist day of September, a special draft will be ordered for the
deficiency.
Sixth. The exigencies of the service require that officers now in the
field should remain with their commands, and no officer now in the field
in the regular or volunteer service will under any circumstances be de-
tailed to accept a new command.
By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Spkciai. Orders, No. 218.
Hkadquartkrs of thk Army,
Adjutant- Gknkrai.'s Office,
Washington, September 2, 1862.
By direction of the President, all the clerks and employees of the civil
Departments and all the employees on the public buildings in Washing-
ton will be immediately organized into companies, under the direction
of Brigadier- General Wadsworth, and will be armed and supplied with
ammunition, for the defense of the capital.
By command of Major-General Halleck:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
Executive Order Establishing a Provisionai, Court in
Louisiana.
Executive Mansion,
Washington City, October 20, 1862.
The insurrection which has for some time prevailed in several of the
States of this Union, including Louisiana, having temporarily subverted
and swept away the civil institutions of that State, including the judi-
ciary and the judicial authorities of the Union, so that it has become
necessary to hold the State in military occupation, and it being indispen-
sably necessary that there shall be some judicial tribunal existing there
capable of administering justice, I have therefore thought it proper to
appoint, and I do hereby constitute, a provisional court, which shall be
a court of record, for the State of Louisiana; and I do hereby appoint
Charles A. Peabody, of New York, to be a provisional judge to hold said
court, with authority to hear, try, and determine all causes, civil and
criminal, including causes in law, equity, revenue, and admiralty, and par-
ticularly all such powers and jurisdiction as belong to the district and
Abraham Lincoln
123
circuit courts of the United States, conforming his proceedings so far as
possible to the course of proceedings and practice which has been cus-
tomary in the courts of the United States and Louisiana, his judgment
to be final and conclusive. And I do hereby authorize and empower the
said judge to make and establish such rules and regulations as may be
necessary for the exercise of his jurisdiction, and empower the said judge
to appoint a prosecuting attorney, marshal, and clerk of the said court,
who shall perform the functions of attorney, marshal, and clerk accord-
ing to such proceedings and practice as before mentioned and such rules
and regulations as may be made and established by said judge. These
appointments are to continue during the pleasure of the President, not
extending beyond the military occupation of the city of New Orleans or
the restoration of the civil authority in that city and in the State of Loui-
siana. These officers shall be paid, out of the contingent fund of the
War Department, compensation as follows: The judge at the rate of
$3,500 per annum; the prosecuting attorney, including the fees, at the
rate of $3,000 per annum; the marshal, including the fees, at the rate of
$3,000 per annum; and the clerk, including the fees, at the rate of $2,500
per annum; such compensations to be certified by the Secretary of War.
A copy of this order, certified by the Secretary of War and delivered to
such judge, shall be deemed and held to be a sufiicient commission.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
President of the United States.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, October 2g, 1862,
Two associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
having been appointed since the last adjournment of said court, and con-
sequently no allotment of the members of said court to the several cir-
cuits having been made by them, according to the fifth section of the act
of Congress entitled "An act to amend the judicial system of the United
States," approved April 29, 1802, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
United States, in virtue of said section, do make an allotment of the jus-
tices of said court to the circuits now existing by law, as follows:
For the first circuit: Nathan Clifford, associate justice.
For the second circuit: Samuel Nelson, associate justice.
For the third circuit: Robert C. Grier, associate justice.
For the fourth circuit: Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice.
For the fifth circuit: James M. Wayne, associate justice.
For the sixth circuit: John Catron, associate justice.
For the seventh circuit: Noah H. Swayne, associate justice.
For the eighth circuit: David Davis, associate justice.
For the ninth circuit: Samuel F. Miller, associate justice.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
124 Messages and Papers of the PresicTenis
BxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington^ November 5, 1862.
By direction of the President, it is ordered that Major- General Mc-
Clellan be reHeved from the command of the Army of the Potomac, and
that Major- General Burnside take the command of that army; also that
Major-General Hunter take command of the corps in said army which
is now commanded by General Burnside; that Major- General Fitz John
Porter be relieved from the command of the corps he now commands in
said army, and that Major- General Hooker take command of said corps.
The General in Chief is authorized, in [his] discretion, to issue an order
substantially as the above forthwith, or so soon as he may deem proper.
A. I^INCGIvN.
ExKCuTivB Mansion, November 7, 1862.
Ordered, That Brigadier- General Ellet report to Rear- Admiral Porter
for instructions, and act under his direction until otherwise ordered by
the War Department. ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
BxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, November 12, 1862.
Ordered, first. That clearances issued by the Treasury Department for
vessels or merchandise bound for the port of Norfolk for the military
necessities of the department, certified by the military commandant at
Fort Monroe, shall be allowed to enter said port.
Second. That vessels and domestic produce from Norfolk, permitted
by the military commandant at Fort Monroe for the military purposes of
his command, shall on his permit be allowed to pass from said port to
their .destination in any port not blockaded by the United States.
A. I^INCGIyN.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, November 25, 1862.]
ExKCUTivEj Mansion, November 13, 1862.
Ordered by the President of the United States, That the Attorney-Gen-
eral be charged with the superintendence and direction of all proceedings
to be had imder the act of Congress of the 17th of July, 1862, entitled
"An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to
seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes, ' '■ in
so far as may concern the seizure, prosecution, and condemnation of the
estate, property, and effects of rebels and traitors, as mentioned and pro-
vided for in the fifth, sixth, and seventh sections of the said act of Con-
gress. And the Attorney- General is authorized and required to give to
the attorneys and marsh^l^ of the United States such instructions and
Abraham Lincoln 1^5
directions as he may find needful and convenient touching all such sei-
zures, prosecutions, and condenanations, and, moreover, to authorize all
such attorneys and marshals, whenever there may be reasonable ground
' to fear any forcible resistance to them in the discharge of their respective
duties in this behalf, to call upon any military officer in command of the
forces of the United States to give to them such aid, protection, and sup-
port as may be necessary to enable them safely and efficiently to discharge
their respective duties; and all such commanding officers are required
promptly to obey such call, and to render the necessary service as far as
may be in their power consistently with their other duties.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
By the President:
Edward Batks,
A ttorney- General,
G:SNKRAi, Ordkr Rkspkcting th^ Obskrvance; of th^ Sabbath
Day in thb Army and Navy.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, November 75, 1862.
The President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, desires
and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men
in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast
of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and
sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people,
and a due regard for the divine will demand that Sunday labor in the
Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity.
The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer
nor the cause they defend be imperiled by the profanation of the day or
name of the Most High. ' 'At this time of public distress, ' ' adopting the
words of Washington in 1776, * ' men may find enough to do in the service
of God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and im-
morality." The first general order issued by the Father of his Country
after the Declaration of Independence indicates the spirit in which our
institutions were founded and should ever be defended:
The General hopes and t7'usts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and
act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his
cou7itry.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Executive Mansion,
Washington City, November 21, 1862.
Ordered, That no arms, ammunition, or munitions of war be cleared or
allowed to be exported from the United States until further order; that
126 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
any clearances for arms, ammunition, or munitions of war issued hereto-
fore by the Treasury Department be vacated if the articles have not
passed without the United States, and the articles stopped ; that the Sec-
retary of War hold possession of the arms, etc. , recently seized by his order
at Rouses Point, bound for Canada.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.
Dkckmbkr I, 1862.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
Since your last annual assembling another year of health and bountiful
harvests has passed, and while it has not pleased the Almighty to bless
us with a return of peace, we can but press on, guided by the best light
He gives us, trusting that in His own good time and wise way all will
yet be well.
The correspondence touching foreign affairs which has taken place
during the last year is herewith submitted, in virtual compliance with
a request to that effect made by the House of Representatives near the
close of the last session of Congress.
If the condition of our relations with other nations is less gratifying
than it has usually been at former periods, it is certainly more satisfac-
tory than a nation so unhappily distracted as we are might reasonably
have apprehended. In the month of June last there were some grounds
to expect that the maritime powers which at the beginning of our domes-
tic difficulties so unwisely and unnecessarily, as we think, recognized the
insurgents as a belligerent would soon recede from that position, which
has proved only less injurious to themselves than to our own country.
But the temporary reverses which afterwards befell the national arms,
and which were exaggerated by our own disloyal citizens abroad, have
hitherto delayed that act of simple justice.
The civil war, which has so radically changed for the moment the occu-
pations and habits of the American people, has necessarily disturbed the
social condition and affected very deeply the prosperity of the nations
with which we have carried on a commerce that has been steadily increas-
ing throughout a period of half a century. It has at the same time
excited political ambitions and apprehensions which have produced a
profound agitation throughout the civilized world. In this unusual
agitation we have forborne from taking part in any controversy between
foreign states and between parties or factions in such states. We have
attempted no propagandism and acknowledged no revolution. But we
have left to every nation the exclusive conduct and management of its
own affairs. Our struggle has been, of course, contemplated by foreign
Abraham Lincoln 127
nations with reference less to its own merits than to its supposed and
often exaggerated effects and consequences resulting to those nations
themselves. Nevertheless, complaint on the part of this Government,
even if it were just, would certainly be unwise.
The treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave trade
has been put into operation with a good prospect of complete success.
It is an occasion of special pleasure to acknowledge that the execution
of it on the part of Her Majesty's Government has been marked with a
jealous respect for the authority of the United States and the rights of
their moral and loyal citizens.
The convention with Hanover for the abolition of the Stade dues has
been carried into full effect under the act of Congress for that purpose.
A blockade of 3,000 miles of seacoast could not be established and
vigorously enforced in a season of great commercial activity like the
present without committing occasional mistakes and inflicting uninten-
tional injuries upon foreign nations and their subjects.
A civil war occurring in a country where foreigners reside and carry
on trade under treaty stipulations is necessarily fruitful of complaints of
the violation of neutral rights. All such collisions tend to excite misap-
prehensions, and possibly to produce mutual reclamations between nations
which have a common interest in preserving peace and friendship. In
clear cases of these kinds I have so far as possible heard and redressed
complaints which have been presented by friendly powers. There is
still, however, a large and an augmenting number of doubtful cases
upon which the Government is unable to agree with the governments
whose protection is demanded by the claimants. There are, moreover,
many cases in which the United States or their citizens suffer wrongs
from the naval or military authorities of foreign nations which the gov-
ernments of those states are not at once prepared to redress. I have
proposed to some of the foreign states thus interCvSted mutual conventions
to examine and adjust such complaints. This proposition has been made
especially to Great Britain, to France, to Spain, and to Prussia. In each
case it has been kindly received, but has not yet been formally adopted.
I deem it my duty to recommend an appropriation in behalf of the
owners of the Norwegian bark Admiral P. Tordenskiold, which vessel
was in May, 1861, prevented by the commander of the blockading force
off Charleston from leaving that port with cargo, notwithstanding a sim-
ilar privilege had shortly before been granted to an English vessel. I
have directed the Secretary of State to cause the papers in the case to be
communicated to the proper committees.
Applications have been made to me by many free Americans of Afri-
can descent to favor their emigration, with a view to such colonization
as was contemplated in recent acts of Congress. Other parties, at home
and abroad — some from interested motives, others upon patriotic consid-
erations, and still others influenced by philanthropic sentiments— have
128 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
suggested similar measures, while, on the other hand, several of the
Spanish American Republics have protested against the sending of such
colonies to their respective territories. Under these circumstances I have
declined to move any such colony to any state without first obtaining the
consent of its government, with an agreement on its part to receive and
protect such emigrants in all the rights of freemen; and I have at the
same time offered to the several States situated within the Tropics, or
having colonies there, to negotiate with them, subject to the advice and
consent of the Senate, to favor the voluntary emigration of persons of
that class to their respective territories, upon conditions which shall be
equal, just, and humane. I^iberia and Hayti are as yet the only coun-
tries to which colonists of African descent from here could go with
certainty of being received and adopted as citizens; and I regret to say
such persons contemplating colonization do not seem so willing to
migrate to those countries as to some others, nor so willing as I think
their interest demands. I believe, however, opinion among them in this
respect is improving, and that ere long there will be an augmented and
considerable migration to both these countries from the United States.
The new commercial treaty between the United States and the Sultan
of Turkey has been carried into execution.
A commercial and consular treaty has been negotiated, subject to the
Senate's consent, with Liberia, and a similar negotiation is now pending
with the Republic of Hayti. A considerable improvement of the national
commerce is expected to result from these measures.
Our relations with Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Russia,
Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Rome, and
the other European States remain undisturbed. Very favorable rela-
tions also continue to be maintained with Turkey, Morocco, China, and
Japan.
During the last year there has not only been no change of our previous
relations with the independent States of our own continent, but more
friendly sentiments than have heretofore existed are believed to be enter-
tained by these neighbors, whose safety and progress are so intimately
connected with our own. This statement especially applies to Mexico,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Peru, and Chile.
The commission under the convention with the Republic of New Gra-
nada closed its session without having audited and passed upon all the
claims which were submitted to it. A proposition is pending to revive
the convention, that it may be able to do more complete justice. The
joint commission between the United States and the Republic of Costa
Rica has completed its labors and submitted its report.
I have favored the project foi connecting the United States with Europe
by an Atlantic telegraph, and a similar project to extend the telegraph
from San Francisco to connect by a Pacific telegraph with the line which
is beang extended across the Russian Empire.
Abraham Lincoln 129
The Territories of the United States, with unimportant exceptions,
have remained undisturbed by the civil war; and they are exhibiting
such evidence of prosperity as justifies an expectation that some of them
will soon be in a condition to be organized as States and be constitu-
tionally admitted into the Federal Union.
The immense mineral resources of some of those Territories ought to
be developed as rapidly as possible. Every step in that direction would
have a tendency to improve the revenues of the Government and diminish
the burdens of the people. It is worthy of your serious consideration
whether some extraordinary measures to promote that end can not be
adopted. The means which suggests itself as most likely to be effective
is a scientific exploration of the mineral regions in those Territories with
a view to the publication of its results at home and in foreign countries —
results which can not fail to be auspicious.
The condition of the finances will claim your most diligent considera-
tion. The vast expenditures incident to the military and naval operations
required for the suppression of the rebellion have hitherto been met with
a promptitude and certainty unusual in similar circumstances, and the
public credit has been fully maintained. The continuance of the war,
however, and the increased disbursements made necessary by the aug-
mented forces now in the field demand your best reflections as to the best
modes of providing the necessary revenue without injury to business and
with the least possible burdens upon labor.
The suspension of specie payments by the banks soon after the com-
mencement of your last session made large issues of United States notes
unavoidable. In no other way could the payment of the troops and the
satisfaction of other just demands be so economically or so well provided
for. The judicious legislation of Congress, securing the receivability of
these notes for loans and internal duties and making them a legal tender
for other debts, has made them an universal currency, and has satisfied,
partially at least, and for the time, the long- felt want of an uniform circu-
lating medium, saving thereby to the people immense sums in discounts
and exchanges.
A return to specie payments, however, at the earliest period compatible
with due regard to all interests concerned should ever be kept in view.
Fluctuations in the value of currency are always injurious, and to reduce
these fluctuations to the lowest possible point will always be a leading
purpose in wise legislation. Convertibility, prompt and certain con-
vertibility, into coin is generally acknowledged to be the best and surest
safeguard against them; and it is extremely doubtful whether a circula-
tion of United States notes payable in coin and sufiiciently large for the
wants of the people can be permanently, usefully, and safely maintained.
Is there, then, any other mode in which the necessary provision for the
public wants can be made and the great advantages of a safe and uniform
currency secured?
M P — vol, VI — 9
130 Messages and Papers of the Presidejtts -
I know of none which promises so certain results and is at the same
time so unobjectionable as the organization of banking associations,
under a general act of Congress, well guarded in its provisions. To
such associations the Government might furnish circulating notes^ on
the security of United States bonds deposited in the Treasury. These
notes, prepared under the supervision of proper officers, being uniform
in appearance and security and convertible always into coin, would at
once protect labor against the evils of a vicious currency and facilitate
commerce by cheap and safe exchanges.
A moderate reservation from the interest on the bonds would compen-
sate the United States for the preparation and distribution of the notes
and a general supervision of the system, and would lighten the burden
of that part of the public debt employed as securities. The public credit,
moreover, would be greatly improved and the negotiation of new loans
greatly facilitated by the steady market demand for Government bonds
which the adoption of the proposed system would create.
It is an additional recommendation of the measure, of considerable
weight, in my judgment, that it would reconcile as far as possible all
existing interests by the opportunity offered to existing institutions to
reorganize under the act, substituting only the secured uniform national
circulation for the local and various circulation, secured and unsecured,
now issued by them.
The receipts into the Treasury from all sources, including loans and
balance from the preceding year, for the fiscal year ending on the 30th
June, 1862, were $583,885,247.06, of which sum $49,056,397.62 were
derived from customs; $1,795,331.73 from the direct tax; from public
lands, $152,203.77; from miscellaneous sources, $931,787.64; from loans
in all forms, $529,692,460.50. The remainder, $2,257,065.80, was the
balance from last year.
The disbursements during the same period were: For Congressional,
executive, and judicial purposes, $5,939,009.29; for foreign intercourse,
$i>339.7io-35; for miscellaneous expenses, including the mints, loans,
Post-Office deficiencies, collection of revenue, and other like charges,
$14,129,771.50; for expenses under the Interior Department, $3,102,-
985.52; under the War Department, $394,368,407.36; under the Navy
Department, $42,674,569.69; for interest on public debt, $13, 190,324.45;
and for payment of public debt, including reimbursement of temporary
loan and redemptions, $96,096,922.09; making an aggregate of $570,-
841,700.25, and leaving a balance in the Treasury on the ist day of July,
1862, of $13,043,546.81.
It should be observed that the sum of $96,096,922.09, expended for
reimbursements and redemption of public debt, jeing included also in
the loans made, may be properly deducted both from receipts and ex-
penditures, leaving the actual receipts for the year $487,788,324.97, and
the expenditures $474,744,778.16.
J
Abraham Lincoln 131
Other information on the subject of the finances will be found in the
report of the Secretary of the Treasury, to whose statements and views I
invite your most candid and considerate attention.
The reports of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy are herewith
transmitted. These reports, though lengthy, are scarcely more than
brief abstracts of the very numerous and extensive transactions and
operations conducted through those Departments. Nor could I give a
summary of them here upon any principle which would admit of its being
much shorter thaii the reports themselves. I therefore content myself
with laying the reports before you and asking your attention to them.
It gives me pleasure to report a decided improvement in the finan-
cial condition of the Post- Office Department as compared with several
preceding years. The receipts for the fiscal year 1861 amounted to
$8,349,296.40, which embraced the revenue from all th^ States of the
Union for three quarters of that year. Notwithstanding the cessation
of revenue from the so-called seceded States during the last fiscal year,
the increase of the correspondence of the loyal States has been sufficient
to produce a revenue during the same year of $8,299,820.90, being only
^50,000 less than was derived from all the States of the Union during
the previous year. The expenditures show a still more favorable result.
The amount expended in 1861 was $13,606,759.11. For the last year
the amount has been reduced to $11,125,364.13, showing a decrease of
about $2,481,000 in the expenditures as compared with the preceding
year, and about $3,750,000 as compared with the fiscal year i860. The
deficiency in the Department for the previous year was $4,551,966.98.
For the last fiscal year it was reduced to $2, 112,814.57. These favorable
results are in part owing to the cessation of mail service in the insurrec-
tionary States and in part to a careful review of all expenditures in that
Department in the interest of economy. The efficiency of the postal
service, it is believed, has also been much improved. The Postmaster-
General has also opened a correspondence through the Department of
State with foreign governments proposing a convention of postal repre-
sentatives for the purpose of simplifying the rates of foreign postage and
to expedite the foreign mails. This proposition, equally important to
our adopted citizens and to the commercial interests of this country, has
been favorably entertained and agreed to by all the governments from
whom replies have been received.
I ask the attention of Congress to the suggestions of the Postmaster-
General in his report respecting the further legislation required, in his
opinion, for the benefit of the postal service.
The Secretary of the Interior reports as follows in regard to the public
lands:
The pubHc lands have ceased to be a source of revenue. From the ist July, 1861,
to the 30th September, 1862, the entire cash receipts from the sale of lands were
|i37)476.26— a sum much less than the expenses of our land system during the same
132 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
period. The homestead law, which will take effect on the ist of January next, offers
such inducements to settlers that sales for cash can not be expected to an extent
sufl&cient to meet the expenses of the General Land Office and the cost of surveying
and bringing the land into market.
The discrepancy between the sum here stated as arising from the sales
of the public lands and the sum derived from the same source as reported
from the Treasury Department arises, as I understand, from the fact that
the periods of time, though apparently, were not really coincident at the
beginning point, the Treasury report including a considerable sum now
which had previously been reported from the Interior, sufficiently large
to greatly overreach the sum derived from the three months now reported
upon by the Interior and not by the Treasury.
The Indian tribes upon our frontiers have during the past year mani-
fested a spirii^ of insubordination, and at several points have engaged in
open hostilities against the white settlements in their vicinity. The tribes
occupying the Indian country south of Kansas renounced their allegiance
to the United States and entered into treaties with the insurgents. Those
who remained loyal to the United States were driven from the country.
The chief of the Cherokees has visited this city for the purpose of restor-
ing the former relations of the tribe with the United States. He alleges
that they were constrained by superior force to enter into treaties with
the insurgents, and that the United States neglected to furnish the pro-
tection which their treaty stipulations required.
In the month of August last the Sioux Indians in Minnesota attacked
the settlements in their vicinity with extreme ferocity, killing indiscrimi-
nately men, women, and children. This attack was wholly unexpected,
and therefore no means of defense had been provided. It is estimated
that not less than 800 persons were killed by the Indians, and a large
amount of property was destroyed. How this outbreak was induced is
not definitely known, and suspicions, which may be unjust, need not to
be stated. Information was received by the Indian Bureau from different
sources about the time hostilities were commenced that a simultaneous
attack was to be made upon the white settlements by all the tribes
between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The State of
Minnesota has suffered great injury from this Indian war. A large por-
tion of her territory has been depopulated, and a severe loss has been
sustained by the destruction of property. The people of that State mani-
fest much anxiety for the removal of the tribes beyond the limits of the
State as a guaranty against future hostilities. The Commissioner of
Indian Affairs will furnish full details. I submit for your especial con-
sideration whether our Indian system shall not be remodeled. Many
wise and good men have impressed me with the belief that this can be
profitably done.
I submit a statement of the proceedings of commissioners, which shows
the progress that has been made in the enterprise of constructing the
Abraham Lincoln 133
Pacific Railroad. And this suggests the earliest completion of this road,
and also the favorable action of Congress upon the projects now pend-
ing before them for enlarging the capacities of the great canals in New
York and Illinois, as being of vital and rapidly increasing importance to
the whole nation, and especially to the vast interior region hereinafter
to be noticed at some greater length. I purpose having prepared and
laid before you at an early day some interesting and valuable statistical
information upon this subject. The military and commercial importance
of enlarging the Illinois and Michigan Canal and improving the Illinois
River is presented in the report of Colonel Webster to the Secretary of
War, and now transmitted to Congress. I respectfully ask attention to it.
To carry out the provisions of the act of Congress of the 15th of May
last, I have caused the Department of Agriculture of the United States
to be organized.
The Commissioner informs me that within the period of a few months
this Department has established an extensive .system of correspondence
and exchanges, both at home and abroad, which promises to effect highly
beneficial results in the development of a correct knowledge of recent
improvements in agriculture, in the introduction of new products, and
in the collection of the agricultural statistics of the different States.
Also, that it will soon be prepared to distribute largely seeds, cereals,
plants, and cuttings, and has already published and liberally diffused
much valuable information in anticipation of a more elaborate report,
which will in due time be furnished, embracing some valuable tests in
chemical science now in progress in the laboratory.
The creation of this Department was for the more immediate benefit
of a large class of our most valuable citizens, and I trust that the liberal
basis upon which it has been organized will not only meet your approba-
tion, but that it will realize at no distant day all the fondest anticipations
of its most sanguine friends and become the fruitful source of advantage
to all our people.
On the 2 2d day of September last a proclamation was issued by the
Executive, a copy of which is herewith submitted.
In accordance with the purpose expressed in the second paragraph of
that paper, I now respectfully recall your attention to what may be called
* ' compensated emancipation. ' '
A nation may be said to consist of its territory, its people, and its laws.
The territory is the only part which is of certain durability. ' ' One
generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth
abideth forever." It is of the first importance to duly consider and
estimate this ever-enduring part. That portion of the earth's surface
which is owned and inhabited by the people of the United States is well
adapted to be the home of one national family, and it is not well adapted
for two or more. Its vast extent and its variety of climate and produc-
tions are of advantage in this age for one people, whatever they might
134 Messages and Papers of tJie Presidents
have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelligence have
brought these to be an advantageous combination for one united people.
In the inaugural address I briefly pointed out the total inadequacy of
disunion as a remedy for the differences between the people of the two
sections. I did so in language which I can not improve, and which, there-
fore, I beg to repeat:
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended,
while the other beUeves it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only
substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for
the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any
law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly
supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obliga-
tion in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly
cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than
before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately
revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially
surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sec-
tions from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and
wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other,
but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face
to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is
it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory
after separation than before ? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make
laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among
friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much
loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old ques-
tions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary
upon which to divide. Trace through, from east to west, upon the line
between the free and slave country, and we shall find a little more than
one-third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated, or
soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its remain-
ing length are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may walk back
and forth without any consciousness of their presence. No part of this
line can be made any more difficult to pass by writing it down on paper
or parchment as a national boundary. The fact of separation, if it comes,
gives up on the part of the seceding section the fugitive-slave clause,
along with all other constitutional obligations upon the section seceded
from, while I should expect no treaty stipulation would ever be made to
take its place.
But there is another difficulty. The great interior region bounded east
by the AUeghanies, north by the British dominions, west by the Rocky
Mountains, and south by the line along which the culture of corn and
cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of Tennessee,
all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri,
Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories of Dakota, Nebraska, and
part of Colorado, already has above 10,000,000 people, and will have
Abraham Lincoln 135
50,000,000 within fifty years if not prevented by any political folly or
mistake. It contains more than one-third of the country owned by the
United States — certainly more than i ,000,000 square miles. Once half as
populous as Massachusetts already is, it would have more than 75,000,000
people. A glance at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is
the great body of the Republic. The other parts are but marginal bor-
ders to it, the magnificent region sloping w^est from the Rocky Mountains
to the Pacific being the deepest and also the richest in undeveloped re-
sources. In the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which
proceed from them this great interior region is naturally one of the most
important in the world. Ascertain from the statistics the small propor-
tion of the region which has as yet been brought into cultivation, and
also the large and rapidly increasing amount of its products, and we shall
be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the prospect presented. And yet
this region has no seacoast — touches no ocean anywhere. As part of one
nation, its people now find, and may forever find, their way to Europe
by New York, to South America and Africa by New Orleans, and to Asia
by San Francisco; but separate our common country into two nations, as
designed by the present rebellion, and every man of this great interior re-
gion is thereby cut off from some one or more of these outlets, not perhaps
by a physical barrier, but by embarrassing and onerous trade regulations.
And this is true, ivherever a dividing or boundary line may be fixed.
Place it between the now free and slave country , or place it south of Ken-
tucky or north of Ohio, and still the truth remains that none south of it
can trade to any port or place north of it, and none north of it can trade
to any port or place south of it, except upon terms dictated by a govern-
ment foreign to them. These outlets, east, west, and south, are indis-
pensable to the well-being of the people inhabiting and to inhabit this
vast interior region. Which of the three may be the best is no proper
question. All are better than either, and all of right belong to that peo-
ple and to their successors forever. True to themselves, they will not
ask where a line of separation shall be, but will vow rather that there shall
be IK) such line. Nor are the marginal regions less interested in these
communications to and through them to the great outside world. They,
too, and each of them, must have access to this Egypt of the West without
paying toll at the crossing of any national boundary.
Our national strife springs not from our permanent part; not from the
land we inhabit; not from our national homestead. There is no possi-
ble severing of this but would multiply and not mitigate evils among us.
In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separa-
tion. In fact, it would ere long force reunion, however much of blood
and treasure the separation might have cost.
Our strife pertains to ourselves — to the passing generations of men —
and it can without convulsion be hushed forever with the passing of one
generation.
136 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
In this view I recommend the adoption of the following resolution and
articles amendatory to the Constitution of the United States:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled {two-thirds of both Houses concurring), That the
following articles be proposed to the legislatures (or conventions) of the several
States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which
articles, when ratified by three-fourths of the said legislatures (or conventions), to be
valid as part or parts of the said Constitution, viz:
Art. — . Every State wherein slavery now exists which shall abolish the same
therein at any time or times before the ist day of January, A. D. 1900, shall receive
compensation from the United States as follows, to wit:
The President of the United States shall deliver to every such State bonds of the
United States bearing interest at the rate of per cent per annum to an amount
equal to the aggregate sum of for each slave shown to have been therein by
the Righth Census of the United States, said bonds to be delivered to such State
by installments or in one parcel at the completion of the abolishment, accordingly
as the same shall have been gradual or at one time within such State; and interest
shall begin to run upon any such bond only from the proper time of its delivery as
aforesaid. Any State having received bonds as aforesaid and afterwards reintro-
ducing or tolerating slavery therein shall refund to the United States the bonds so
received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon.
Art. — . All slaves who shall have enjoyed actual freedom by the chances of the
war at any time before the end of the rebellion shall be forever free; but all owners
of such who shall not have been disloyal shall be compensated for them at the same
rates as is provided for States adopting abolishment of slavery, but in such way that
no slave shall be twice accounted for.
Art. — . Congress may appropriate money and otherwise provide for colonizing
free colored persons with their own consent at any place or places without the United
States.
I beg indulgence to discuss these proposed articles at some length.
Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery
it could not continue.
Among the friends of the Union there is great diversity of sentiment
and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race amongst us. Some
would perpetuate slavery; some would abolish it suddenly and without
compensation; some would abolish it gradually and with compensation;
some would remove the freed people from us, and some would retain
them with us; and there are yet other minor diversities. Because of
these diversities we waste much strength in struggles among ourselves.
By mutual concession we should harmonize and act together. This would
be compromise, but it would be compromise among the friends and not
with the enemies of the Union. These articles are intended to embody
a plan of such mutual concessions. If the plan shall be adopted, it is
assumed that emancipation will follow, at least in several of the States.
As to the first article, the main points are, first, the emancipation; sec-
ondly, the length of time for consummating it (thirty-seven years); and,
thirdly, the compensation.
The emancipation will be unsatisfactory to the advocates of perpetual
slavery, but the length of time should greatly mitigate their dissatisfac-
Abraham Lincoln
137
tion. The time spares both races from the evils of sudden derangement —
in fact, from the necessity of any derangement — while most of those whose
habitual course of thought will be disturbed by the measure will have
passed away before its consummation. They will never see it. Another
class will hail the prospect of emancipation, but will deprecate the length
of time. They will feel that it gives too little to the now living slaves.
But it really gives them much. It saves them from the vagrant destitu-
tion which must largely attend immediate emancipation in localities where
their numbers are very great, and it gives the inspiring assurance that
their posterity shall be free forever. The plan leaves to each State choos-
ing to act under it to abolish slavery now or at the end of the century,
or at any intermediate time, or by degrees extending over the whole or
any part of the period, and it obliges no two States to proceed alike. It
also provides for compensation, and generally the mode of making it.
This, it would seem, must further mitigate the dissatisfaction of those
who favor perpetual slavery, and especially of those who are to receive the
compensation. Doubtless some of those who are to pay and not to receive
will object. Yet the measure is both just and economical. In a certain
sense the liberation of slaves is the destruction of property — ^property
acquired by descent or by purchase, the same as any other property. It
is no less true for having been often said that the people of the South are
not more responsible for the original introduction of this property than
are the people of the North; and when it is remembered how unhesita-
tingly we all use cotton and sugar and share the profits of dealing in
them, it may not be quite safe to say that the South has been more respon-
sible than the North for its continuance. If, then, for a common object
this property is to be sacrificed, is it not just that it be done at a common
charge ?
And if with less money, or money more easily paid, we can preserve
the benefits of the Union by this means than we can by the war alone, is
it not also economical to do it? Let us consider it, then. Let us ascer-
tain the sum we have expended in the war since compensated emancipa-
tion was proposed last March, and consider whether if that measure had
been promptly accepted by even some of the slave States the same sum
would not have done more to close the war than has been otherwise done.
If so, the measure would save money, and in that view would be a pru-
dent and economical measure. Certainly it is not so easy to pay some-
thing as it is to pay nothing, but it is easier to pay a large sum than it is
to pay a larger one. And it is easier to pay any sum when we are able
than it is to pay it before we are able. The war requires large sums, and
requires them at once. The aggregate sum necessary for compensated
emancipation of course would be large. But it would require no ready
cash, nor the bonds even any faster than the emancipation progresses.
This might not, and probably would not, close before the end of the thirty-
seven years. At that time we shall probably have a hundred millions of
138
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
people to share the burden, instead of thirty-one millions as now. And
not only so, but the increase of our population may be expected to
continue for a long time after that period as rapidly as before, because
our territory will not have become full. I do not state this inconsider-
ately. At the same ratio of increase which we have maintained, on an
average, from our first national census, in 1790, until that of i860, we
should in 1900 have a population of 103,208,415. And why may we not
continue that ratio far beyond that period? Our abundant room, our
broad national homestead, is our ample resource. Were our territory as
limited as are the British Isles, very certainly our population could not
expand as stated. Instead of receiving the foreign born as now, we
should be compelled to send part of the native born away. But such
is not our condition. We have 2,963,000 square miles. Europe has
3,800,000, with a population averaging 73^ persons to the square mile.
Why may not our country at some time average as many? Is it less
fertile? Has it more waste surface by mountains, rivers, lakes, deserts,
or other causes? Is it inferior to Europe in any natural advantage? If,
then, we are at some time to be as populous as Europe, how soon? As
to when this may be, we can judge by the past and the present; as to
when it will be, if ever, depends much on whether we maintain the Union.
Several of our States are already above the average of Europe — 73^ to
the square mile. Massachusetts has 157; Rhode Island, 133; Connecti-
cut, 99; New York and New Jersey, each 80. Also two other great States,
Pennsylvania and Ohio, are not far below, the former having 63 and the
latter 59. The States already above the European average, except New
York, have increased in as rapid a ratio since passing that point as ever
before, while no one of them is equal to some other parts of our country
in natural capacity for sustaining a dense population.
Taking the nation in the aggregate, and we find its population and ratio
of increase for the several decennial periods to be as follows :
Year.
1790
1800
1810
1820
1830
1840
1850
i860
Population.
3,929,827
5, 305, 937
7, 239, 814
9, 638, 131
12, 866, 020
17,069,453
23, 191, 876
31, 443, 790
Ratio of
increase.
Per cent.
35-02
36.45
33-13
33-49
32.67
35-87
35-58
This shows an average decennial increase of 34.60 per cent in popula-
tion through the seventy years from our first to our last census yet taken.
It is seen that the ratio of increase at no one of these seven periods is
either 2 per cent below or 2 per cent above the average, thus showing
Abraham Lincoln
139
how inflexible, and consequently how reliable, the law of increase in our
case is. Assuming that it will continue, it gives the following results:
Year.
Population,
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
42, 323, 341
56, 967, 216
76, 677, 872
103, 208, 415
138,918)526
186,984,335
251,680,914
These figures show that our country may be as populous as Europe
now is at some point between 1920 and 1930 — say about 1925 — our ter-
ritory, at 73;^ persons to the square mile, being of capacity to contain
217,186,000.
And we will reach this, too, if we do not ourselves relinquish the
chance by the folly and evils of disunion or by long and exhausting war
springing from the only great element of national discord among us.
While it can not be foreseen exactly how much one huge example of
secession, breeding lesser ones indefinitely, would retard population, civil-
ization, and prosperity, no one can doubt that the extent of it would be
very great and injurious.
The proposed emancipation would shorten the war, perpetuate peace,
insure this increase of population, and proportionately the wealth of the
country. With these we should pay all the emancipation would cost,
together with our other debt, easier than we should pay our other debt
without it. If we had allowed our old national debt to run at 6 per cent
per annum, simple interest, from the end of our revolutionary struggle
until to-day, without paying an5^thing on either principal or interest, each
man of us would owe less upon that debt now than each man owed upon
it then; and this because our increase of men through the whole period
has been greater than 6 per cent — has run faster than the interest upon
the debt. Thus time alone relieves a debtor nation, so long as its popu-
lation increases faster than unpaid interest accumulates on its debt.
Thi$ fact would be no excuse for delaying payment of what is justly
due, but it shows the great importance of time in this connection — the
great advantage of a policy by which we shall not have to pay until we
number 100,000,000 what by a different policy we would have to pay now,
when we number but 31,000,000. In a word, it shows that a dollar will
be much harder to pay for the war than will be a dollar for emancipation
on the proposed plan. And then the k:tter will cost no blood, no precious
life. It will be a saving of both.
As to the second article, I think it would be impracticable to return
to bondage the clavSS of persons therein contemplated. Some of them,
140 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
doubtless, in the property sense belong to loyal owners, and hence pro-
vision is made in this article for compensating such.
The third article relates to the future of the freed people. It does not
oblige, but merely authorizes Congress to aid in colonizing such as may
consent. This ought not to be regarded as objectionable on the one
hand or on the other, insomuch as it comes to nothing unless by the
mutual consent of the people to be deported and the American voters,
through their representatives in Congress.
I can not make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor
colonization; and yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against
free colored persons remaining in the country which is largely imaginary,
if not sometimes malicious.
It is insisted that their presence would injure and displace white labor
and white laborers. If there ever could be a proper time for mere catch
arguments, that time surely is not now. In times like the present men
should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible
through time and in eternity. Is it true, then, that colored people can
displace any more white labor by being free than by remaining slaves?
If they stay in their old places, they jostle no white laborers; if they
leave their old places, they leave them open to white laborers. Logic-
ally, there is neither more nor less of it. Emancipation, even without
deportation, would probably enhance the wages of white labor, and very
surely would not reduce them. Thus the customary amount of labor
would still have to be performed — the freed people would surely not do
more than their old proportion of it, and very probably for a time would
do less, leaving an increased part to white laborers, bringing their labor
into greater demand, and consequently enhancing the wages of it. With
deportation, even to a limited extent, enhanced wages to white labor is
mathematically certain. Labor is like any other commodity in the mar-
ket— increase the demand for it and you increase the price of it. Reduce
the supply of black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the coun-
try, and by precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of
white labor.
But it is dreaded that the freed people will swarm forth and cover the
whole land. Are they not already in the land? Will liberation make
them any more numerous? Equally distributed among the whites of the
whole country, and there would be but one colored to seven whites. Could
the one in any way greatly disturb the seven? There are many commu-
nities now having more than one free colored person to seven whites and
this without any apparent consciousness of evil from it. The District of
Columbia and the States of Maryland and Delaware are all in this condi-
tion. The District has more than one free colored to six whites, and yet
in its frequent petitions to Congress I believe it has never presented the
presence of free colored persons as one of its grievances. But why should
emancipation South send the free people North?. People of any color
i
Abraham Lincoln 141
seldom run unless there be something to run from. Heretofore colored
people to some extent have fled North from bondage, and now, perhaps,
from both bondage and destitution. But if gradual emancipation and
deportation be adopted, they will have neither to flee from. Their old
masters will give them wages at least until new laborers can be procured,
and the freedmen in turn will gladly give their labor for the wages till
new homes can be found for them in congenial climes and with people of
their own blood and race. This proposition can be trusted on the mutual
interests involved. And in any event, can not the North decide for itself
whether to receive them?
Again, as practice proves more than theory in any case, has there been
any irruption of colored people northward because of the abolishment of
slavery in this District last spring?
What I have said of the proportion of free colored persons to the whites
in the District is from the census of i860, having no reference to persons
called contrabands nor to those made free by the act of Congress abolish-
ing slavery here.
The plan consisting of these articles is recommended, not but that a
restoration of the national authority would be accepted without its adoption.
Nor will the war nor proceedings under the proclamation of September
22, 1862, be stayed because of the recommendation of this plan. Its timely
adoption, I doubt not, would bring restoration, and thereby stay both.
And notwithstanding this plan, the recommendation that Congress pro-
vide by law for compensating any State which may adopt emancipation
before this plan shall have been acted upon is hereby earnestly renewed.
Such would be only an advance part of the plan, and the same arguments
apply to both.
This plan is recommended as a means, not in exclusion of, but addi-
tional to, all others for restoring and preserving the national authority
throughout the Union. The subject is presented exclusively in its eco-
nomical aspect. The plan would, I am confident, secure peace more
speedily and maintain it more permanently than can be done by force
alone, while all it would cost, considering amounts and manner of pay-
ment and times of payment, would be easier paid than will be the addi-
tional cost of the war if we rely solely upon force. It is much, very
much, that it would cost no blood at all.
The plan is proposed as permanent constitutional law. It can not
become such without the concurrence of, first, two- thirds of Congress,
and afterwards three-fourths of the States. The requisite three- fourths
of the States will necessarily include seven of the slave States. Their
concurrence, if obtained, will give assurance of their severally adopting
emancipation at no very distant day upon the new constitutional terms.
This assurance would end the struggle now and save the Union forever.
I do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed
to the Congress of the nation by the Chief Magistrate of the nation, nor
142 Messages and Papers of the Presidents X
do I forget that some of you are my seniors, nor that many of you have
more experience than I in the conduct of pubHc affairs. Yet I trust that
in view of the great responsibihty resting upon me you will perceive no
-Want of respect to yourselves in any undue earnestness I may seem to
display.
Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten
the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it
doubted that it would restore the national authority and national pros-
perity and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here —
Congress and Executive — can secure its adoption? Will not the good
people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can
they, by any other means so certainly or so speedily assure these vital
objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not "Can any of us
imagine better?" but "Can we all do better?" Object whatsoever is
possible, still the question recurs, "Can we do better?" The dogmas
of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is
piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our
case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall
ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and
this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No per-
sonal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The
fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor
to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will
not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The
world knows we do know how to save it. We, evenze^^ here, hold the
power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we
assure freedom to the fi'ee — honorable alike in what we give and what
we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of
earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain,
peaceful, generous, just — a way which if foltbwed the world will forever
applaud and God must forever bless.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, December j, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
On the 3d of November, 1861, a collision took place off the coast of
Cuba between the United States war steamer San facinto and the French
brig fules et Marie, resulting in serious damage to the latter. The obli-
gation of this Government to make amends therefor could not be ques-
tioned if the injury resulted from any fault on the part of the San facinto.
Abraham Lincoln
143
With a view to ascertain this, the subject was referred to a commission of
the United States and French naval officers at New York, with a naval
officer of Italy as an arbiter. The conclusion arrived at was that the
collision was occasioned by the failure of the San Jacinto seasonably to
reverse her engine. It then became necessary to ascertain the amount
of indemnification due to the injured party. The United States consul-
general at Havana was consequently instructed to confer with the consul
of France on this point, and they have determined that the sum of $9,500
is an equitable allowance under the circumstances.
I recommend an appropriation of this sum for the benefit of the owners
of the Jules et Marie.
A copy of the letter of Mr. Shufeldt, the consul-general of the United
States at Havana, to the Secretary of State on the subject is herewith
transmitted. - ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, D. C, December 8, 1862.
To the Senate and House oj Representatives:
In conformity to the law of July 16, 1862, I most cordially recommend
that Commander John L. Worden, United States Navy, receive a vote of
thanks of Congress for the eminent skill and gallantry exhibited by him
in the late remarkable battle between the United States ironclad steamer
Monitor, under his command, and the rebel ironclad steamer Merrimac,
in March last.
The thanks of Congress for his services on the occasion referred to
were tendered by a resolution approved July 11, 1862, but the recommen-
dation is now specially made in order to comply with the requirements
of the ninth section of the act of July 16, 1862, which is in the following
words, viz:
That any line officer of the Navy or Marine Corps may be advanced one grade if
upon recommendation of the President by name he receives the thanks of Congress
for highly distinguished conduct in conflict with the enemy or for extraordinary
heroism in the line of his profession.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, D. C, December p, 1862.
To the Senate oJ the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the United States of
the 13th of March last, requesting a copy of the correspondence relative
to the attempted seizure of Mr. Fauchet by the commander of the Africa
within the waters of the United States, I transmit a report from the Sec-
retary of State and the documents by which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM I^INCOI^N.
144 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, D. C, December lo, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
In conformity to the law of July 16, 1862, 1 most cordially recommend
that Lieutenant-Commander George U. Morris, United States Navy, re-
ceive a vote of thanks of Congress for the determined valor and heroism
displayed in his defense of the United States ship of war Cumberland,
temporarily under his command, in the naval engagement at Hampton
Roads on the 8th March, 1862, with the rebel ironclad steam frigate
Merrimac. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
* • Washington, December 10, 1862.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1 7th
of July last, requesting the communication of correspondence relating to
the arrest of a part of the crew of the brig Sumter at Tangier, Morocco,
I herewith transmit a report from the Secretary of State.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with your resolution of December 5, 1862, requesting
the President ' ' to furnish the Senate with all information in his posses-
sion touching the late Indian barbarities in the State of Minnesota, and
also the evidence in his possession upon which some of the principal
actors and headmen were tried and condemned to death," I have the
honor to state that on receipt of said resolution I transmitted the same
to the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by a note a copy of which
is herewith inclosed, marked A, and in response to which I received
through that Department a letter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
a copy of which is herewith inclosed, marked B.
I further state that on the 8th day of November last I received a long
telegraphic dispatch from Major-General Pope, at St. Paul, Minn., simply
announcing the names of the persons sentenced to be hanged. I imme-
diately telegraphed to have transcripts of the records in all the cases for-
warded to me, which transcripts, however, did not reach me until two
or three days before the present meeting of Congress, Meantime I
received, through telegraphic dispatches and otherwise, appeals in be-
half of the condemned, appeals for their execution, and expressions of
opinion as to proper policy in regard to them and to the Indians gener-
ally in that vicinity, none of which, as I understand, falls within the
scope of your inquiry. After the arrival of the transcripts of records,
but before I had sufficient opportunity to examine them, I received a
joint letter from one of the Senators and two of the Representatives from
Minnesota, which contains some statements of fact not found in the
Abraham Lincoln 145
records of the trials, and for which reason I herewith transmit a copy,
marked C. I also, for the same reason, inclose a printed memorial of
the citizens of St. Paul addressed to me and forwarded with the letter
aforesaid.
Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another
outbreak on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty
on the other, I caused a careful examination of the records of trials to be
made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved
guilty of violating females. Contrary to my expectations, only two of
this class were found. I then directed a further examination, and a
classification of all who were proven to have participated in massacres,
as distinguished from participation in battles. This class numbered
forty, and included the two convicted of female violation. One of
the number is strongly recommended by the commission which tried
them for commutation to ten years' imprisonment. I have ordered the
other thirty-nine to be executed on Friday, the 19th instant. The order
was dispatched from here on Monday, the 8th instant, by a messenger
to General Sibley, and a copy of which order is herewith transmitted,
marked D.
An abstract of the evidence as to the forty is herewith inclosed,
marked E.
To avoid the immense amount of copying, I lay before the Senate the
original transcripts of the records of trials as received by me.
This is as full and complete a response to the resolution as it is in my
power to make. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Dkcembkr II, 1862.
Washington, December 11, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a treaty between the United States and the Republic of Uberia,
signed at lyondon by the plenipotentiaries of the parties on the 21st of
October last. ABRAHAM I^INCOXN.
DKCKMBER 12, 1862.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
I have in my possession three valuable swords, formerly the property
of General David K. Twiggs, which I now place at the disposal of Con-
gress. They are forwarded to me from New Orleans by Major-General
Benjamin F. Butler. If they or any of them shall be by Congress dis-
posed of in reward or compliment of military service, I think General
Butler is entitled to the first consideration. A copy of the General's
letter to me accompanying the swords is herewith transmitted.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
M P— vol, VI — 10
146 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, D. C, December zj, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
In the list of nominations transmitted to the Senate under date of the
ist instant Captain William M. Glendy, United States Navy, was in-
cluded therein for promotion to the grade of commodore.
Since submitting this nomination it appears that this officer was in-
eligible for the advancement to which he had been nominated in con-
sequence of his age, being 62 on the 23d of May, 1862, and under the
law of 2ist December, 1861, should, had this fact been known to the Navy
Department, have been transferred to the retired list on the day when
he completed sixt^z-two years.
The nomination of Captain Glendy is accordingly withdrawn.
It is due to this officer to state that at the period of the passage of the
law of December, 1861, he was and still is absent on duty on a foreign
station, and the certificate of his age required by the Navy Department
was only received a few days since.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, December 18, 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit a copy of a dispatch to the Secretary of State from Mr.
Adams, United States minister at London, and of the correspondence to
which it refers between that gentleman and Mr. Panizzi, the principal
librarian of the British Museum, relative to certain valuable publications
presented to the I^ibrary of Congress.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December 22, 1862.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 15th instant,
requesting a copy of the report of the Hon. Reverdy Johnson,* I trans-
mit a communication from the Secretary of State and the documents by
which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December 24., 1862.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit, for the consideration of Congress, a report from the Secre-
tary of State on the subject of consular pupils.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
♦United States commissioner at New Orleans.
Abraham Lincoln 147
Washington, January 2, i86j.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I submit to Congress the expediency of extending to other Depart-
ments of the Government the authority conferred on the President by
the eighth section of the act of the 8th of May, 1792, to appoint a person
to temporarily discharge the duties of Secretary of State, Secretary of
the Treasury, and Secretary of War in case of the death, absence from the
seat of Government, or sickness of either of those officers.
ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
Washington, January j, iSSj.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification,
a convention for the mutual adjustment of claims between the United
States and Ecuador, signed by the respective plenipotentiaries of the two
Governments in Guayaquil on the 25th November ultimo.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, January 5, i86s.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 2 2d ultimo, in relation to the alleged interference of our minister to
Mexico in favor of the French, I transmit a report from the Secretary
of State and the papers with which it is accompanied.
ABRAHAM I^INCGIvN.
Washington, January p, 186 j.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit for the consideration of Congress, and with a view to the
adoption of such measures in relation to the subject of it as may be
deemed expedient, a copy of a note of the 8th instant addressed to the
Secretary of State by the minister resident of the Hanseatic Republics
accredited to this Government, concerning an international agricultural
exhibition to be held next summer in the city of Hamburg.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, January 14, 1863.
To the House of Representatives:
The Secretary of State has submitted to me a resolution of the House
of Representatives of the 5th instant, which has been delivered to him,
and which is in the following words:
Resolved, That the Secretary of State be requested to communicate to this House,
if not in his judgment incompatible with the pubHc interest, why our minister in
148 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
New Granada has not presented his credentials to the actual Government of that
country; also the reasons for which Seiior Murillo is not recognized by the United
States as the diplomatic representative of the Mosquera Government of that country;
' also what negotiations have been had, if any, with General Herran, as the represent-
ative of Ospina's Government in New Granada, since it went into existence.
On the 12th day of December, 1846, a treaty of amity, peace, and con-
cord was concluded, between the United States of America and the Repub-
lic of New Granada, which is still in force. On the 7th day of December,
1847, General Pedro Alcantara Herran, who had been duly accredited,
was received here as the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipoten-
tiary of that Republic. On the 30th day of August, 1849, Seiior Don
Rafael Rivas was received by this Government as charge d'affaires of the
same Republic. On the 5th day of December, 185 1, a consular conven-
tion was concluded between that Republic and the United States, which
treaty was signed on behalf of the Republic of Granada by the same
Seiior Rivas. This treaty is still in force. On the 27th of April, 1852,
Sefior Don Victoriano de Diego Paredes was received as charge d'affaires
of the Republic of New Granada. On the 20th of June, 1855, General
Pedro Alcantara Herran was again received as envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary, duly accredited by the Republic of New Gra-
nada, and he has ever since remained, under the same credentials, as the
representative of that Republic near the Government of the United States.
On the loth of September, 1857, a claims convention was concluded be-
tween the United States and the Republic of Granada. This conven-
tion is still in force, and has in part been executed. In May, 1858, the
constitution of the Republic was remodeled, and the nation assumed
the political title of * ' The Granadian Confederacy. ' ' This fact was for-
mally announced to this Government, but without any change in their
representative here. Previously to the 4th day of March, 1861, a revo-
lutionary war against the Republic of New Granada, which had thus
been recognized and treated with by the United States, broke out in
New Granada, assuming to set up a new government under the name of
' ' The United States of Colombia. ' ' This war has had various vicissitudes,
sometimes favorable, sometimes adverse, to the revolutionary move-
ments. The revolutionary organization has hitherto been simply a mili-
tary provisionary power, and no definitive constitution of government has
yet been established in New Granada in place of that organized by the
constitution of 1858. The minister of the United States to the Granadian
Confederacy, who was appointed on the 29th day of May, 186 1, was
directed, in view of the occupation of the capital by the revolutionary
party and of the uncertainty of the civil war, not to present his creden-
tials to either the Government of the Granadian Confederacy or to the
provisional military Government, but to conduct his affairs informally,
as is customary in such cases, and to report the progress of events and
await the instructions of this Government. The advices which have been
Abraham Lincoln 149
received from him have not hitherto been sufficiently conclusive to deter-
mine me to recognize the revolutionary Government. General Herran
being here, with full authority from the Government of New Granada,
which had been so long recognized by the United States, I have not re-
ceived any representative from the revolutionary Government, which has
not yet been recognized, because such a proceeding would in itself be an
act of recognition.
Official communications have been had on various incidental and occa-
sional questions with General Herran as the minister plenipotentiary and
envoy extraordinary of the Granadian Confederacy, but in no other char-
acter. No definitive measure or proceeding has resulted from these com-
munications, and a communication of them at present would not, in my
judgment, be compatible with the public interest.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
To the Senate and House of Representatives: January 17, 1863.
I have signed the joint resolution to provide for the immediate payment
of the Army and Navy of the United States, passed by the House of Repre-
sentatives on the 14th and by the Senate on the 15th instant.
The joint resolution is a simple authority, amounting, however, under
existing circumstances, to a direction, to the Secretary of the Treasury to
make an additional issue of $100,000,000 in United States notes, if so
much money is needed, for the payment of the Army and Navy.
My approval is given in order that every possible facility maybe afforded
for the prompt discharge of all arrears of pay due to our soldiers and our
sailors.
While giving this approval, however, I think it my duty to express my
sincere regret that it has been found necessary to authorize so large an
additional issue of United States notes, when this circulation and that of
the suspended banks together have become already so redundant as to
increase prices beyond real values, thereby augmenting the cost of living
to the injury of labor, and the cost of supplies to the injury of the whole
country.
It seems very plain that continued issues of United States notes without
any check to the issues of suspended banks and without adequate provision
for the raising of money by loans and for funding the issues so as to keep
them within due limits must soon produce disastrous consequences; and
this matter appears to me so important that I feel bound to avail myself
of this occasion to ask the special attention of Congress to it.
That Congress has power to regulate the currency of the country can
hardly admit of doubt, and that a judicious measure to prevent the dete-
rioration of this currency, by a seasonable taxation of bank circulation or
otherwise, is needed seems equally clear. Independently of this general
consideration, it would be unjust to the people at large to exempt banks
150 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
enjoying the special privilege of circulation from their just proportion of
the public burdens.
In order to raise money by way of loans most easily and cheaply, it is
clearly necessary to give every possible support to the public credit. To
that end a uniform currency, in which taxes, subscriptions to loans, and
all other ordinary public dues, as well as all private dues, may be paid,
is almost, if not quite, indispensable. Such a currency can be furnished
by banking associations, organized under a general act of Congress, as
suggested in my message at the beginning of the present session. The
securing of this circulation by the pledge of United States bonds, as
therein suggested, would still further facilitate loans by increasing the
present and causing a future demand for such bonds.
In view of the actual financial embarrassments of the Government and
of the greater embarrassments sure to come if the necessary means of
reUef be not afforded, I feel that I should not perform my duty by a sim-
ple announcement of my approval of the joint resolution, which proposes
relief only by increasing circulation, without expressing my earnest desire
that measures such in substance as those I have just referred to may
receive the early sanction of Congress.
By such measures, in my opinion, will payment be most certainly
secured, not only to the Army and Navy, but to all honest creditors of
the Government, and satisfactory provision made for future demands
on the Treasury. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, /<2«2^arj/ 20, 186 j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to
the resolution of the Senate relative to the correspondence between this
Government and the Mexican minister in relation to the exportation of
articles contraband of war for the use of the French army in Mexico.
ABRAHAM LINCOIyN.
ExKCuTivE Mansion,
Washington, fanuary 21, i86j.
Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:
I submit herewith, for your consideration, the joint resolutions of the
corporate authorities of the city of Washington adopted September 27,
1862, and a memorial of the same under date of October 28, 1862, both
relating to and urging the construction of certain railroads concentrating
upon the city of Washington.
In presenting this memorial and the joint resolutions to you I am not
prepared to say more than that the subject is one of great practical im-
portance and that I hope it will receive the attention of Congress.
ABRAHAM I^INCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 151
Washington, /<2;2z^«r>/ 23, i86j.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit, for the consideration of Congress, a report from the Secre-
tary of State, transmitting the regulations, decrees, and orders for the
government of the United States consular courts in Turkey.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, January 26 ^ 186 j.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 13th instant,
requesting a copy of certain correspondence respecting the capture of
British vessels sailing from one British port to another having on board
contraband of war intended for the use of the insurgents, I have the honor
to transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the documents by
which it was accompanied. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington City, January 28, 186 j.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
In conformity to the law of July 16, 1862, I most cordially recommend
that Commander David D. Porter, United States Navy, acting rear-
admiral, commanding the Mississippi Squadron, receive a vote of thanks
of Congress for the bravery and skill displayed in the attack on the post
of Arkansas, which surrendered to the combined military and naval forces
pu the loth instant. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, February 4., i86j.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 5th December last, requesting information upon the present condition
of Mexico, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers
by which it was accompanied. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C, February 4., 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
In pursuance of the joint resolution of Congress approved 3d February,
1863, tendering its thanks to Commander John ly. Worden, United States
Navy, I nominate that officer to be a captain in the Navy on the active
list from the 3d February, 1863.
It may be proper to state that the number of captains authorized by the
second section of the act of i6th July, 1862, is now full, but presuming
that the meaning of the ninth section of the same act is that the officer
recei\'ing the vote of thanks shall immediately be advanced one grade
I have made the nomination. ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
152 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, February 5, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I submit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification, a
' ' convention between the United States of America and the Repubhc of
Peru for the settlement of the pending claims of the citizens of either
countr}^ against the other," signed at lyima on the 12th January ultimo,
with the following amendment:
Article i, strike out the words "the claims of the American citizens
Dr. Charles Easton, Edmund Sartori, and the owners of the whale ship
William Lee against the Government of Peru, and the Peruvian citizen
Stephen Montano against the Government of the United States," and
insert : all claims of citizens of the United States against the Government
of Peru and of citizens of Peru against the Government of the United States
which have not been embraced in conventional or diplomatic agreement
between the two Governments or their plenipotentiaries^ and statements of
which soliciting the interposition of either Governm^ent may previously to
the e:f change of the ratifications of this convention have been filed in the
Department of State at Washington or the department for foreign affairs at
Lima^ etc.
This amendment is considered desirable, as there are believed to be
other claims proper for the consideration of the commission which are
not among those specified in the original article, and because it is at least
questionable whether either Government would be justified in incurring
the expense of a commission for the sole purpose of disposing of the
claims mentioned in that article. ABRAHAM WNCOLN.
Washington, February 5, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
I submit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification, a
* ' convention between the United States of America and the Republic of
Peru, providing for the reference to the King of Belgium of the claims
arising out of the capture and confiscation of the ships Lizzie Thompson
and Georgiana,'' signed at I^ima on the 20th December, 1862.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington, February 6, 186 j.
To the Seriate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the United States
of yesterday, requesting information in regard to the death of General
Ward, a citizen of the United States in the military service of the Chinese
Government, I transmit a copy of a dispatch of the 27th of October last,
and of its accompaniment, from the minister of the United States in China.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
Abraham Lincoln 153
Washington, February <5, iS6j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report* from the Secretary of State, with accom-
panying documents, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 30th
^^^^^^- ABRAHAM I.INCOLN.
Washington, February 10, 186 j.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of yCvSterday, requesting
information touching the visit of Mr. Mercier to Richmond in April last,
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution
was referred. ABRAHAM I^INCOLN.
Washington, D. C, February 12, i86j.
To the Senate of the United States:
On the 4th of September, 1862, Commander George Henry Preble,
United States Navy, then senior officer in command of the naval force
off the harbor of Mobile, was guilty of inexcusable neglect in permitting
the armed steamer Oreto in open daylight to run the blockade. For his
omission to perform his whole duty on that occasion and the injury
thereby inflicted on the service and the country, his name was stricken
from the list of naval officers and he was dismissed the service.
Since his dismissal earnest application has been made for his restora-
tion to his former position by Senators and naval officers, on. the ground
that his fault was an error of judgment, and that the example in his case
has already had its effect in preventing a repetition of similar neglect.
I therefore, on this application and representation, and in consideration
of his previous fair record, do hereby nominate George Henry Preble to
be a commander in the Navy from the i6th July, 1862, to take rank on
the active list next after Commander Edward Donaldson, and to fill a
vacancy occasioned by the death of Commander J. M. Wainwright.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, D. C, February 12, i86j.
To the Senate of the United States:
On the 24th August, 1861, Commander Roger Perry, United States
Navy, was dismissed from the service under a misapprehension in regard
to his loyalty to the Government, from the circumstance that several
oaths were transmitted to him and the Navy Department failed to receive
any recognition of them. After his dismissal, and upon his assurance
that the oath failed to reach him and his readiness to execute it, he was
* Relating to the building of ships of war for the Japanese Government.
154 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
recommissioned to his original position on the 4th September following.
On the same day, 4th September, he was ordered to command the sloop
of war Va7idalia; on the 2 2d this order was revoked and he was ordered
to duty in the Mississippi Squadron, and on the 23d January, 1862, was
detached sick, and has since remained unemployed. The advisory board
under the act of i6th July, 1862, did not recommend him for further
promotion.
This last commission, having been issued during the recess of the Sen-
ate, expired at the end of the succeeding session, 17th July, 1862, from
which date, not having been nominated to the Senate, he ceased to be a
commander in the Navy.
To correct the omission to nominate this officer to the Senate at its last
session, I now nominate Commander Roger Perry to be a commander in
the Navy from the 14th September, 1855, to take his relative position
on the list of commanders not recommended for further promotion.
ABRAHAM IvINCOIyN.
Washington, February 12, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the loth instant, request-
ing information on the subjects of mediation, arbitration, or other meas-
ures looking to the termination of the existing civil war, I transmit a
report from the Secretary of State and the documents by which it was
accompanied. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, February 13, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 12th
instant, the accompanying report* from the Secretary of State.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, February 13, 1863.
Hon. GAI.USHA A. Grow,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Sir: I herewith communicate to the House of Representatives, in
answer to their resolution of the i8th of December last, a report from
the Secretary of the Interior, containing all the information in the pos-
session of the Department respecting the causes of the recent outbreaks
of the Indian tribes in the Northwest which has not heretofore been
transmitted to Congress. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
* Relating to the use of negroes by the French army in Mexico.
Abraham Lincoln 155
Bxkcutive; Office, February 77, 186 j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate thereon,
a treaty made and concluded on the 3d day of February, 1863, between
W. W. Ross, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the chiefs
and headmen of the Pottawatomie Nation of Indians of Kansas, which, it
appears from the accompanying letter from the Secretary of the Interior
of the 17th instant, is intended to be amendatory of the treaty concluded
with said Indians on the 15th November, 1862.
ABRAHAM I.INCOLN.
Washington, February 18, i86j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to its ratification,
an additional article to the treaty between the United States and Great
Britain of the 7th of April, 1862, for the suppression of the African slave
trade, w^hich was concluded and signed at Washington on the 17th instant
by the Secretary of State and Her Britannic Majesty's minister accredited
to this Government. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, D. C, February 19, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
Congress on my recommendation passed a resolution, approved 7th
February, 1863, tendering its thanks to Commodore Charles Henry Davis
for ' ' distinguished service in conflict with the enemy at Fort Pillow, at
Memphis, and for successful operations at other points in the waters of
the Mississippi River."
I therefore, in conformity with the seventh section of the act approved
1 6th July, 1862, nominate Commodore Charles Henry Davis to be a rear-
admiral in the Navy on the active list from the 7th February, 1863.
Captain John A. Dahlgren having in said resolution of the 7th Feb-
ruary in like manner received the thanks of Congress ' ' for distinguished
service in the line of his profession, improvements in ordnance, and
zealous and efficient labors in the ordnance branch of the service," I
therefore, in conformity with the seventh section of the act of i6th July,
1862, nominate Captain John A. Dahlgren to be a rear-admiral in the
Navy on the active list from the 7th February, 1863.
The ninth section of the act of July, 1862, authorizes * * any line officer of
the Navy or Marine Corps to be advanced one grade if upon recommenda-
tion of the President by name he receives the thanks of Congress for highly
distinguished conduct in conflict with the enemy or for extraordinary her-
oism in the line of his profession," and Captain Stephen C. Rowan and
Commander David D. Porter having each on my recommendation received
156 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the thanks of Congress for distinguished service, by resolution 01 the 7th
February, 1863, 1 do therefore nominate Captain Stephen C. Rowan to be
a commodore in the Navy on the active hst from the 7th February, 1863,
Commander David D. Porter to be a captain in the Navy on the active
Hst from the 7th February, 1863.
If this nomination should be confirmed, there will be vacancies in the
several grades to which these officers are nominated for promotion.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
War Department,
Washington City, February ^5, i86j.
The President of the United States Senate.
Sir: In answer to the Senate resolution of the 21st instant, I have the
honor to inclose herewith a letter of the 24th instant from the Secretary
of War, by which it appears that there are 438 assistant quartermasters,
387 commissaries of subsistence, and 343 additional paymasters now in
the volunteer service, including those before the Senate for confirmation.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, D. C, February 2^, i86j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I nominate Passed Midshipmen Samuel Pearce and Nathaniel T. West,
now on the retired list, to be ensigns in the Navy on the retired list.
These nominations are made in conformity with the fourth section of
the act to amend an act entitled "An act to promote the efficiency of the
Navy," approved i6th January, 1857, ^^^ ^^e induced by the following
considerations:
The pay of a passed midshipman on the retired list as fixed by the
''Act for the better organization of the military establishment," ap-
proved 3d August, 1 86 1, amounted, including rations, to $788 per annum.
By the "Act to establish and equalize the grade of line officers of the
United States Navy," approved i6th July, 1862, the grade or rank of
passed midshipman, which was the next below that of master, was dis-
continued and that of ensign was established, being now the next grade
below that of master and the only grade in the line list between those of
master and midshipman. The same act fixes the pay of officers on the
retired list, omitting the grade of passed midshipman, and prohibits the
allowance of rations to retired officers. The effect of this was to reduce
the pay of a passed midshipman on the retired list from $788 to $350 per
annum, or less than half of previous rate.
This was no doubt an unintended result of the law, operating exclu-
sively on the two passed midshipmen then on the retired list, and their
Abraham Lincoln 157
promotion or transfer to the equivalent grade of ensign would not com-
pletely indemnify tliem, the pay of an ensign on the retired list being
only $500 per annum. It is the only relief, however, which is deemed
within the intention of the existing laws, and it is the more willingly
recommended in this case, as there is nothing in the character of the offi-
cers to be relieved which would make it objectionable. These are the
only cases of the kind. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, February 28, i86j.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 26th instant,
requesting a copy of any correspondence which may have taken place
between me and workingmen in England, I transmit the papers men-
tioned in the subjoined list. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, February 28, i86j.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit, for the consideration of Congress, a dispatch to the Secre-
tary of State from the United States consul at Liverpool, and the address
to which it refers, of the distressed operatives of Blackburn, in England,
to the New York relief committee and to the inhabitants of the United
states generally. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, March 2, 186 j.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a preamble and joint resolution of the
legislative assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, accepting the bene-
fits of the act of Congress approved the 2d of July last, entitled "An act
donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may
provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts. ' '
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
PROCLAMATION.
By the President of the United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas on the 22d day of September, A. D. 1862, a proclamation was
issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other
things, the following, to wit:
That on the ist day of January, A. D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any
State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion
158 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
against the United States .shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the
executive government of the United States, including the military and naval author-
ity thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no
^ct 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 ist day of January aforesaid, by proclamation,
dcvsignate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respec-
tively, 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 States 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 nec-
essary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this ist day
of January, A. D. 1863, 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 p'i"ts
of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebel-
lion against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard,
Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension,
Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary^ St. Martin, and Or-
leans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Flor-
ida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the
forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of
Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, 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 persons.
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
condition will be received into the armed service of the United States
to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places and to man vessels
of all sorts in said service.
p
0
•r-
(V
I
Abraham Lincoln 159
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 witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P -| Done at the city of Washington, this ist day of January,
A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
By the President:
WiLiviAM H. Sbward, Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
ExKcuTivK Mansion,
^ ^j . r ,1 r> , Washing' ton, December 22, 1862.
To the Army of the Potomac: *
I have just read your commanding general's preliminary report of the
battle of Fredericksburg. Although you were not successful, the attempt
was not an error nor the failure other than an accident. The courage with
which you in an open field maintained the contest against an intrenched
foe and the consummate skill and success with which you crossed and
recrossed the river in face of the enemy show that you possess all the
qualities of a great army, which will yet give victory to the cause of the
country and of popular government. Condoling with the mourners for
the dead and sympathizing with the severely wounded, I congratulate you
that the number of both is comparatively so small.
I tender to you, officers and soldiers, the thanks of the nation.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN. ,
Executive Mansion,
Hon. GiDBON Welles, Washington, January ^, 1863.
Secretary of the Navy.
Dear Sir: As many persons who come well recommended for loyalty
and service to the Union cause, and who are refugees from rebel oppres-
sion in the State of Virginia, make application to me for authority and
permission to remove their families and property to protection within the
Union lines by means of our armed gunboats on the Potomac River and
Chesapeake Bay, you are hereby requested to hear and consider all such
applications and to grant such assistance to this class of persons as in
your judgment their merits may render proper and as may in each case
be consistent with the perfect and complete efficiency of the naval service
and with military expeuiency. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
i6o Messages and Papers of the Presidents
BxKCUTivEJ Mansion, January 8, i86j.
Ordered by the President:
Whereas on the 13th day of November, 1862, it was ordered that the
Attorney-General be charged with the superintendence and direction of
all proceedings to be had under the act of Congress of the 17th of July,
entitled "An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion,
and to seize and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes, ' '
in so far as may concern the seizure, prosecution, and condemnation of
the estate, property, and effects of rebels and traitors, as mentioned and
provided for in the fifth, sixth, and seventh sections of the said act of
Congress; and
Whereas since that time it has been ascertained that divers prosecutions
have been instituted in the courts ^of the United States for the condemna-
tion of property of rebels and traitors under the act of Congress of August
6, 1 86 1, entitled "An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary
purposes, ' ' which equally require the superintending care of the Govern-
ment: Therefore
It is now further ordered by the President, That the Attorney- General be
charged with superintendence and direction of all proceedings to be had
under the said last- mentioned act (the act of 186 1) as fully in all respects
as under the first -mentioned act (the act of 1862).
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
• Kdw. Batb^s,
Attorney -General.
Whereas by the twelfth section of an act of Congress entitled "An act
to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Mis-
souri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use|
of the same for postal, military, and other purposes," approved July i,
1862, it is made the duty of the President of the United States to deter-
mine the uniform width of the track of the entire line of the said railroad
and the branches of the same; and
Whereas application has been made to me by the I^eavenworth, Pawnee
and Western Railroad Company, a company authorized by the act of
Congress above mentioned to construct a branch of said railroad, to fix
the gauge thereof:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of
America, do determine that the uniform width of the track of said rail-
road and all its branches which are provided for in the aforesaid act of.
Congress shall be 5 feet, and that this order be filed in the office of the
Secretary of the Interior for the information and guidance of all concerned.
Done at the city of Washington, this 21st day of January, A. D. 1863.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln i6i
PROCLAMATION.
By THE) Preside^nt of thb United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas objects of interest to the United States require that the
Senate should be convened at 12 o'clock on the 4th of March next to
receive and act upon such communications as may be made to it on the
part of the Executive:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
have considered it to be my duty to issue this my proclamation, declar-
ing that an extraordinary occasion requires the Senate of the United
States to convene for the transaction of business at the Capitol, in the
city of Washington, on the 4th day of March next, at 12 o'clock at noon
on that day, of which all who shall at that time be entitled to act as
members of that body are hereby required to take notice.
Given under my hand and the. seal of the United States, at Washing-
r -1 ton, the 28th day of February, A. D. 1863, and of the Inde-
pendence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
By the President:
Wii^iyiAM H. Seward, •
Secretary of State,
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, March 5, 1863,
To the Senate of the United States:
For the reasons stated by the Secretary of War, I present the nomi-
nation of the persons named in the accompanying communication for
confirmation of the rank which they held at the time they fell in the
service of their country. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
War Department,
Washington y March 5, 1863.
The President oe the United States.
Sir: The following-named persons having fallen in battle after having received
appointments to the grades for which they are herein nominated, I have the honor to
propose that their names be submitted to the Senate for confirmation of their rank,
as a token of this Government's approbation of their distinguished merit. This has
been the practice of the Department in similar cases, brevet nominations and con-
firmations having been made after the decease of gallant officers.
M P — VOL VI — II
i62 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
To be tnajor-generals.
Brigadier-General Philip Kearny, of the United States Volunteers, July 14, 1862.
(Killed in the battle of Chantilly.)
Brigadier-General Israel B. Richardson, of the United States Volunteers, July 4,
1862. (Died of wounds received at the battle of Antietam. )
Brigadier-General Jesse L. Reno, of the United States Volunteers, July 18, 1862.
(Killed in the battle of South Mountain. )
To be brigadier-general.
Captain William R. Terrill, of the Fifth United States Artillery, September 9, 1862.
(Killed in the battle of Perryville. )
I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Washington, March 5, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
For the reasons stated by the Secretary of War, I present the nomi-
nation of the persons named in the accompanying communication for
confirmation of the rank of major-general, in which capacity they were
acting at the time they fell in battle.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
War Dkpartmknt,
Washington, March 5, iSdj.
The Presiden'T oe The United States.
Sir: The following-named persons having fallen in battle while performing the
duty and exercising command ks major-generals, a rank which they had earned in
the service of their country, I have the honor to propose that their names be sub-
mitted to the Senate for confirmation, as a token of the Government's appreciation of
their distinguished merit. This is in accordance with the practice in similar cases,
brevet nominations and confirmations having been made after the decease of gallant
officers.
To be major-generals of volunteers.
Brigadier-General Joseph K. F. Mansfield, of the United States Army, July i8,
1862. (Died of wounds received in the battle of Antietam, Md. )
Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens, of the United States Volimteers, July i8, 1862.
(Killed in the battle of Chantilly, Va.)
I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
ExBCuTivK Mansion, March 12^ 1863,
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith transmit to the Senate, for its consideration and ratification,
a treaty with the chiefs and headmen of the Chippewas of the Mississippi
and the Pillagers and L<ake Winnibigoshish bands of Chippewa Indians.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 163
PROCLAMATIONS.
[Prom Final Report of the Provost-Marshal-General (March 17, t866), p. 218.]
By the; Pre;sidknt of thk United States.
A PROCLAMATION.
Executive Mansion, March lo, 1863.
In pursuance of the twenty-sixth section of the act of Congress enti-
tled '*An act for enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for
other purposes," approved on the 3d day of March, 1863, I, Abraham
Lincoln, President and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States, do hereby order and command that all soldiers
enlisted or drafted in the service of the United States now absent from
their regiments without leave shall forthwith return to their respective
regiments.
And I do hereby declare and proclaim that all soldiers now absent
from their respective regiments without leave who shall, on or before
the ist day of April, 1863, report themselves at any rendezvous desig-
nated by the general orders of the War Department No. 58, hereto
annexed, may be restored to their respective regiments without punish-
ment, except the forfeiture of pay and allowances during their absence;
and all who do not return within the time above specified shall be ar-
rested as deserters and punished as the law provides; and
Whereas evil-disposed and disloyal persons at sundry places have
enticed and procured soldiers to desert and absent themselves from their
regiments, thereby weakening the strength of the armies and prolonging
the war, giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and cruelly exposing the
gallant and faithful soldiers remaining in the ranks to increased hard-
ships and danger:
I do therefore call upon all patriotic and faithful citizens to oppose and
resist the aforementioned dangerous and treasonable crimes, and to aid
in restoring to their regiments all soldiers absent without leave, and to
assist in the execution of the act of Congress ' * for em oiling and calling
out the national forces, and for other purposes, ' ' and to support the proper
authorities in the prosecution and punishment of offenders against said
act and in suppressing the insurrection and rebellion.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand.
Done at the city of Washington, this loth day of March, A. D. 1863,
and of the Independence of the United States the eighty -seventh.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.
164 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Ge^nkraIv Orders, No. 58.
War Department,
Adjutant-Generai^'s Office,
Washington, March jo, 1863.
I. The following is the twenty-sixth section of the act ' ' for enrolling and calling
out the national forces, and for other purposes," approved March 3, 1863:
"Sec. 26. And be it further enacted, That immediately after the passage of this
act the President shall issue his proclamation declaring that all soldiers now absent
from their regiments without leave may return, within a time specified, to such place
or places as he may indicate in his proclamation, and be restored to their respec-
tive regiments without punishment, except the forfeiture of their pay and allowances
during their absence; and all deserters who shall not return within the time so speci-
fied by the President shall, upon being arrested, be punished as the law provides."
II. The following places* are designated as rendezvous to which soldiers absent
without leave may report themselves to the officers named on or before the ist day
of April next under the proclamation of the President of this date.
III. Commanding officers at the above-named places of rendezvous, or, in the absence
of commanding officers, superintendents of recruiting service, recruiting officers, and
mustering and disbursing officers, will take charge of all soldiers presenting them-
selves as above directed and cause their names to be enrolled, and copy of said roll
will, on or before the loth day of April, be sent to the Adjutant-General of the Army.
The soldiers so reporting themselves will be sent without delay to their several
regiments, a list of those sent being furnished to the commanding officer of the regi-
ment and a duplicate to the Adjutant-General of the Army. The commanding officer
of the regiment will immediately report to the Adjutant-General of the Army the
receipt of any soldiers so sent to him.
By order of the Secretary of War: ^ THOMAS
Adjutant-General.
By the; Prksidknt of the; Unitkd States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the
supreme authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs
of men and of nations, has by a resolution requested the President to
designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation; and
Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their
dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and
transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine
repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime
truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that
those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;
And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like indi-
viduals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world,
may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now
desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our
* Omitted.
Abraham Lincoln 165
presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a
whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of
Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosper-
ity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation
has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the
gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched
and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness
of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior
wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we
have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and
preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power,
to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring
in the views of the Senate, I do by this my proclamation designate and
set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national
humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the people
to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite
at their several places of public worship and their respective homes in
keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge
of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.
All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in
the hope authorized by the divine teachings that the united cry of the
nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than
the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided
and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.
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 30th day of March,
A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WiiviyiAM H. Skward, Secretary of State,
By thk Prksidknt o^ thk United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas, in pursuance of the act of Congress approved July 13, 1861,
I did, by proclamation dated August 16, 1861, declare that the inhabit-
ants of the States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Flor-
ida (except the inhabitants of that part of Virginia lying west of the
Alleghany Mountains and of such other parts of that State and the other
States hereinbefore named as might maintain a legal adhesion to the
1 66 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
I
Union and the Constitution or might be from time to time occupied and
controlled by forces of the United States engaged in the dispersion of
said insurgents) were in a state of insurrection against the United States,
and that all commercial intercourse between the same and the inhabit-
ants thereof, with the exceptions aforesaid, and the citizens of other
States and other parts of the United States was unlawful and would re-
main unlawful until such insurrection should cease or be suppressed, and
that all goods and chattels, wares and merchandise, coming from any of
said States, with the exceptions aforesaid, into other parts of the United
States without the license and permission of the President, through the
Secretary of the Treasury, or proceeding to any of said States, with the
exceptions aforesaid, by land or water, together with the vessel or vehicle
conveying the same to or from said States, with the exceptions aforesaid,
would be forfeited to the United States; and
Whereas experience has shown that the exceptions made in and by
said proclamation embarrass the due enforcement of said act of July 13,
1 86 1, and the proper regulation of the commercial intercourse authorized
by said act with the loyal citizens of said States:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham lyincoln. President of the United States,
do hereby revoke the said exceptions, and declare that the inhabitants
of the States of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee,
Alabama, lyouisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, and Virginia
(except the forty-eight counties of Virginia designated as West Vir-
ginia, and except also the ports of New Orleans, Key West, Port Royal,
and Beaufort, in North Carolina) are in a state of insurrection against
the United States, and that all commercial intercourse not licensed and
conducted as provided in said act between the said States and the inhab-
itants thereof, with the exceptions 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 and
notice thereof has been duly given by proclamation; and all cotton,
tobacco, and other products, and all other goods and chattels, wares and
merchandise, coming from any of said States, with the exceptions afore-
said, into other parts of the United States, or proceeding to any of said
States, with the exceptions aforesaid, without the license and permission
of the President, through the Secretary of the Treasury, will, together
with the vessel or vehicle conveying the same, be forfeited to the United
States.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set n\y hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 2d day of April, A. D.
1863, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM WNCOI.N.
By the President:
Wiivi^iAM H. Srward, Secretary of State.
Abraham Lincoln 167
Abraham LiNCoiyN, Prbsidknt of thk United States of America.
To all to whom these preseiits shall come, greeting:
Know ye that, whereas a paper bearing date the 31st day of December
last, purporting to be an agreement between the United States and one
Bernard Kock for immigration of persons of African extraction to a de-
pendency of the RepubHc of Hayti, was signed by me on behalf of the
party of the first part; but whereas the said instrument was and has since
remained incomplete in consequence of the seal of the United States not
having been thereunto affixed; and whereas I have been moved by con-
siderations by me deemed sufficient to withhold my authority for affixing
the said seal:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham I^incoln, President of the
United States, do hereby authorize the Secretary of State to cancel my
signature to the instrument aforesaid.
Done at Washington, this i6th day of April, A. D. 1863.
[seal.] ABRAHAM I<INCOI.N.
By the President:
WiiviviAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State,
By the President of the United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas by the act of Congress approved the 31st day of December
last the State of West Virginia was declared to be one of the United
States of America, and was admitted into the Union on an equal footing
with the original States in all respects whatever, upon the condition that
certain changes should be duly made in the proposed constitution for
that State; and
Whereas proof of a compliance with that condition, as required by the
second section of the act aforesaid has been submitted to me:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States, do hereby, in pursuance of the act of Congress afore-
said, declare and proclaim that the said act shall take effect and be in
force from and after sixty days from the date hereof.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of April, A. D.
1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
seventh.
f
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
1 68 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
By thk Prksidknt of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the Congress of the United States at its last session enacted
a law entitled "An act for enrolling and calling out the national forces
and for other purposes, ' ' which was approved on the 3d day of March
last; and
Whereas it is recited in the said act that there now exists in the United
States an insurrection and rebellion against the authority thereof , and it is,
under the Constitution of the United States, the duty of the Government
to suppress insurrection and rebellion, to guarantee to each State a repub-
lican form of government, and to preserve the public tranquillity; and
Whereas for these high purposes a military force is indispensable, to
raise and support which all persons ought willingly to contribute; and
Whereas no service can be more praiseworthy and honorable than that
which is rendered for the maintenance of the Constitution and Union and
the consequent preservation of free government; and
Whereas, for the reasons thus recited, it was enacted by the said statute
that all able-bodied male citizens of the United States and persons of
foreign .birth who shall have declared on oath their intention to become
citizens under and in pursuance of the laws thereof, between the ages of
20 and 45 years (with certain exceptions not necessary to be here men-
tioned), are declared to constitute the national forces, and shall be liable
to perform military duty in the service of the United States when called
out by the President for that purpose; and
Whereas it is claimed by and in behalf of persons of foreign birth
within the ages specified in said act who have heretofore declared on oath
their intentions to become citizens under and in pursuance of the laws of
the United States, and who have not exercised the right of suffrage or any
other political franchise under the laws of the United States or of any of
the States thereof, that they are not absolutely concluded by their afore-
said declaration of intention from renouncing their purpose to become
citizens, and that, on the contrary, such persons, under treaties or the law
of nations, retain a right to renounce that purpose and to forego the priv-
ileges of citizenship and residence within the United States under the
obligations imposed by the aforesaid act of Congress:
Now, therefore, to avoid all misapprehensions concerning the liability
of persons concerned to perform the service required by such enactment,
and to give it full effect, I do hereby order and proclaim that no plea of
alienage will be received or allowed to exempt from the obligations
imposed by the aforesaid act of Congress any person of foreign birth
who shall have declared on oath his intention to become a citizen of the
United States under the laws thereof, and who shall be found within
the United States at any time during the continuance of the present
insurrection and rebellion or after the expiration of the period of sixty-
Abraham Lincoln 169
five days from the date of this proclamation, nor shall any such plea of
alienage be allowed in favor of any such person who has so as aforesaid
declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States and shall
have exercised at any time the right of suffrage or any other political
franchise within the United States under the laws thereof or under the
laws of any of the several States.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P -J Done at the city of Washington, this 8th day of May, A. D.
1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^^^' ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
By the President:
WiiviyiAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidi^nt of thk Unitkd Statks of Ami^rica.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the armed insurrectionary combinations now existing in sev-
eral of the States are threatening to make inroads into the States of Mary-
land, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, requiring immediately an
additional military force for the service of the United States:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham lyincoln. President of the United States
and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof and of the militia
of the several States when called into actual service, do hereby call into
the service of the United States 100.000 militia from the States following,
namely: From the State of Maryland, 10,000; from the State of Penn-
sylvania, 50,000; from the State of Ohio, 30,000; from the State of West
Virginia, 10,000 — to be mustered into the service of the United States
forthwith and to serve for the period of six months from the date of such
muster into said service, unless sooner discharged; to be mustered in as
infantry, artillery, and cavalry, in proportions which will be made known
through the War Department, which Department will also designate the
several places of rendezvous. These militia to be organized according
to the rules and regulations of the volunteer service and such orders as
may hereafter be issued. The States aforesaid will be respectively cred-
ited under the enrollment act for the militia services rendered under this
proclamation.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
fsEAL 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of June, A. D.
1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
seventh.
%
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
By the President:
WiiyLiAM H. Seaward, Secretary of State,
170 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
By thk Prksidknt of the; UNiT:eD States of America.
* A PROCLAMATION.
It has pleased Almighty God to hearken to the supplications and
prayers of an afflicted people and to vouchsafe to the Army and the
Navy of the United States victories on land and on the sea so signal and
so effective as to furnish reasonable grounds for augmented confidence
that the Union of these States will be maintained, their Constitution pre-
served, and their peace and prosperity permanently restored. But these
victories have been accorded not without sacrifices of life, limb, health,
and liberty, incurred by brave, loyal, and patriotic citizens. Domestic
affliction in every part of the country follows in the train of these fear-
ful bereavements. It is meet and right to recognize and confess the
presence of the Almighty Father and the power of His hand equally in
these triumphs and in these sorrows:
Now, therefore, be it known that I do set apart Thursday, the 6th day
of August next, to be observed as a day for national thanksgiving, praise,
and prayer, and I invite the people of the United States to assemble on
that occasion in their customary places of worship and in the forms ap-
proved by their own consciences render the homage due to the Divine
Majesty for the wonderful things He has done in the nation's behalf and
invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has
produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion, to change
the hearts of the insurgents, to guide the counsels of the Government with
wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency, and to visit with tender
care and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land all
those who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles, and
sieges, have been brought to suffer in mind, body, or estate, and finally to
lead the whole nation through the paths of repentance and submission to
the divine will back to the perfect enjoyment of union and fraternal peace.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of July, A. D.
1863, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-eighth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
Wii^iyiAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas the Constitution of the United States has ordained that the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when,
in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it; and
Whereas a rebellion was existing on the 3d day of March, 1863, which
rebellion is still existing; and
I
Abraham Lmcoln 171
Whereas by a statute which was approved on that day it was enacted
by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in
Congress assembled that during the present insurrection the President
of the United States, whenever in his judgment the public safety may
require, is authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas cor-
pus in any case throughout the United States or any part thereof; and
Whereas, in the judgment of the President, the public safety does
require that the privilege of the said writ shall now be suspended through-
out the United States in the cases where, by the authority of the President
of the United States, military, naval, and civil officers of the United States,
or any of them, hold persons under their command or in their custody,
either as prisoners of war, spies, or aiders or abettors of the enemy, or offi-
cers, soldiers, or seamen enrolled or drafted or mustered or enlisted in or
belonging to the land or naval forces of the United States, or as deserters
therefrom, or otherwise amenable to military law or the rules and articles
of war or the rules or regulations prescribed for the military or naval
services by authority of the President of the United States, or for resisting
a draft, or for any other offense against the military or naval service:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham lyincoln, President of the United States,
do hereby proclaim and make known to all whom it may concern that
the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended throughout the
United States in the several cases before mentioned, and that this sus-
pension will continue throughout the duration of the said rebellion or
until this proclamation shall, by a subsequent one to be issued by the
President of the United States, be modified or revoked. And I do hereby
require all magistrates, attorneys, and other civil officers within the
United States and all officers and others in the military and naval services
of the United States to take distinct notice of this suspension and to give
it full effect, and all citizens of the United States to conduct and govern
themselves accordingly and in conformity with the Constitution of the
United States and the laws of Congress in such case made and provided.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed this 15th day of September,
[SKAi,.] A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the eighty-eighth.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Wii,i,iAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidknt of thk United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas in my proclamation of the 27th of April, 1861, the ports of
the States of Virginia and North Carolina were, for reasons therein set
forth, placed under blockade; and
Whereas the port of Alexandria, Va., has since been blockaded, but
172 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
as the blockade of said port may now be safely relaxed with advantage
to the interests of commerce:
, Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham I^incoln, President of
the United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth
section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July, 1 861, entitled
"An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports and
for other purposes, " do hereby declare that the blockade of the said port
of Alexandria shall so far cease and determine from and after this date
that commercial intercourse with said port, except as to persons, things,
and information contraband of war, may from this date be carried on,
subject to the laws of the United States and to the limitations and in
pursuance of the regulations which are prescribed by the Secretary of
the Treasury in his order which is appended to my proclamation of the
1 2th of May, 1862.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 24th day of September,
A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-eighth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WiiyiviAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By thk President op the United States of America.
A proclamation.
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the bless-
ings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are
so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which
they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature
that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is
habitually insensible to the ever- watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which
has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their
aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been
maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has
prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while
that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and
navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peace-
ful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the
shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements,
and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have
yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily
increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp,
the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the conscious-
I
Abraham Lincoln 173
ness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance
of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked
out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High
God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless
remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, rev-
erently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice,
by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens
in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and
those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the
last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise
to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recom-
mend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him
for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble
penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to
His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners,
or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably
engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand
to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be con-
sistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, har-
mony, tranquillity, and union.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be afiixed.
P -, Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A. D.
1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^^- ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidknt of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas the term of service of a part of the volunteer forces of the
United States will expire during the coming year; and
Whereas, in addition to the men raised by the present draft, it is deemed
expedient to call out 300,000 volunteers to serve for three years or the
war, not, however, exceeding three years:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States and
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof and of the militia
of the several States when called into actual service, do issue this my
proclamation, calling upon the governors of the different States to raise
and have enlisted into the United States service for the various com-
panies and regiments in the field from their respective States their
quotas of* 300, 000 men.
174 Messages a^td Papers of the Presidents
I further proclaim that all volunteers thus called out and duly enlisted
shall receive advance pay, premium, and bounty, as heretofore communi-
cated to the governors of States by the War Department through the
Provost- Marshal- General's Office by special letters.
I further proclaim that all volunteers received under this call, as well
as all others not heretofore credited, shall be duly credited on and de-
ducted from the quotas established for the next draft.
I further proclaim that if any State shall fail to raise the quota assigned
to it by the War Department under this call, then a draft for the defi-
ciency in said quota shall be made on said State, or on the districts of
said State, for their due proportion of said quota; and the said draft shall
commence on the 5th day of January, 1864.
And I further proclaim that nothing in this proclamation shall inter-
fere with existing orders, or those which may be issued, for the present
draft in the States where it is now in progress or where it has not yet
commenced.
The quotas of the States and districts will be assigned by the War
Department, through the Provost- Marshal- General's Office, due regard
being had for the men heretofore furnished, whether by volunteering or
drafting, and the recruiting will be conducted in accordance with such
instructions as have been or may be issued by that Department.
In issuing this proclamation I address myself not only to the govern-
ors of the several States, but also to the good and loyal people thereof,
invoking them to lend their willing, cheerful, and effective aid to the
measures thus adopted, with a view to reenforce our victorious armies
now in the field and bring our needful military operations to a prosperous
end, thus closing forever the fountains of sedition and civil war.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 17th day of October,
A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the
« , eighty-eighth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WiiviyiAM H. S:^WARD, Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, March jz, 1863.
Whereas by the act of Congress approved July 13, 1861, entitled ''An
act to provide for the collection of duties on imports, and for other pur-
poses," all commercial intercourse between the inhabitants of such States
as should by proclamation be declared in insurrection against -the United
Abraham Lincoln 175
States and the citizens of the rest of the United States was prohibited so
long as such condition of hostihty should continue, except as the same
shall be licensed and permitted by the President to be conducted and
carried on only in pursuance of rules and regulations prescribed by the
Secretary of the Treasury; and
Whereas it appears that a partial restoration of such intercourse between
the inhabitants of sundry places and sections heretofore declared in insur-
rection in pursuance of said act and the citizens of the rest of the United
States will favorably affect the public interests:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham lyincoln, President of the United States,
exercising the authority and discretion confided to me by the said act of
Congress, do hereby license and permit such commercial intercourse
between the citizens of loyal States and the inhabitants of such insur-
rectionary States in the cases and under the restrictions described and
expressed in the regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury
bearing even date with these presents, or in such other regulations as he
may hereafter, with my approval, prescribe.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ExKcuTnm Mansion,
Washington^ June 22^ 186 j.
Whereas the act of Congress approved the 3d day of March, A. D. 1863,
entitled '*An act to provide circuit courts for the districts of California
and Oregon, and for other purposes, ' ' authorized the appointment of one
additional associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,
and provided that the districts of California and Oregon should consti-
tute the tenth circuit and that the other circuits should remain as then
constituted by law; and
Whereas Stephen J. Field was appointed the said additional associate
justice of the Supreme Court since the last adjournment of said court,
and consequently he was not allotted to the said circuit according to the
fifth section of the act of Congress entitled "An act to amend the judicial
system of the United States," approved the 29th day of April, 1802:
Now I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, under the
authority of said section, do allot the said associate justice, Stephen J.
Field, to the said tenth circuit.
I
^ Thr
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Attest:
TITIAN J. COFFEY,
Attorney -General ad interim.
War Department,
Washington, July ^, 186 j — 10 a. m.
The President announces to the country that news from the Army of
e Potomac up to 10 o'clock p. m. of the 3d is such as to cover that
176 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
army with the highest honor, to promise a great success to the cause of
the Union, and to claim the condolence of all for the many gallant fallen;
and that for this he especially desires that on this day He whose will, not
ours, should ever be done be everywhere remembered and ever rever-
enced with profoundest gratitude. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Gknkrai. Orders, No. 211.
War Department,
Adjutant- Generai^'s Office,
Washington, July p, iS6j.
Order Aboi<ishing Mii^itary Governorship of Arkansas.
Ordered, That the appointment of John S. Phelps as military governor
of the State of Arkansas and of Amos F. Bno as secretary be revoked,
and the oihce of military governor in said State is abolished, and that all
authority, appointments, and power heretofore granted to and exercised
by them, or either of them, as military governor or secretary, or by any
person or persons appointed by or acting under them, is hereby revoked
and annulled.
By order of the President: ' E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, July ^5, 1863.
Hon. Secretary of The Navy.
Sir: Certain matters have come to my notice, and considered by me,
which induce me to believe that it will conduce to the public interest for
you to add to the general instructions given to our naval commanders in
relation to contraband trade propositions substantially as follows, to wit:
First. You will avoid the reality, and as far as possible the appearance,
of using any neutral port to watch neutral vessels, and then to dart out
and seize them on their departure.
Note. — Complaint is made that this has been practiced at the port of
St. Thomas, which practice, if it exists, is disapproved and must cease.
Second. You will not in any case detain the crew of a captured neutral
vessel or any other subject of a neutral power on board such vessel, as
prisoners of war or otherwise, except the small number necessary as wit-
nesses in the prize court.
Note. — The practice here forbidden is also charged to exist, which, if
true, is disapproved and must cease.
My dear sir, it is not intended to be insinuated that you have been
remiss in the performance of the arduous and responsible duties of your
Department, which, I take pleasure in affirming, has in your hands been
Abraham Lincoln 177
conducted with admirable success. Yet, while your subordinates are
almost of necessity brought into angry collision with the subjects of for-
eign states, the representatives of those states and yourself do not come
into immediate contact for the purpose of keeping the peace, in spite of
such collisions. At that point there is an ultimate and heavy responsi-
bility upon me.
What I propose is in strict accordance with international law, and is
therefore unobjectionable; whilst, if it does no other good, it will con-
tribute to sustain a considerable portion of the present British ministry
in their places, who, if displaced, are sure to be replaced by others more
unfavorable to us.
Your obedient servant, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BxKcuTivK Mansion,
Washington, July jo, 186 j.
It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of
whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly
organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the
usages and customs of war, as carried on by civilized powers, permit no
distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public ene-
mies. To sell or enslave any captured person on account of his color,
and for no offense against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism
and a crime against the civilization of the age.
The Government of the United States will give the same protection to
all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of
his color the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's
prisoners in our possession.
It is therefore ordered, That for every soldier of the United States killed
in violation of the laws of war a rebel soldier shall be executed, and for
every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery a rebel soldier shall
be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor
until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a pris-
""^■^ °f ^^- ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BxKCuTivij Mansion,
Washington City, August 2^, 1863.
Ordered, first. That clearances issued by the Treasury Department
for vessels or merchandise bound for the port of New Orleans for the
military necessities of the department, certified by Brigadier- General
Shepley, the military governor of I^ouisiana, shall be allowed to enter
said port.
Second. That vessels and domestic produce from New Orleans per-
mitted by the military governor of I^ouisiana at New Orleans for the
M P— vol, VI — 12
178 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
military purpose of his department shall on his permit be allowed to
pass from said port to its destination to any port not blockaded by the
United States. ^ LINCOLN.
War Department,
Washington City, August jz, 186^.
Ordered, That the Executive order of November 21, 1862, prohibiting
the exportation of arms, ammunition, or munitions of war from the
United States, be, and the same hereby is, modified so far as to permit
the exportation of imported arms, ammunition, and munitions of war
to the ports whence they were shipped for the United States.
By order of the President: [EDWIN M. STANTON.]
Executive Mansion,
Washington, September ^, 1863,
Ordered, That the Executive order dated November 21, 1862, prohib-
iting the exportation from the United States of arms, ammunition, or
munitions of war, under which the commandants of departments were,
by order of the Secretary of War dated May 13, 1863, directed to pro-
hibit the purchase and sale for exportation from the United States of all
horses and mules within their respective commands, and to take and
appropriate to the use of the United States any horses, mules, and live
stock designed for exportation, be so far modified that any arms hereto-
fore imported into the United States may be reexported to the place of
original shipment, and that any live stock raised in any State or Territory
bounded by the Pacific Ocean may be exported from any port of such
State or Territory. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
War Department,
Washington City, September 2^, 186 j.
Ordered by the President of the United States, That Major-General
Hooker be, and he is hereby, authorized to take military possession of all
railroads, with their cars, locomotives, plants, and equipments, that may
be necessary for the execution of the military operation committed to
his charge; and all officers, agents, and employees of said roads are
directed to render their aid and assistance therein and to respect and
obey his commands, pursuant to the act of Congress in such case made
and provided. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, November 10, i86j.
In consideration of the peculiar circumstances and pursuant to the
comity deemed to be due to friendly powers, any tobacco in the United
Abraham Lincoln 179
States belonging to the government either of France, Austria, or any
other state with which this country is at peace, and which tobacco was
purchased and paid for by such government prior to the 4th day of
March, 1861, may be exported from any port of the United States under
the supervision and upon the responsibiHty of naval officers of such gov-
ernments and in conformity to such regulations as may be presented by
the Secretary of State of the United States, and not otherwise.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.
DkckmbkR 8, 1863.
Fellow- Citisejis of the Senate and House of Representatives:
Another year of health and of sufficiently abundant harvests has passed.
For these, and especially for the improved condition of our national affairs,
our renewed and profoundest gratitude to God is due.
We remain in peace and friendship with foreign powers.
The efforts of disloyal citizens of the United States to involve us in
foreign wars to aid an inexcusable insurrection have been unavailing.
Her Britannic Majesty's Government, as was justly expected, have exer-
cised their authority to prevent the departure of new hostile expeditions
from British ports. The Emperor of France has by a like proceeding
promptly vindicated the neutrality which he proclaimed at the beginning
of the contest. Questions of great intricacy and importance have arisen
out of the blockade and other belligerent operations between the Govern-
ment and several of the maritime powers, but they have been discussed
and, as far as was possible, accommodated in a spirit of frankness, justice,
and mutual good will. It is especially gratifying that our prize courts,
by the impartiality of their adjudications, have commanded the respect
and confidence of maritime powers.
The supplemental treaty between the United States and Great Britain
for the suppression of the African slave trade, made on the 17th day of
February last, has been duly ratified and carried into execution. It is
lieved that so far as American ports and American citizens are con-
ed that inhuman and odious traffic has been brought to an end.
I shall submit for the consideration of the Senate a convention for the
djustment of possessory claims in Washington Territory arising out of
the treaty of the 15th June, 1846, between the United States and Great
Britain, and which have been the source of some disquiet among the citi-
zens of that now rapidly improving part of the country.
A novel and important question, involving the extent of the maritime
jurisdiction of Spain in the waters which surround the island of Cuba,
i8o Messages and Papers of the Presidents
has been debated without reaching an agreement, and it is proposed in
an amicable spirit to refer it to the arbitrament of a friendly power. A
convention for that purpose will be submitted to the Senate.
I have thought it proper, subject to the approval of the Senate, to
concur with the interested commercial powers in an arrangement for the
liquidation of the Scheldt dues, upon the principles which have been here-
tofore adopted in regard to the imposts upon navigation in the waters of
Denmark.
The long-pending controversy between this Government and that of
Chile touching the seizure at Sitana, in Peru, by Chilean officers, of a
large amount in treasure belonging to citizens of the United States has
been brought to a close by the award of His Majesty the King of the
Belgians, to whose arbitration the question was referred by the parties.
The subject was thoroughly and patiently examined by that justlj^ re-
spected magistrate, and although the sum awarded to the claimants may
not have been as large as they expected there is no reason to distrust
the wisdom of His Majesty's decision. That decision was promptly com-
plied with by Chile when intelligence in regard to it reached that country.
The joint commission under the act of the last session for carrying
into effect the convention with Peru on the subject of claims has been
organized at Lima, and is engaged in the business intrusted to it.
Difficulties concerning interoceanic transit through Nicaragua are in
course of amicable adjustment.
In conformity with principles set forth in my last annual message, I
have received a representative from the United States of Colombia, and
have accredited a minister to that Republic.
Incidents occurring in the progress of our civil war have forced upon
my attention the uncertain state of international questions touching the
rights of foreigners in this country and of United States citizens abroad.
In regard to some governments these rights are at least partiall}^ defined
by treaties. In no instance, however, is it expressly stipulated that in
the event of civil war a foreigner residing in this country within the lines
of the insurgents is to be exempted from the rule which classes him as
a belligerent, in whose behalf the Government of his countr>^ can not
expect any privileges or immunities distinct from that character. I
regret to say, however, that such claims have been put forward, and in
some instances in behalf of foreigners who have lived in the United States
the greater part of their lives.
There is reason to believe that many persons born in foreign countries
who have declared their intention to become citizens, or who have been
fully naturalized, have evaded the military duty required of them by deny-
ing the fact and thereby throwing upon the Government the burden of
proof. It has been found difficult or impracticable to obtain this proof,
from the want of guides to the proper sources of information. These
might be supplied by requiring clerks of courts where declarations of
Abraham Lincoln i8i
intention maj^ be made or naturalizations effected to send periodically lists
of the names of the persons naturalized or declaring their intention to
become citizens to the Secretary of the Interior, in whose Department those
names might be arranged and printed for general information.
There is also reason to believe that foreigners frequently become citizens
of the United States for the sole purpose of evading duties imposed by the
laws of their native countries, to which on becoming naturalized here
they at once repair, and though never returning to the United States they
still claim the interposition of this Government as citizens. Many alter-
cations and great prejudices have heretofore arisen out of this abuse.
It is therefore submitted to your serious consideration. It might be
advisable to fix a limit beyond which no citizen of the United States resid-
ing abroad may claim the interposition of his Government.
The right of suffrage has often been assumed and exercised by aliens
under pretenses of naturalization, which they have disavowed when drafted
into the military service. I submit the expediency of such an amend-
ment of the law as will make the fact of voting an estoppel against any
plea of exemption from military service or other civil obligation on the
ground of alienage.
In common with other Western powers, our relations with Japan have
been brought into serious jeopardy through the perverse opposition of the
hereditary aristocracy of the Empire to the enlightened and liberal policy
of the Tycoon, designed to bring the country into the society of nations.
It is hoped, although not with entire confidence, that these difficulties
may be peacefully overcome. I ask your attention to the claim of the
minister residing there for the damages he sustained in the desrtruction
by fire of the residence of the legation at Yedo.
Satisfactory arrangements have been made with the Emperor of Russia,
which, it is believed, will result in effecting a continuous line of telegraph
through that Empire from our Pacific coast.
I recommend to your favorable consideration the subject of an inter-
national telegraph across the Atlantic Ocean, and also of a telegraph
between this capital and the national forts along the Atlantic seaboard
and the Gulf of Mexico. Such communications, established with any
reasonable outlay, would be economical as well as effective aids to the
diplomatic, military, and naval service.
The consular system of the United States, under the enactments of the
last Congress, begins to be self-sustaining, and there is reason to hope
that it may become entirely so with the increase of trade which will
ensue whenever peace is restored. Our ministers abroad have been
faithful in defending American rights. In protecting commercial inter-
ests our consuls have necessarily had to encounter increased labors and
responsibilities growing out of the war. These they have for the most
part met and discharged with zeal and efficiency. This acknowledgment
justly includes those consuls who, residing in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey,
1 82 Messages and Papers of the Presidefits
Japan, China, and other Oriental countries, are charged with complex
functions and extraordinary powers.
, The condition of the several organized Territories is generally satis-
factory, although Indian disturbances in New Mexico have not been
entirely suppressed. The mineral resources of Colorado, Nevada, Idaho,
New Mexico, and Arizona are proving far richer than has been hereto-
fore understood. I lay before you a communication on this subject from
the governor of New Mexico. I again submit to your consideration the
expediency of establishing a system for the encouragement of immigra-
tion. Although this source of national wealth and strength is again
flowing with greater freedom than for several years before the insurrec-
tion occurred, there is still a great deficiency of laborers in every field of
industry, especially in agriculture and in our mines, as well of iron and
coal as of the precious metals. While the demand for labor is much
increased here, tens of thousands of persons, destitute of remunerative
occupation, are thronging our foreign consulates and offering to emi-
grate to the United States if essential, but very cheap, assistance can be
afforded them. It is easy to see that under the sharp discipline of civil
war the nation is beginning a new life. This noble effort demands the
aid and ought to receive the attention and support of the Government.
Injuries unforeseen by the Government and unintended may in some
cases have been inflicted on the subjects or citizens of foreign countries,
both at sea and on land, by persons in the service of the United States.
As this Government expects redress from other powers when similar
injuries are inflicted by persons in their service upon citizens of the
United States, we must be prepared to do justice to foreigners. If the
existing judicial tribunals are inadequate to this purpose, a special court
may be authorized, with power to hear and decide such claims of the
character referred to as may have arisen under treaties and the public
law. Conventions for adjusting the claims by joint commission have
been proposed to some governments, but no definitive answer to the
proposition has yet been received from any.
In the course of the session I shall probably have occasion to request
you to provide indemnification to claimants where decrees of restitution
have been rendered and damages awarded by admiralty courts, and in
other cases where this Government may be acknowledged to be liable
in principle and where the amount of that liability has been ascertained
by an informal arbitration.
The proper officers of the Treasury have deemed themselves required
by the law of the United States upon the subject to demand a tax upon
the incomes of foreign consuls in this country. While such a demand
may not in strictness be in derogation of public law, or perhaps of any
existing treaty between the United States and a foreign country, the
expediency of so far modifying the act as to exempt from tax the income
of such consuls as are not citizens of the United States, derived from the
Abraham Lincoln 183
emoluments of their office or from property not situated in the United
States, is submitted to your serious consideration. I make this sugges-
tion upon the ground that a comity which ought to be reciprocated ex-
empts our consuls in all other countries from taxation to the extent thus
indicated. The United States, I think, ought not to be exceptionally
ilhberal to international trade and commerce.
The operations of the Treasury during the last year have been success-
fully conducted. The enactment by Congress of a national banking law
has proved a valuable support of the public credit, and the general leg-
islation in relation to loans has fully answered the expectations of its
favorers. Some amendments may be required to perfect existing laws,
but no change in their principles or general scope is believed to be needed.
Since these measures have been in operation all demands on the Treas-
ury, including the pay of the Army and Navy, have been promptly met
and fully satisfied. No considerable body of troops, it is believed, were
ever more amply provided and more liberally and punctually paid, and it
may be added that by no people were the burdens incident to a great war
ever more cheerfully borne.
The receipts during the year from all sources, including loans and bal-
ance in the Treasury at its commencement, were $901 ,125,674.86, and the
aggregate disbursements $895,796,630.65, leaving a balance on the ist of
July, 1863, of $5,329,044.21. Of the receipts there were derived from
customs $69,059, 642. 40, from internal revenue $37,640,787.95, from direct
tax $1,485,103.61, from lands $167,617.17, from miscellaneous sources
$3,046,615.35, and from loans $776,682,361.57, making the aggregate
$901,125,674.86. Of the disbursements there were for the civil service
$23,253,922.08, for pensions and Indians $4,216,520.79, for interest on
public debt $24,729,846.51, for the War Department $599,298,600.83, for
the Navy Department $63,211,105.27, for payment of funded and tempo-
rary debt $181,086,635.07, making the aggregate $895,796,630.65 and
leaving the balance of $5,329,044.21. But the payment of funded and
temporary debt, having been made from moneys borrowed during the
year, must be regarded as merely nominal payments and the moneys
borrowed to make them as merely nominal receipts, and their amount,
$181,086,635.07, should therefore be deducted both from receipts and
disbursements. This being done there remains as actual receipts
$720,039,039.79 and the actual disbursements $714,709,995.58, leaving
the balance as already stated.
The actual receipts and disbursements for the first quarter and the esti-
mated receipts and disbursements for the remaining three quarters of the
current fiscal year (1864) will be shown in detail by the report of the Sec-
retary of the Treasury, to which I invite your attention. It is sufficient
to say here that it is not believed that actual results will exhibit a state
of the finances less favorable to the country than the estimates of that
officer heretofore submitted, while it is confidently expected that at the
184 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
close of the year both disbursements and debt will be found very consid-
erably less than has been anticipated.
The report of the Secretary of War is a document of great interest. It
consists of —
1. The military operations of the year, detailed in the report of the Gen-
eral in Chief.
2. The organization of colored persons into the war service.
3. The exchange of prisoners, fully set forth in the letter of General
Hitchcock.
4. The operations under the act for enrolling and calling out the
national forces, detailed in the report of the Provost- Marshal- General.
5. The organization of the invalid corps, and
6. The operation of the several departments of the Quartermaster-
General, Commissary- General, Paymaster- General, Chief of Engineers,
Chief of Ordnance, and Surgeon- General.
It has appeared impossible to make a valuable summary of this report,
except such as would be too extended for this place, and hence I content
myself by asking your careful attention to the report itself.
The duties devolving on the naval branch of the service during the year
and throughout the whole of this unhappy contest have been discharged
with fidelity and eminent success. The extensive blockade has been con-
stantly increasing in efficiency as the Navy has expanded, yet on so long
a line it has so far been impossible to entirely suppress illicit trade.
From returns received at the Navy Department it appears that more than
1,000 vessels have been captured since the blockade was instituted, and
that the value of prizes already sent in for adjudication amounts to over
$13,000,000.
The naval force of the United States consists at this time of 588 vessels
completed and in the course of completion, and of these 75 are ironclad
or armored steamers. The events of the war give an increased interest
and importance to the Navy which will probably extend beyond the war
itself.
The armored vessels in our Navy completed and in service, or which
are under contract and approaching completion, are believed to exceed in
number those of any other power; but while these may be relied upon for
harbor defense and coast service, others of greater strength and capacity
will be necessary for cruising purposes and to maintain our rightful posi-
tion on the ocean.
The change that has taken place in naval vessels and naval warfare
since the introduction of steam as a motive power for ships of war de-
mands either a corresponding change in some of our existing navy-yards
or the establishment of new ones for the construction and necessary
repair of modem naval vessels. No inconsiderable embarrassment, delay,
and public injury have been experienced from the want of such govern-
mental establishments. The necessity of such a navy-yard, so furnished,
Abraham Lincoln 185
at some suitable place upon the Atlantic seaboard has on repeated occa-
sions been brought to the attention of Congress by the Navy Department,
and is again presented in the report of the Secretary which accompanies
this communication. I think it my duty to invite your special attention
to this subject, and also to that of establishing a yard and depot for naval
purposes upon one of the Western rivers. A naval force has been created
on those interior waters, and under many disadvantages, within little
more than two year's, exceeding in numbers the whole naval force of the
country at the commencement of the present Administration. Satisfac-
tory and important as have been the performances of the heroic men of
the Navy at this interesting period, they are scarcely more wonderful
than the success of our mechanics and artisans in the production of war
vessels, which has created a new form of naval power.
Our country has advantages superior to any other nation in our resources
of iron and timber, with inexhaustible quantities of fuel in the immediate
vicinity of both, and all available and in close proximity to navigable
waters. Without the advantage of public works, the resources of the
nation have been developed and its power displayed in the construction
of a Navy of such magnitude, which has at the very period of its creation
rendered signal service to the Union.
The increase of the number of seamen in the public service from 7,500
men in the spring of 186 1 to about 34,000 at the present time has been
accomplished without special legislation or extraordinary bounties to pro-
mote that increase. It has been found, however, that the operation of the
draft, with the high bounties paid for army recruits, is beginning to affect
injuriously the naval service, and will, if not corrected, be likely to impair
its efficiency by detaching seamen from their proper vocation and inducing
them to enter the Army. I therefore respectfully suggest that Congress
might aid both the army and naval services by a definite provision on this
subject which would at the same time be equitable to the communities
more especially interested.
I commend to your consideration the suggestions of the Secretary of the
Navy in regard to the policy of fostering and training seamen and also
the education of officers and engineers for the naval service. The Naval
Academy is rendering signal service in preparing midshipmen for the
highly responsible duties which in after life they will be required to per-
form. In order that the country should not be deprived of the proper
quota of educated officers, for which legal provision has been made at the
naval school, the vacancies caused by the neglect or omission to make
nominations from the States in insurrection have been filled by the Secre-
tary of the Navy. The school is now more full and complete than at any
former period, and in every respect entitled to the favorable consideration
of Congress.
During the past fiscal year the financial condition of the Post-Office
Department has been one of increasing prosperity, and I am gratified in
¥
1 86 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
being able to state that the actual postal revenue has nearly equaled the
entire expenditures, the latter amounting to $11,314,206.84 and the for-
ijier to $11, 163,789.59, leaving a deficiency of but $150,417.25. In i860,
the year immediately preceding the rebellion, the deficiency amounted to
$5,656,705.49, the postal receipts of that year being $2,645,722.19 less
than those of 1863. The decrease since i860 in the annual amount of
transportation has been only about 25 per cent, but the annual expendi-
ture on account of the same has been reduced 35 per cent. It is manifest,
therefore, that the Post-Office Department may become self-sustaining in
a few years, even with the restoration of the whole service.
The international conference of postal delegates from the principal
countries of Europe and America, which was called at the suggestion of
the Postmaster- General, met at Paris on the nth of May last and con-
cluded its deliberations on the 8th of June. The principles established
by the conference as best adapted to facilitate postal intercourse between
nations and as the basis of future postal conventions inaugurate a general
system of uniform international charges at reduced rates of postage, and
can not fail to produce beneficial results.
I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the Interior, which is
herewith laid before you, for useful and varied information in relation to
the public lands, Indian affairs, patents, pensions, and other matters of
public concern pertaining to his Department.
The quantity of land disposed of during the last and the first quarter
of the present fiscal years was 3,841,549 acres, of which 161,911 acres
were sold for cash, 1,456,514 acres were taken up under the homestead
law, and the residue disposed of under laws granting lands for military
bounties, for railroad and other purposes. It also appears that the sale
of the public lands is largely on the increase.
It has long been a cherished opinion of some of our wisest statesmen that
the people of the United States had a higher and more enduring interest
in the early settlement and substantial cultivation of the public lands
than in the amount of direct revenue to be derived from the sale of them.
This opinion has had a controlling influence in shaping legislation upon
the subject of our national domain. I may cite as evidence of this the
liberal measures adopted in reference to actual settlers; the grant to the
States of the overflowed lands within their limits, in order to their being
reclaimed and rendered fit for cultivation; the grants to railway companies
of alternate sections of land upon the contemplated lines of their roads,
which when completed will so largely multiply the facilities for reaching
our distant possessions. This policy has received its most signal and
beneficent illustration in the recent enactment granting homesteads to
actual settlers. Since the ist day of January last the before- mentioned
quantity of 1,456,514 acres of land have been taken up under its provi-
sions. This fact and the amount of sales furnish gratifying evidence of
increasing settlement upon the public lands, notwithstanding the great
Abraham Lincoln 1-87
struggle in which the energies of the nation have been engaged, and
which has required so large a withdrawal of our citizens from their accus-
tomed pursuits. I cordially concur in the recommendation of the Secre-
tary of the Interior suggesting a modification of the act in favor of those
engaged in the military and naval service of the United States. I doubt
not that Congress will cheerfully adopt such measures as will, without
essentially changing the general features of the system, secure to the
greatest practicable extent its benefits to those who have left their homes
in the defense of the country in this arduous crisis.
I invite your attention to the views of the Secretary as to the propriety
of raising by appropriate legislation a revenue from the mineral lands of
the United States.
The measures provided at your last session for the removal of certain
Indian tribes have been carried into effect. Sundry treaties have been
negotiated, which will in due time be submitted for the constitutional
h action of the Senate. They contain stipulations for extinguishing the
I possessory rights of the Indians to large and valuable tracts of lands. It
is hoped that the effect of these treaties will result in the establishment
of permanent friendly relations with such of these tribes as have been
brought into frequent and bloody collision with our outlying settlements
and emigrants. Sound policy and our imperative duty to these wards of
the Government demand our anxious and constant attention to their
material well-being, to their progress in the arts of civilization, and,
above all, to that moral training which under the blessing of Divine
Providence will confer upon them the elevated and sanctifying influ-
ences, the hopes and consolations, of the Christian faith.
I suggested in my last annual message the propriety of remodeling our
Indian system. Subsequent events have satisfied me of its necessity.
The details set forth in the report of the Secretary evince the urgent
need for immediate legislative action.
I commend the benevolent institutions established or patronized by the
Government in this District to your generous and fostering care.
The attention of Congress during the last session was engaged to some
extent with a proposition for enlarging the water communication between
the Mississippi River and the northeastern seaboard, which proposition,
however, failed for the time. Since then, upon a call of the greatest
respectability, a convention has been held at Chicago upon the same sub-
ject, a summary of whose views is contained in a memorial addressed
to the President and Congress, and which I now have the honor to lay
before you. That this interest is one which ere long will force its own
way I do not entertain a doubt, while it is submitted entirely to your
wisdom as to what can be done now. Augmented interest is given to
piis subject by the actual commencement of work upon the Pacific Rail-
, road, under auspices so favorable to rapid progress and completion. The
t88 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
I transmit the second annual report of the Commissioner of the De-
partment of Agricuhure, asking your attention to the developments in
that vital interest of the nation.
When Congress assembled a year ago, the war had already lasted nearly
twenty months, and there had been many conflicts on both land and sea;
with varying results; the rebellion had been pressed back into reduced
limits; yet the tone of public feeling aijd opinion, at home and abroad,
was not satisfactory. With other signs, the popular elections then just
past indicated uneasiness among ourselves, while, amid much that was
cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from Europe were uttered
in accents of pity that we were too blind to surrender a hopeless cause.
Our commerce was suffering greatly by a few armed vessels built upon
and furnished from foreign shores, and we were threatened with such
additions from the same quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea
and raise our blockade. We had failed to elicit from European Govern-
ments anything hopeful upon this subject. The preliminary emancipa-
tion proclamation, issued in September, was running its assigned period to
the beginning of the new year. A month later the final proclamation
came, including the announcement that colored men of suitable condition
would be received into the war service. The policy of emancipation and
of employing black soldiers gave to the future a new aspect, about which
hope and fear and doubt contended in uncertain conflict. According to
our political system, as a matter of civil administration, the General Gov-
ernment had no lawful power to effect emancipation in any State, and for
a long time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed with-
out resorting to it as a military measure. It was all the while deemed
possible that the necessity for it might come, and that if it should the
crisis of the contest would then be presented. It came, and, as was antici-
pated, it was followed by dark and doubtful days. Eleven months having
now passed, we are permitted to take another review. The rebel borders
are pressed still farther back, and by the complete opening of the Mis-
sissippi the country dominated by the rebellion is divided into distinct
parts, with no practical communication between them. Tennessee and
Arkansas have been substantially cleared of insurgent control, and influ-
ential citizens in each, owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the
beginning of the rebellion, now declare openly for emancipation in their
respective States. Of those States not included in the emancipation
proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of which three years ago
would tolerate any restraint upon the extension of slavery into new Ter-
ritories, only dispute now as to the best mode of removing it within their
own limits.
Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the rebellion* full 100,000
are now in the United States military service, about one-half of which
number actually bear arms in the ranks, thus giving the double advantage
of taking so much labor from the insurgent cause and supplying the places
Abraham Lincoln 189
which otherwise must be filled with so many white men. So far as tested,
it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as any. No servile in-
surrection or tendency to violence or cruelty has marked the measures
of emancipation and arming the blacks. These measures have been much
discussed in foreign countries, and, contemporary with such discussion,
the tone of public sentiment there is much improved. At home the same
measures have been fully discussed, supported, criticised, and denounced,
and the annual elections following are highly encouraging to those whose
official duty it is to bear the country through this great trial. Thus we
have the new reckoning. The crisis which threatened to divide the
friends of the Union is past.
Looking now to the present and future, and with reference to a resump-
tion of the national authority within the States wherein that authority
has been suspended, I have thought fit to issue a proclamation, a copy of
which is herewith transmitted.* On examination of this proclamation it
will appear, as is believed, that nothing will be attempted beyond what
is amply justified by the Constitution. True, the form of an oath is
given, but no man is coerced to take it. The man is only promised a
pardon in case he voluntarily takes the oath. The Constitution author-
izes the Executive to grant or withhold the pardon at his own absolute
discretion, and this includes the power to grant on terms, as is fully
established by judicial and other authorities.
It is also proffered that if in any of the States named a State govern-
ment shall be in the mode prescribed set up, such government shall be
recognized and guaranteed by the United States, and that under it the
State shall, on the constitutional conditions, be protected against invasion
and domestic violence. The constitutional obligation of the United States
to guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government
and to protect the State in the cases stated is explicit and full. But why
tender the benefits of this provision only to a State government set up
in this particular way? This section of the Constitution contemplates a
case wherein the element within a State favorable to republican govern-
ment in the Union may be too feeble for an opposite and hostile element
external to or even within the State, and such are precisely the cases with
which we are now dealing.
An attempt to guarantee and protect a revived State government,
constructed in whole or in preponderating part from the very element
against whose hostility and violence it is to be protected, is simply absurd.
There must be a test by which to separate the opposing elements, so as
to build only from the sound; and that test is a sufficiently liberal one
which accepts as sound whoever will make a sworn recantation of his
former unsoundness.
But if it be proper to require as a test of admission to the political body
an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and to the
*See proclamation dated December 8, 1863, pp. 213-215.
IQO Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Union under it, why also to the laws and proclamations in regard to
slavery? Those laws and proclamations were enacted and put forth for
the purpose of aiding in the suppression of the rebellion. To give them
their fullest effect there had to be a pledge for their maintenance. In
my judgment, they have aided and will further aid the cause for which
they were intended. To now abandon them would be not only to relin-
quish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and an astounding
breach of faith. I may add at this point that while I remain in my pres-
ent position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation
proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the
terms of that proclamation or by any of the acts of Congress. For these
and other reasons it is thought best that support of these measures shall
be included in the oath, and it is believed the Executive may lawfully
claim it in return for pardon and restoration of forfeited rights, which he
has clear constitutional power to withhold altogether or grant upon the
terms which he shall deem wisest for the public interest. It should be
observed also that this part of the oath is subject to the modifying and
abrogating power of legislation and supreme judicial decision.
The proposed acquiescence of the National Executive in any reasonable
temporary State arrangement for the freed people is made with the view
of possibly modifying the confusion and destitution which must at best
attend all classes by a total revolution of labor throughout whole States.
It is hoped that the already deeply afflicted people in those States may be
somewhat more ready to give up the cause of their affliction if to this
extent this vital matter be left to themselves, while no power of the
National Executive to prevent an abuse is abridged by the proposition.
The suggestion in the proclamation as to maintaining the political
framework of the States on what is called reconstruction is made in the
hope that it may do good without danger of harm. It will save labor and
avoid great confusion.
But why any proclamation now upon this subject? This question is
beset with the conflicting views that the step might be delayed too long
or be taken too soon. In some States the elements for resumption seem
ready for action, but remain inactive apparently for want of a rallying
point — a plan of action. Why shall A adopt the plan of B rather than B
that of A? And if A and B should agree, how can they know but that
the General Government here will reject their plan? By the proclama-
tion a plan is presented w^hich may be accepted by them as a rallying
point, and which they are assured in advance will not be rejected here.
This may bring them to act sooner than they otherwise would.
The objections to a premature presentation of a plan by the National
Executive consist in the danger of committals on points which could be
more safely left to further developments. Care has been taken to so
shape the document as to avoid embarrassments from this source. Say-
ing that on certain terms certain classes will be pardoned with rights
Abraham Lincoln 191
restored, it is not said that other classes or other terms will never be
included. Saying that reconstruction will be accepted if presented in a
specified way, it is not said it will never be accepted in any other way.
The movements by State action for emancipation in several of the
States not included in the emancipation proclamation are matters of pro-
found gratulation. And while I do not repeat in detail what I have here-
tofore so earnestly urged upon this subject, my general views and feelings
remain unchanged; and I trust that Congress will omit no fair opportunity
of aiding these important steps to a great consummation.
In the midst of other cares, however important, we must not lose sight
of the fact that the war power is still our main reliance. To that power
alone can we look yet for a time to give confidence to the people in the
contested regions that the insurgent power will not again overrun them.
Until that confidence shall be established little can be done anywhere for
what is called reconstruction. Hence our chief est care must still be
directed to the Army and Navy, who have thus far borne their harder
part so nobly and well; and it may be esteemed fortunate that in giving
the greatest efficiency to these indispensable arms we do also honorably
recognize the gallant men, from commander to sentinel, who compose
them, and to whom more than to others the world must stand indebted
for the home of freedom disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, and per-
petuated. ABRAHAM lylNCOLN.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, D. C, December 8, i86j.
To the Senate afid House of Representatives:
In conformity to the law of July 16, 1862, I most cordially recommend
that Captain John Rodgers, United States Navy, receive a vote of thanks
from Congress for the eminent skill and gallantry exhibited by him in
the engagement with the rebel armed ironclad steamer Fingal, alias
Atlanta, whilst in command of the United States ironclad steamer Wee-
hawken, which led to her capture on the 17th June, 1863, and also for the
zeal, bravery, and general good conduct shown by this ofiicer on many
occasions.
This recommendation is specially made in order to comply with the
requirements of the ninth section of the aforesaid act, which is in the fol-
lowing words, viz:
That any line ofl&cer of the Navy or Marine Corps maybe advanced one grade if
upon recommendation of the President by name he receives the thanks of Congress
for highly distinguished conduct in conflict with the enemy or tor extraordinary
heroism in the Hue of his profession.
%
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
192 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, D. C, December 8, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
Congress, on my recommendation, passed a resolution, approved 7th
February, 1863, tendering its thanks to Commander D. D. Porter "for
the bravery and skill displayed in the attack on the post of Arkansas on
the loth January, 1863," and in consideration of those services, together
with his efficient labors and vigilance subsequently displayed in thwart-
ing the efforts of the rebels to obstruct the Mississippi and its tributaries
and the important part rendered by the squadron under his command,
which led to the surrender of Vicksburg.
I do therefore, in conformity to the seventh section of the act approved
1 6th July, 1862, nominate Commander D. D. Porter to be a rear-admiral in
the Navy on the active Hst from the 4th July, 1863, to fill an existing
vacancy. ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, December to, i86j.
To the Senate and House of Represe^itatives:
I transmit herewith a report, dated the 9th instant, with the accom-
panying papers, received from the Secretary of State in compliance with
the requirements of the sixteenth and eighteenth sections of the act enti-
tled ' 'An act to regulate the diplomatic and consular systems of the United
States," approved August 18, 1856. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, December, 1863,
To the Senate of the United States:
I lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
concluded at Le Roy, Kans., on the 29th day of August, 1863, between
William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and William G. Coffin,
superintendent of Indian affairs of the southern superintendency, com-
missioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen
of the Great and I^ittle Osage tribe of Indians of the State of Kansas.
A communication from the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 12th
instant, accompanies the treaty. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
ExKcuTivB Mansion,
Washington, December, 186 j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
concluded on the 7th day of October, 1863, at Conejos, Colorado Terri-
tory, between John Evans, governor and ex officio superintendent of Indian
affairs of said Territory; Michael Steck, superintendent of Indian affairs
for the Territory of New Mexico; Simeon Whitely and I^afayette Head,
Abraham Lincoln
193
Indian agents, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the
chiefs and warriors of the Tabeguache band of Utah Indians.
I also transmit a report of the Secretary of the Interior of the 12th
instant, submitting the treaty; an extract from the last annual report of
Governor Evans, of Colorado Territory, relating to its negotiation, and a
map upon which is delineated the boundaries of the country ceded by the
Indians and that retained for their own use.
ABRAHAM XINCOI.N.
ExKCuTivE) Mansion,
Washington, December, i86j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
concluded at the city of Washington on the 6th day of April, 1863, be-
tween John P. Usher, commissioner on the part of the United States, and
the chiefs and headmen of the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache tribes of
Indians, duly authorized thereto.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 12th instant accom-
panies the treaty. ABRAHAM WNCOLN.
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, December, 186 j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
concluded at the Sac and Fox Agency, in Kansas, on the 2d day of Sep-
tember, 1863, between William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
commissioner on the part of the United States, and the New York Indians,
represented by duly authorized members of the bands of said tribe.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 1 2th instant accompanies
the treaty. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, December, 186 j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
concluded at the Sac and Fox Agency, in Kansas, on the 3d day of Sep-
tember, 1863, between William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
and William G. Coffin, superintendent of Indian affairs for the southern
superin tendency, on the part of the United States, and the Creek Nation
of Indians, represented by its chiefs.
A letter from the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 12th instant,
accompanies the treaty. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
M P— vol, VI— 13
194 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Executive Mansion,
Washington, December, i86j.
To the Sefiate of the United States:
I lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty-
concluded at the Sac and Fox Agency, in Kansas, on the 4th day of Sep-
tember, 1863, between William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
and Henry W. Martin, agent for the Sacs and Foxes, commissioners on the
part of the United States, and the united tribes of Sac and Fox Indians of
the Mississippi.
A letter from the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 12th instant,
accompanies the treaty. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December 75, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the nth of March last,
requesting certain information touching persons in the service of this
Government, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom
the resolution was referred. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December ly, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to its ratifica-
tion, a convention between the United States and Her Britannic Majesty
for the final adjustment of the claims of the Hudsons Bay and Pugets
Sound Agricultural Companies, signed in this city on the ist day of July
last (1863). ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
Dkckmbkr 17, 1863.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
Herewith I lay before you a letter addressed to myself by a committee
of gentlemen representing the freedmen's aid societies in Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. The subject of the letter, as indi-
cated above, is one of great magnitude and importance, and one which
these. gentlemen, of known ability and high character, seem to have con-
sidered with great attention and care. Not having the time to form a
mature judgment of my own as to whether the plan they suggest is the
best, I submit the whole subject to Congress, deeming that their atten-
tion thereto is almost imperatively demanded.
ABRAHAM I.INCOLN.
Washington, December 22, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification,
two conventions between the United States and His Belgian Majesty,
Abraham Lincoln 195
signed at Brussels on the 2otli May and the 20th of July last, respectively,
and both relating to the extinguishment of the Scheldt dues, etc. A copy
of so much of the corrCvSpondence between the Secretary of State and Mr.
Sanford, the minister resident of the United States at Brussels, on the
subject of the conventions as is necessary to a full understanding of it is
also herewith transmitted. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December 23, 1863.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of the report to the Secretary of State
of the commissioners on the part of the United States under the conven-
tion with Peru of the 12th of January last, on the subject of claims. It
will be noticed that two claims of Peruvian citizens on this Government
have been allowed. An appropriation for the discharge of the obligations
of the United States in these cases is requested.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
January 5, 1864.
Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:
By a joint resolution of your honorable bodies approved December 23,
1863, the paying of bounties to veteran volunteers, as now practiced by
the War Department, is, to the extent of $300 in each case, prohibited
after this 5th day of the present month. I transmit for your considera-
tion a communication from the Secretary of War, accompanied by one
from the Provost- Marshal- General to him, both relating to the subject
above mentioned. I earnestly recommend that the law be so modified
as to allow bounties to be paid as they now are, at least until the ensuing
ist day of February.
I am not without anxiety lest I appear to be importunate in thus
recalling your attention to a subject upon which you have so recently
acted, and nothing but a deep conviction that the public interest demands
it could induce me to incur the hazard of being misunderstood on this
point. The Executive approval was given by me to the resolution men-
tioned, and it is now by a closer attention and a fuller knowledge of facts
that I feel constrained to recommend a reconsideration of the subject.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, fanuary 7, 1864..
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of the decree of the court of the United
States for the southern district of New York, awarding the sum of
$17,150.66 for the illegal capture of the British schooner Glen, and
request that an appropriation of that amount may be made as an indem-
nification to the parties interested. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
196 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
\
KxKCuTivi) Mansion,
Washington^ January^ 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
the following-described treaties, viz:
A treaty made at Fort Bridger, Utah Territory, on the 2d day of July,
1863, between the United States and the chiefs, principal men, and war-
riors of the eastern bands of the Shoshonee Nation of Indians.
A treaty made at Box Elder, Utah Territory, on the 30th day of July,
1863, between the United States and the chiefs and warriors of the north-
western bands of the Shoshonee Nation of Indians.
A treaty made at Ruby Valley, Nevada Territory, on the ist day of
October, 1863, between the United States and the chiefs, principal men,
and warriors of the Shoshonee Nation of Indians.
A treaty made at Tuilla Valley, Utah Territory, on the 12th day of
October, 1863, between the United States and the chiefs, principal men,
and warriors of the Goship bands of Shoshonee Indians.
A treaty made at Soda Springs, in Idaho Territory, on the 14th day of
October, 1863, between the United States and the chiefs of the mixed
bands of Bannacks and Shoshonees, occupying the valley of the Shoshonee
River.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 5th instant, a copy of
a report of the 30th ultimo, from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a
copy of a communication from Governor Doty, superintendent of Indian
Affairs, Utah Territory, dated November 10, 1863, relating to the In-
dians parties to the several treaties herein named, and a map, furnished
by that gentleman, are herewith transmitted.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N,
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington^ fanuary, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty made at the Old Crossing of Red I^ake River, in the State of
Minnesota, on the 2d day of October, 1863, between Alexander Ramsey
and Ashley C. Morrill, commissioners on the part of the United States,
and the chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Red I^ake and Pembina
bands of Chippewa Indians.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 8th instant, together
with a communication from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the
5th instant and copies of Mr. Ramsey's report and journal, relating to
the treaty, and a map showing the territory ceded, are herewith trans-
mitted.
ABRAHAM I^INCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 197
Executive) Mansion, /<3;wz^<zry 12, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
In accordance with the request of the Senate conveyed in their resolu-
tion of the 1 6th of December, 1863, desiring any information in my pos-
session relative to the alleged exceptional treatment of Kansas troops
when captured by those in rebellion, I have the honor to transmit a com-
munication from the Secretary of War, accompanied by reports from the
General in Chief of the Army and the Commissary- General of Prisoners
relative to the subject-matter of the resolution.
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
January 20, 1864.
Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:
In accordance with a letter addressed by the Secretary of State, with
my approval, to the Hon. Joseph A. Wright, of Indiana, that patriotic
and distinguished gentleman repaired to Europe and attended the In-
ternational Agricultural Exhibition, held at Hamburg last year, and has
since his return made a report to me, which, it is believed, can not fail to
be of general interest, and especially so to the agricultural community.
I transmit for your consideration copies of the letters and report. While
it appears by the letter that no reimbursement of expenses or compensa-
tion was promised him, I submit whether reasonable allowance should
not be made him for them. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, y<2;2z^<2rj/ 21^ 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of yesterday, respect-
ing the recent destruction by fire of the Church of the Compania at San-
tiago, Chile, and the efforts of citizens of the United States to rescue the
victims of the conflagration, I transmit a report from the Secretary of
State, with the papers accompanying it.
ABRAHAM tlNCOI^N.
Washington, January 2^, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate a copy of a dispatch of the 12th of April last,
addressed by Anson Burlingame, esq. , the minister of the United States
to China, to the Secretary of State, relative to a modification of the twenty-
first article of a treaty between the United States and China of the i8th
of June, 1858, a printed copy of which is also herewith transmitted.
These papers are submitted to the consideration of the Senate with
a view to their advice and consent being given to the modification of
the said twenty-first article, as explained in the said dispatch and its
accompaniments. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
I
198 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, January 2p, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in answer
to the resolution of the Senate respecting the correspondence with the
authorities of Great Britain in relation to the proposed pursuit of hostile
bands of the Sioux Indians into the Hudson Bay territories.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
n^ fij ^ f . ' Washington, February 4, 1864.
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 26th ultimo,
requesting ' * a copy of all the correspondence between the authorities of
the United States and the rebel authorities on the exchange of prisoners,
and the different propositions connected with that subject," I transmit
herewith a report from the Secretary of War and the papers with which
it is accompanied. 4.BRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, February 5, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of yesterday on the subject
of a reciprocity treaty with the Sandwich Islands, I transmit a report
from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, February 16, 1864.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a report from the Secretary of State, with the
accompanying papers, relative to the claim on this Government of the
owners of the French ship La Manche, and recommend an appropriation
for the satisfaction of the claim, pursuant to the award of the arbitrators.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, February 16, 1864.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In answer t6 the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 8th
instant, requesting information touching the arrest of the United States
consul-general to the British North American Provinces, and certain offi-
cial communications respecting Canadian commerce, I transmit a report
from the Secretary of State and the documents by which it was accom-
P^^^^^- ABRAHAM I.INCOIvN.
Abraham Lincoln 199
Washington, February 22, 1864..
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress the copy of a correspondence which has recently-
taken place between Her Britannic Majesty's minister accredited to this
Government and the Secretary of State, in order that the expediency of
sanctioning the acceptance by the master of the American schooner High-
lander of a present of a watch which the lords of the committee of Her
Majesty's privy council for trade propose to present to him in recogni-
tion of services rendered by him to the crew of the British vessel Pearl
may be taken into consideration. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Executive; Mansion, February, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action
thereon, the articles of agreement and convention made and concluded
at the city of Washington on the 25th day of the present month by and
between William P. Dole, as commissioner on the part of the United
States, and the duly authorized delegates of the Swan Creek and Black
River Chippewas and the Munsees or Christian Indians in Kansas.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
Washington, February ^p, 1864..
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 26th
instant, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, relative
to the reenlistment of veteran volunteers.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, February -?p, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I nominate Ulysses S. Grant, now a major-general in the military serv-
ice, to be lieutenant-general in the Army of the United States.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Executive Mansion, March, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report * of the Secretary of the Interior of the
nth instant, containing the information requested in Senate resolution
of the 29th ultimo. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
* Relating to the amount of money received for the sale of the Wea trust lands in Kansas, etc.
200 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
BxECuTivK Mansion, March p, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the ist instant,
respecting the points of commencement of the Union Pacific Railroad,
on the one hundredth degree of west longitude, and of the branch road,
from the western boundary of Iowa to the said one hundredth degree of
longitude, I transmit the accompanying report from the Secretary of the
Interior, containing the information called for.
I deem it proper to add that on the 17 th day of November last an
Executive order was made upon this subject and delivered to the vice-
president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, which fixed the point
on the western boundary of the State of Iowa from which the company
should construct their branch road to the one hundredth degree of west
longitude, and declared it to be within the limits of the township in Iowa
opposite the town of Omaha, in Nebraska. Since then the company has
represented to me that upon actual surveys made it has determined upon
the precise point of departure of their said branch road from the Missouri
River, and located the same as described in the accompanying report of
the Secretary of the Interior, which point is within the limits designated
in the order of November last; and inasmuch as that order is not of
record in oxiy of the Executive Departments, and the company having
desired a more definite one, I have made the order of which a copy is
herewith, and caused the same to be filed in the Department of the
Interior. ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
ExKcuTivK Office, March 12, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
In obedience to the resolution of the Senate of the 28th of January
last, I communicate herewith a report, with accompanying papers, from
the Secretary of the Interior, showing what portion of the appropriations
for the colonization of persons of African descent has been expended and
the several steps which have been taken for the execution of the acts of
Congress on that subject. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, March 14, 1864..
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a treaty between the United States
and Great Britain for the final settlement of the claims of the Hudsons
Bay and Pugets Sound Agricultural Companies, concluded on the ist of
July last, the ratifications of which were exchanged in this city on the
5th instant, and recommend an appropriation to carry into effect the first,
second, and third articles thereof.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Abraham Lincoln 20i
Washington, March 14., 1864..
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
On the 25th day of November, 1862, a convention for the mutual ad-
justment of claims pending between the United States and Ecuador was
signed at Quito by the plenipotentiaries of the contracting parties. A
copy is herewith inclosed.
This convention, already ratified by this Government, has been sent to
Quito for the customary exchange of ratifications, which it is not doubted
will be promptly effected. As the stipulations of the instrument require
that the commissioners who are to be appointed pursuant to its provi-
sions shall meet at Guayaquil within ninety days after such exchange,
it is desirable that the legislation necessary to give effect to the conven-
tion on the part of the United States should anticipate the usual course
of proceeding.
I therefore invite the early attention of Congress to the subject.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
ExEjcuTivB Offick,
Washington^ March 22, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty made and concluded in Washington City on the i8th instant by
and between William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the
Shawnee Indians, represented by their duly authorized delegates.
A report of the Secretary of the Interior and a communication of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs accompany the treaty.
ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
Washington, March p/, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
In reply to the resolution of the Senate of the 15th instant, in relation
to the establishment of monarchical governments in Central and South
America, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the
subject was referred. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
To the Senate and House of Representatives: "' ^*
Mr. Charles B. Stuart, consulting engineer, appointed such by me
upon invitation of the governor of New York, according to a law of that
State, has made a report upon the proposed improvements to pass gun-
boats from tide water to the northern and northwestern lakes, which
report is herewith respectfully submitted for your consideration.
ABRAHAM I^INCOLN.
202 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
EXBCUTIVK Offick,
Washington^ April ^, i86^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded June 9, 1863, between C. H. Hale, superintendent
of Indian affairs, Charles Hutchins and S. D. Howe, Indian agents, on
the part of the United States, and the chiefs, headmen, and delegates
of the Nez Perce tribe of Indians in Washington Territory.
A report of the Secretary of the Interior of the ist instant, with a letter
from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 2d ultimo, proposing
amendments to the treaty, together with a report of Superintendent Hale
on the subject and a synopsis of the proceedings of the council held
with the Nez Perce Indians, are herewith transmitted for the considera-
tion of the Senate. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, April 7, 1864..
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, in answer to
the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 4th instant, in rela-
tion to Major N. H. McLean. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington City, April 75, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a supplemental treaty negotiated on the 12th of April, 1864, with the Red
Lake and Pembina bands of Chippewa Indians.
A report of the Secretary of the Interior of this date and a communi-
cation from the Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs accompany the
*^^^^^- ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, April 23, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, in answer to
the resolutions passed by the Senate in executive session on the 14th and
i?th of April, 1864. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
War Department,
Washington City, April 22, 1864.
The President of the United States.
Sir: In answer to the Senate resolutions of April 14 and April 18, I have the
honor to state that the nominations of Colonel Hiram Burnham, Colonel Edward M.
Abraham Lincoln
203
McCook, Colonel Lewis A. Grant, and Colonel Edward Hatch are not either of them
made to fill any vacancy in the proper sense of that term. They are not made to fill
a command vacated by any other general, but are independent nominations, and if
confirmed the officers will be assigned to such command as the General Command-
ing may deem proper. But in consequence of the resignations of Generals Miller,
Boyle, and Beatty and the death of General Champlin, their confirmations will be
within the number of brigadiers allowed by law.
Your obedient servant, ^jmm M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Washington, April pj, 1864..
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a note of the 19th instant from I^ord
Lyons to the Secretary of State, on the subject of two British naval offi-
cers who recently received medical treatment at the naval hospital at Nor-
folk. The expediency of authorizing Surgeon Solomon Sharp to accept
the piece of plate to which the note refers, as an acknowledgment of his
services, is submitted to your consideration.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
To the House of Representatives: ' ^ ^'
In obedience to the resolution of your honorable body a copy of which
is herewith returned, I have the honor to make the following brief state-
ment, which is believed to contain the information sought.
Prior to and at the meeting of the present Congress Robert C. Schenck,
of Ohio, and Frank P. Blair, jr. , of Missouri, members elect thereto, by
and with the consent of the Senate held commissions from the Executive
as major-generals in the Volunteer Army. General Schenck tendered
the resignation of his said commission and took his seat in the House of
Representatives at the assembling thereof upon the distinct verbal under-
standing with the Secretary of War and the Executive that he might at
any time during the session, at his own pleasure, withdraw said resigna-
tion and return to the field. General Blair was, by temporary assignment
of General Sherman, in command of a corps through the battles in front of
Chattanooga and in the march to the relief of Knoxville, which occurred
in the latter days of November and early days of December last, and of
course was not present at the assembling of Congress. When he subse-
quently arrived here, he sought and was allowed by the Secretary of War
and the Executive the same conditions and promise as allowed and made
to General Schenck. General Schenck has not applied to withdraw his
resignation, but when General Grant was made lieutenant-general, pro-
ducing some change of commanders. General Blair sought to be assigned
to the command of a corps. This was made known to Generals Grant
204 Messages and Papers of the Preside7its
and Sherman and assented to by them, and the particular corps for him
designated. This was all arranged and understood, as now remembered,
so much as a month ago, but the formal withdrawal of General Blair's
resignation and making the order assigning him to the command of a
corps were not consummated at the War Department until last week,
perhaps on the 23d of April instant. As a summary of the whole, it may
be stated that General Blair holds no military commission or appointment
other than as herein stated, and that it is believed he is now acting as a
major-general upon the assumed validity of the commission herein stated,
in connection with the facts herein stated, and not otherwise. There are
some letters, notes, telegrams, orders, entries, and perhaps other docu-
ments in connection with this subject, which it is believed would throw
no additional light upon it, but which will be cheerfully furnished if
^^^^^^^- ABRAHAM LINCOIvN.
April 28, 1864.
To the Honorable the Senate and House 'of Representatives:
I have the honor to transmit herewith an address to the President of
the United States, and through him to both Houses of Congress, on the
condition and wants of the people of east Tennessee, and asking their
attention to the necessity of some action on the part of the Government
for their relief, and which address is presented by a committee of an
organization called * ' The East Tennessee Relief Association. ' '
Deeply commiserating the condition of these most loyal and suffering
people, I am unprepared to make any specific recommendation for their
relief. The military is doing and will continue to do the best for them
within its power. Their address represents that the construction of direct
railroad communication between Knoxville and Cincinnati by way of cen-
tral Kentucky would be of great consequence in the present emergency.
It may be remembered that in the annual message of December, 1861,
such railroad construction was recommended. I now add that, with the
hearty concurrence of Congress, I would yet be pleased to construct a
road, both for the relief of these people and for its continuing military
importance. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, April 29, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 27th instant,
requesting information in regard to the condition of affairs in the Terri-
tory of Nevada, I transmit a copy of a letter of the 25th of last month
addressed to the Secretary of State by James W. Nye, the governor of
that Territory. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Abraham Lincoln 205
To the Honorable the House of Representatives: ^^^ ^' ^^^4-
In compliance with the request contained in your resolution of the 29th
ultimo, a copy of which resolution is herewith returned, I have the honor
to transmit the following:
BxKCUTivE Mansion,
Hon. MONTGOMERY B1.AIR. . Washington, November 2, 1863.
My Dear Sir: Some days ago I understood you to say that your brother, Gen-
eral Frank Blair, desired to be guided by my wishes as to whether he will occupy
his seat in Congress or remain in the field. My wish, then, is compounded of what
I believe will be best for the country and best for him, and it is that he will come
here, put his military commission in my hands, take his seat, go into caucus with our
friends, abide the nominations, help elect the nominees, and thus aid to organize a
House of Representatives which will really support the Government in the war. If
the result shall be the election of himself as Speaker, let him serve in that position; if
not, let him retake his commission and retiurn to the Army, For the country, this
will heal a dangerous schism. For him, it will relieve from a dangerous position.
By a misunderstanding, as I think, he is in danger of being permanently separated
from those with whom only he can ever have a real sympathy — the sincere oppo-
nents of slavery. It will be a mistake if he shall allow the provocations offered him
by insincere timeservers to drive him from the house of his own building. He is
young yet. He has abundant talents, quite enough to occupy all his time without
devoting any to temper. He is rising in military skill and usefulness. His recent
appointment to the command of a corps by one so competent to judge as General
Sherman proves this. In that line he can serve both the country and himself more
profitably than he could as a Member of Congress upon the floor. The foregoing is
what I would say if Frank Blair were my brother instead of yours.
Yours, truly, A. I.INCOI.N.
Headquarters Middi,e Department, Eighth Army Corps,
Hon. E. M. STANTON, Baltimore, Md., November 13, 1863.
Secretary of War.
Sir: Inclosed I forward to the President my resignation, to take effect on the 5th
of December.
I respectfully request, however, that I may be relieved from my command at an
earlier day, say by the 20th instant, or as soon thereafter as some ofl&cer can be
ordered to succeed me. While I desire to derange the plans or hurry the action of
the Department as little as possible, it will be a great convenience to me to secure
some little time before the session of Congress for a necessary journey and for some
preparations for myself and family in view of my approaching change of residence
and occupation. I could also spend two or three days very profitably, I think, to the
service of my successor after his arrival here.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBT. C. SCHENCK, Major-General,
Headquarters Middi^e Department, Eighth Army Corps,
Baltimore, Md., November 13, 1863.
The President of the United States.
Sir: Having concluded to accept the place of Member of Congress in the House of
Representatives, to which I was elected in October, 1862, I hereby tender the resigna-
tion of my commission as a major-general of United States Volunteers, to take effect
on the 5th day of December next.
2o6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
I shall leave the military service with much reluctance and a sacrifice of personal
feelings and desires, and only consent to do so in the hope that in another capacity
I may be able to do some effective service in the cause of my country and Govern-
ment in this time of peculiar trial.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBT. C. SCHENCK,
Major-General.
[Indorsement on the foregoing letter.]
The resignation of General Schenck is accepted, and he is authorized to turn over
his command to Brigadier-General lyockwood at any time.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Adjutant-GeneraIv's Office,
Washington, November 21, 186$.
Major-General Robert C. Schenck,
United States Volunteers, Commanding Middle Department, Baltimore, Md.
Sir: Your resignation has been accepted by the President of the United States, to
take effect the 5th day of December, 1863.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
^AS>^T^ctG^, January i, 1864.
The President of the United States,
Washington City, D. C:
I hereby tender my resignation as a major-general of the United States Volunteers.
Respectfully, FRANK P. BLAIR,
Major-General, United States Volunteers.
Accepted, by order of the President.
January 12, 1864.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Adjutant-Generai^'s Office,
Major-General Francis P. B1.AIR, Washington, January 12, 1864.
U. S. Volunteers.
(Care of Hon. M. Blair, Washington, D. C.)
Sir: Your resignation has been accepted by the President of the United States,
to take effect this day.
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
JAS. A. HARDIE,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
[Telegram.]
Executive Mansion,
Ueutenant-General Grant, Washington, D. C, March 15, 1864.
Nashville, Tenn.:
General McPherson having been assigned to the command of a department, could
not General Frank Blair, without difficulty or detriment to the service, be assigned
to command the corps he commanded a while last autumn ?
A. IvINCOIyN.
Abraham Lincoln
207
[Telegram.]
Nashvii,i,e;, Tknn. , March 16, 1864—10 a. m.
His Excellency the PrbsidknT:
General I^ogan commands the corps referred to in your dispatch. I will see Gen-
eral Shermr.n in a few days and consult him about the transfer, and answer.
U. S. GRANT,
L ieutenant- General.
[Telegram.]
His Excellency A. Lincoi^n, Nashvii.i,e, Tenn. , March 17, 1864.
President of the United States:
General Sherman is here. He consents to the transfer of General Logan to the Sev-
enteenth Corps and the appointment of General F. P. Blair to the Fifteenth Corps.
U. S. GRANT,
Lieutenant-General.
[Telegram.]
His Excellency A. L1NC01.N, HunTSVii.i,e, Ai.a., March 26, 1864.
President of the United States:
I understand by the papers that it is contemplated to make a change of command-
ers of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Army Corps, so as to transfer me to the Seven-
teenth. I hope this will not be done. I fully understand the organization of the
Fifteenth Corps now, of which I have labored to complete the organization this winter.
Earnestly hope that the change may not be made.
JOHN A. IvOGAN,
Major-General.
[Telegram.]
Office United States IMiwtary Tei^egraph,
War Department.
The following telegram received at Washington 9 a. m. IMarch 31, 1864, from CuU
peper Court-House, 11.30 p. m., dated IMarch 30, 1864:
" IMajor-General W. T, Sherman,
''Nashville:
"General F. P. Blair will be assigned to the Seventeenth (17th) Corps, and not the
Fifteenth ( 15th ) . Assign General Joseph Hooker, subject to the approval of the Pres-
ident, to any other corps command you may have, and break up the anomaly of one
general commanding two (2) corps. "US GRANT
^'Lieutenant-General^ Commanding. ' '
From a long dispatch of April 2, 1864, from General Sherman to Gen-
eral Grant, presenting his plan for disposing the forces under his command,
the following extracts, being the only parts pertinent to the subject now
under consideration, are taken:
After a full consultation with all my army commanders, I have settled down to the
following conclusions, to which I would like to have the President's consent before
I make the orders:
■Jt ^ -x- * * * *
Third. General IMcPherson. * * * His [three] corps to be commanded by
Major-Generals IvOgan, Blair, and Dodge. -5^ * *
2o8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Office United States Miwtary Tei^EGraph,
War Department.
The following telegram received at Washington 3 p. m. April 10, 1864, from Cul-
peper Court-House, Va., 10 p. m., dated April 9, 1864:
"Major-General H. W. Hai.i,eck,
''Chief of Staff:
"Will you please ascertain if General F. P. Blair is to be sent to General Sherman.
If not, an army-corps commander will have to be named for the Fifteenth Corps.
' * U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General. ' '
The President: Washington, April 20, 1864.
You will do me a great favor by giving the order assigning me to the command of
the Seventeenth Army Corps immediately, as I desire to leave Washington the next
Saturday to join the command. ' I also request the assignment of Captain Andrew J.
Alexander, of Third Regiment United States Cavalry, as adjutant-general of the Seven-
teenth Corps, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The present adjutant, or rather the
former adjutant, Colonel Clark, has, I understand, been retained by Genera! McPherson
as adjutant-general of the department, and the place of adjutant-general of the corps
is necessarily vacant.
I also request the appointment of George A. Maguire, formerly captain Thirty-first
Missouri Volunteer Infantry, as major and aid-de-camp, and Lieutenant Logan Tomp-
kins, Twenty-first Missouri Volunteer Infantry, as captaiif and aid-de-camp on my
staff.
Respectfully, FRANK P. BLAIR.
[Indorsements.]
Honorable SECRETARY OF War: Aprii, 21, 1864.
Please have General Halleck make the proper order in this case.
A. LINCOLN.
Referred to General Halleck, chief of staff.
EDWIN M. STKR'TO^.SecretaryoflVar.
ExEcuTivB Mansion,
Honorable SECRETARY OF War. Washington, April 23. 1864.
My Dear Sir: According to our understanding with Major-General Frank P. Blair
at the time he took his seat in Congress last winter, he now asks to withdraw his
resignation as major-general, then tendered, and be sent to the field. Let this be
done. Let the order sending him be such as shown me to-day by the Adjutant-Gen-
eral, only dropping from it the names of Maguire and Tompkins.
Yours, truly, A. LINCOLN.
[Indorsement.]
Aprii, 23, 1864.
Referred to the Adjutant-General.
EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
Hon. E. M. STANTON, Washington City, D. C, April 23, 1864.
Secretary of War:
I respectfully request to withdraw my resignation as major-general of the United
States Volunteers, tendered on the 12th "day of January, 1864.
Respectfully, FRANK P. BLAIR.
Abraham Lincoln 209
Gknijrai, Orders, No. 178.
War Department,
Adjutant-Generai^'s Office,
Washington, April 23, 1864.
I. Major-General F. P. Blair, jr. , is assigned to the command of the Seventeenth
Army Corps.
II. Captain Andrew J. Alexander, Third Regiment United States Cavalry, is as-
signed as assistant adjutant-general of the Seventeenth Army Corps, with the rank
of lieutenant-colonel, under the tenth section of the act approved July 17, 1862.
By order of the President of the United States:
B. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
The foregoing constitutes all sought by the resolution so far as is
remembered or has been found upon diligent search.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
To the Senate 0/ the United States: ' ' ^'
In compliance with the request contained in a resolution of the Senate
dated April 30, 1864, I herewith transmit to your honorable body a copy
of the opinion by the Attorney- General on the rights of colored persons
in the Army or volunteer service of the United States, together with the
accompanying papers. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, May 12, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 9th instant, requesting
a copy of correspondence relative to a controversy between the Republics
of Chile and Bolivia, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to
whom the resolution was referred. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
KxEjcuTivB Mansion,
Washington, May 14, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of the Interior of the 14th
instant, and accompanying papers, in answer to a resolution of the Senate
of the 14th ultimo, in the following words, viz:
Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to communicate to
the Senate the reasons, if any exist, why the refugee Indians in the State of Kansas
are not retun^ed to their homes. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
M P— vol, VI— 14
2IO Messages and Papers of the Presidents
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington^ May ly, i86^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded on the 7th instant in this city between William P.
Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Clark W. Thompson, super-
intendent of Indian affairs, northern superintendency, on the part of the
United States, and the chief Hole-in-the-day and Mis-qua-dace for and
on behalf of the Chippewas of the Mississippi, and the Pillager and I^ake
Winnibigoshish bands of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota.
A communication from the Secretary of the Interior of the 17th instant,
with a statement and copies of reports of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs of the 12th and 17th instant, accompany the treaty.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, D. C, May 24., 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I recommend lyieutenant-Commander Francis A. Roe for advancement
in his grade five numbers, to take rank next after Lieutenant- Commander
John H. Upshur, for distinguished conduct in battle in command of the
United States steamer Sassacus in her attack on and attempt to run down
the rebel ironclad ram Albemarle on the 5th of May, 1864.
I also recommend that First Assistant Engineer James M. Hobby be
advanced thirty numbers in his grade for distinguished conduct in battle
and extraordinary heroism, as mentioned in the report of Lieutenant-Com-
mander Francis A. Roe, commanding the United States steamer Sassacus
in her action with the rebel ram Albemarle on the 5th May, 1864.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, May 24, 1864..
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of yester-
day on the subject of the joint resolution of the 4th of last month 'relative
to Mexico, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the
resolution was referred. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, May 28, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
In reply to a resolution of the Senate of the 25th instant, relating to
Mexican affairs, I transmit a partial report from the Secretary of State
of this date, with the papers therein mentioned.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 2il
Washington, May ji, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 28th
instant, a report* from the Secretary of State, with accompanying doc-
^"^^^^^- ABRAHAM I^INCOLN.
Washington, D. C.,June 8, 1864..
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I have the honor to submit, for the consideration of Congress, a letter
and inclosure f from the Secretary of War, with my concurrence in the
recommendation therein made. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington, /z^;2^ zj, 1864.
To the Se?iate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 4th of March,
1864, 1 transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War in the case
of William Yokum, with accompanying papers.
ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
Washington, /2^;e^ zj, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for consideration with a view to ratification, a
convention between the United States of America and the United Colom-
bian States, signed by the plenipotentiaries of the contracting powers on
the loth February last, providing for a revival of the joint commission on
claims under the convention of loth September, 1857, with New Granada.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, /?^?2^ 18, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
In further answer to the Senate's resolution of the 28th ultimo, request-
ing to be informed whether the President "has, and when, authorized a
person alleged to have committed a crime against Spain or any of its de-
pendencies to be delivered up to officers of that Government, and whether
such delivery was had, and, if so, under what authority of law or of treaty
it was done," I transmit a copy of a dispatch of the loth instant to the
Secretary of State from the acting consul of the United States at Havana.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
♦Relating to the delivery of a person charged with crime against Spain to the officers of that
Government.
t Report from the Provost-Marshal-General, showing the result of the draft to fill a deficiency in
the quotas of certain States, and recommending a repeal of the clause in the enrollment act com-
monly known as the three-hundred-dollar clause.
212 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
KxKCUTivE Mansion, June 21, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith communicate to the Senate, for its constitutional action
thereon, the articles of agreement and convention made and concluded
at the city of Washington on the 15th instant between the United States
and the Delaware Indians of Kansas, referred to in the accompanying
communication of the present date from the Secretary of the Interior.
ABRAHAM LINCOIvN.
KxECuTivB Mansion, Washington, fune 24, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty made and concluded at the city of Washington on the nth day
of June, 1864, by and between William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, and Hiram W. Famsworth, United States Indian agent, commis-
sioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of
the Kansas tribe of Indians.
A communication of the Secretary of the Interior of the i8th instant,
with a copy of report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 1 3th in-
stant, accompany the treaty. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, /««^ 28, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 24th instant, request-
ing information in regard to the alleged enlistment in foreign countries
of recruits for the military and naval service of the United States, I trans-
mit reports from the Secretaries of State, of War, and of the Navy,
respectively. ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Washington, /e^;2<? 28, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the i6th of last
month, requesting information in regard to the maltreatment of passen-
gers and seamen on board ships plying between New York and Aspinwall,
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution
was referred. ABRAHAM I^INCOI^N.
Washington, /z^/k 2, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 6th ultimo, requesting
information upon the subject of the African slave trade, I transmit a report
from the Secretary of State and the papers by which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM I.INCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 213
PROCLAMATIONS.
By thk President of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas in and by the Constitution of the United States it is provided
that the President ' ' shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for
offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment; ' ' and
Whereas a rebellion now exists whereby the loyal State governments
of several States have for a long time been subverted, and many per-
sons have committed and are now guilty of treason against the United
States; and
Whereas, with reference to said rebellion and treason, laws have been
enacted by Congress declaring forfeitures and confiscation of property
and liberation of slaves, all upon terms and conditions therein stated, and
also declaring that the President was thereby authorized at any time
thereafter, by proclamation, to extend to persons who may have partici-
pated in the existing rebellion in any State or part thereof pardon and
amnesty, with such exceptions and at such times and on such conditions
as he may deem expedient for the public welfare; and
Whereas the Congressional declaration for limited and conditional par-
don accords with well-established judicial exposition of the pardoning
power; and
Whereas, with reference to said rebellion, the President of the United
States has issued several proclamations with provisions in regard to the
liberation of slaves; and
Whereas it is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said
rebellion to resume their allegiance to the United States and to reinaugu-
rate loyal State governments within and for their respective States:
Therefore, I, Abraham lyincoln. President of the United States, do pro-
claim, declare, and make known to all persons who have, directly or by
imphcation, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter
excepted, that a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them,
with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves and in
property cases where rights of third parties shall have intervened, and
upon the condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an
oath and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate, and
which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation and shall be
of the tenor and effect following, to wit:
I) , do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will
henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United
States and the Union of the States thereunder; and that I will in like manner abide
by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion
with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held void
by Congress or by decision of the Supreme Court; and that I will in like manner
214 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the
existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or
declared void by decision of the Supreme Court. So help me God.
The persons excepted from the benefits of the foregoing provisions are
all who are or shall have been civil or diplomatic officers or agents of
the so-called Confederate Government; all who have left judicial stations
under the United States to aid the rebellion; all who are or shall have
been military or naval officers of said so-called Confederate Government
above the rank of colonel in the army or of lieutenant in the navy; all
who left seats in the United States Congress to aid the rebellion; all who
resigned commissions in the Army or Navy of the United States and
afterwards aided the rebellion; and all who have engaged in any way in
treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, otherwise
than lawfully as prisoners of war, and which persons may have been found
in the United States service as soldiers, seamen, or in any other capacity.
And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that whenever,
in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, lyouisiana, Mississippi, Ten-
nessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina,
a number of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast
in such State at the Presidential election of the year A. D. i860, each
having taken the oath aforesaid, and not having since violated it, and
being a qualified voter by the election law of the State existing immedi-
ately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall
reestablish a State government which shall be republican and in nowise
contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government
of the State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the
constitutional provision which declares that "the United States shall
guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government
and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of
the legislature, or the executive (when the legislature can not be con-
vened), against domestic violence."
And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that any pro-
vision which may be adopted by such State government in relation to
the freed people of such State which shall recognize and declare their
permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be
consistent as a temporary arrangement with their present condition as
a laboring, landless, and homeless class, will not be objected to by the
National Executive.
And it is suggested as not improper that in constructing a loyal State
government in any State the name of the State, the boundary, the subdi-
visions, the constitution, and the general code of laws as before the rebel-
lion be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by
the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contra-
vening said conditions and which may be deemed expedient by those
framing the new State government.
Abraham Lincoln
215
To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say that this procla-
mation, so far as it relates to State governments, has no reference to
States wherein loyal State governments have all the while been main-
tained. And for the same reason it may be proper to further say that
whether members sent to Congres's from any State shall be admitted to
seats constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective Houses, and
not to any extent with the Executive. And, still further, that this proc-
lamation is intended to present the people of the States wherein the
national authority has been suspended and loyal State governments have
been subverted a mode in and by which the national authority and loyal
State governments may be reestablished within said States or in any of
them; and while the mode presented is the best the Executive can sug-
gest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no
other possible mode would be acceptable.
Given under my hand at the city of Washington, the 8th day of De-
P -, cember, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the eighty-eighth.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
By the President:
Wii<iyiAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidknt of thk United Statks of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas by an act of the Congress of the United States of the 24th of
May, 1828, entitled "An act in addition to an act entitled 'An act con-
cerning discriminating duties of tonnage and impost ' and to equalize the
duties on Prussian vessels and their cargoes," it is provided that upon
satisfactory evidence being given to the President of the United States
by the government of any foreign nation that no discriminating duties
of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the said nation
upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon
the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the
United States or from any foreign country, the President is thereby
authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discrimi-
nating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and
shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the
said foreign nation and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise im-
ported into the United States in the same from the said foreign nation
or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect
from the time of such notification being given to the President of the
United States and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of
vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as
aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer; and
Whereas satisfactory evidence has lately been received by me through
2i6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
an official communication of Sefior Don lyUis Molina, envoy extraordi-
nary and minister plenipotentiary of the Republic of Nicaragua, under
date of the 28th of November, 1863, that no other or higher duties of
tonnage and impost have been imposed or levied since the 2d day of
August, 1838, in the ports of Nicaragua upon vessels wholly belonging
to citizens of the United States and upon the produce, manufactures, or
merchandise imported in the same from the United States and from any
foreign country whatever than are levied on Nicaraguan ships and their
cargoes in the same ports under like circumstances:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham I^incoln, President of the United States
of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that so much of the several
acts imposing discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the
United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as
respects the vessels of Nicaragua and the produce, manufactures, and
merchandise imported into the United States in the same from the do-
minions of Nicaragua and from any other foreign country whatever, the
said suspension to take effect from the day above mentioned and to con-
tinue thenceforward so long as the reciprocal exemption of the vessels
of the United States and the produce, manufactures, and merchandise
imported into the dominions of Nicaragua in the same, as aforesaid, shall
be continued on the part of the Government of Nicaragua.
Given under my hand at the city of Washington, the i6th day of
P 1 December, A. D. 1863, and the eighty-eighth of the Independ
ence of the United States.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
By the President:
WlLWAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
By the Presidknt of the United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas by my proclamation of the 19th of April, 1861, the ports of
the States of South Carohna, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Texas were, for reasons therein set forth, placed under
blockade; and
Whereas the port of BrowUvSville, in the district of Brazos Santiago,
in the State of Texas, has since been blockaded, but as the blockade of
said port may now be safely relaxed with advantage to the interests
of commerce:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the j&fth
section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July, 1861, entitled
' * An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports and
Abraham Lincoln 217
for Qther purposes," do hereby declare that the blockade of the said port
of Brownsville shall so far cease and determine from and after this date
that commercial intercourse with said port, except as to persons, things,
and information hereinafter specified, may from this date be carried on
subject to the laws of the United States, to the regulations prescribed
by the Secretary of the Treasury, and, until the rebellion shall have
been suppressed, to such orders as may be promulgated by the general
commanding the department or by an officer duly authorized by him
and commanding at said port. This proclamation does not authorize or
allow the shipment or conveyance of persons in or intending to enter the
service of the insurgents, or of things or information intended for their
use or for their aid or comfort, nor, except upon the permission of the
Secretary of War or of some officer duly authorized by him, of the fol-
lowing prohibited articles, namely: Cannon, mortars, firearms, pistols,
bombs, grenades, powder, saltpeter, sulphur, balls, bullets, pikes, swords,
boarding caps (always excepting the quantity of the said articles which
may be necessary for the defense of the ship and those who compose the
crew), saddles, bridles, cartridge-bag material, percussion and other caps,
clothing adapted for uniforms, sailcloth of all kinds, hemp and cordage,
intoxicating drinks other than beer and light native wines.
To vessels clearing from foreign ports and destined to the port of
Brownsville, opened by this proclamation, licenses will be granted by
consuls of the United States upon satisfactory evidence that the vessel
so licensed will convey no persons, property, or information excepted or
prohibited above either to or from the said port, which licenses shall
be exhibited to the collector of said port immediately on arrival, and, if
required, to any officer in charge of the blockade; and on leaving said
port every vessel will be required to have a clearance from the collector
of the customs, according to law", showing no violation of the conditions of
the license. Any violations of said conditions will involve the forfei-
ture and condemnation of the vessel and cargo and the exclusion of all
parties concerned from any further privilege of entering the United States
during the war for any purpose whatever.
In all respects except as herein specified the existing blockade remains
in full force and effect as hitherto established and maintained, nor is it
relaxed by this proclamation except in regard to the port to which relax-
ation is or has been expressly applied.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this i8th day of February,
A. D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-eighth.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
By the President:
WiiyiyiAM H. Seward, Secretary of State,
2i8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
By the^ Prksidknt of thk United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
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 insur-
rection 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, con-
finement, 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 proc-
lamation 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 afore-
said proclamation of the 8th of December, 1863, may be taken and sub-
scribed 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.
P 1 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. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
By the President:
WiiviyiAM H. Seward, Secretary of State,
Abraham Lincoln 219
Abraham Lincoln, Prksidknt of the) Umitkd Statks of America.
To all whom it may concern:
An exequatur bearing date the 3d day of May, 1850, having been issued
to Charles Hunt, a citizen of the United States, recognizing him as con-
sul of Belgium for St. Louis, Mo., and declaring him free to exercise
and enjoy such functions, powers, and privileges as are allowed to the
consuls of the most favored nations in the United States, and the said
Hunt having sought to screen himself from his military duty to his coun-
try in consequence of thus being invested with the consular functions of
a foreign power in the United States, it is deemed advisable that the said
Charles Hunt should no longer be permitted to continue in the exercise
of said functions, powers, and privileges:
These are, therefore, to declare that I no longer recognize the said
Charles Hunt as consul of Belgium for St. Louis, Mo. , and will not per-
mit him to exercise or enjoy any of the functions, powers, or privileges
allowed to consuls of that nation, and that I do hereby wholly revoke
and annul the said exequatur heretofore given and do declare the same
to be absolutely null and void from this day forward.
In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent
and the seal of the United States of America to be hereunto
affixed.
[SKAiv.] Given under my hand, at Washington, this 19th day of May,
A. D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the eighty-eighth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
William H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
By thk PR]esiDKNT OF th:h Unitkd Statics of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas by a proclamation which was issued on the 15th day of April,
1 86 1, the President of the United States announced and declared that the
laws of the United States had been for some time past, and then were,
opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in certain States therein
mentioned by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary
course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals by
law; and
Whereas immediately after the issuing of the said proclamation the land
and naval forces of the United States were put into activity to suppress
the said insurrection and rebellion; and
Whereas the Congress of the United States by an act approved on
the 3d day of March, 1863, did enact that during the said rebellion the
220 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
President of the United States, whenever in his judgment the pubhc
safety may require it, is authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ
of habeas corpus in any case throughout the United States or in any part
thereof; and
Whereas the said insurrection and rebelHon still continue, endanger-
ing the existence of the Constitution and Government of the United
States; and
Whereas the military forces of the United States are now actively en-
gaged in suppressing the said insurrection and rebellion in various parts
of the States where the said rebellion has been successful in obstructing
the laws and public authorities, especially in the States of Virginia and
Georgia; and
Whereas on the 15th day of September last the President of the United
States duly issued his proclamation, wherein he declared that the privi-
lege of the writ of habeas corpus should be suspended throughout the
United States in the cases where, by the authority of the President of
the United States, military, naval, and civil officers of the United States,
or any of them, hold persons under their command or in their custody,
either as prisoners of war, spies, or aiders or abettors of the enemy, or
officers, soldiers, or seamen enrolled or drafted or mustered or enlisted
in or belonging to the land or naval forces of the United States, or as
deserters therefrom, or otherwise amenable to military law or the rules
and articles of war or the rules or regulations prescribed for the military
or naval services by authority of the President of the United States, or for
resisting a draft, or for any other offense against the military or naval
service; and
Whereas many citizens of the State of Kentucky have joined the forces
of the insurgents, and such insurgents have on several occasions entered
the said State of Kentucky in large force, and, not without aid and com-
fort furnished by disaffected and disloyal citizens of the United States
residing therein, have not only greatly disturbed the public peace, but
have overborne the civil authorities and made flagrant civil war, destroy-
ing property and life in various parts of that State; and
Whereas it has been made known to the President of the United States
by the officers commanding the national armies that combinations have
been formed in the said State of Kentucky with a purpose of inciting
rebel forces to renew the said operations of civil war within the said
State and thereby to embarrass the United States armies now operating
in the said States of Virginia and Georgia and even to endanger their
safety:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham lyincoln. President of the United States,
by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws, do
hereby declare that in my judgment the public safety especially requires
that the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, so pro-
claimed in the said proclamation of the 15th of September, 1863, be made
Abraham Lincoln 221
effectual and be duly enforced in and throughout the said State of Ken-
tucky, and that martial law be for the present established therein. I
do therefore hereby require of the military officers in the said State
that the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus be effectually suspended
within the said State, according to the aforesaid proclamation, and that
martial law be established therein, to take effect from the date of this
proclamation, the said suspension and establishment of martial law to
continue until this proclamation shall be revoked or modified, but not
beyond the period when the said rebellion shall have been suppressed or
come to an end. And I do hereby require and command as well all mili-
tary officers as all civil officers and authorities existing or found within the
said State of Kentucky to take notice of this proclamation and to give
full effect to the same.
The martial law herein proclaimed and the things in that respect
herein ordered will not be deemed or taken to interfere with the holding
of lawful elections, or with the proceedings of the constitutional legis-
lature of Kentucky, or with the administration of justice in the courts
of law existing therein between citizens of the United States in suits or
proceedings which do not affect the military operations or the constituted
authorities of the Government of the United States.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed.
|- -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 5th day of July, A. D.
1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^- ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
By the President:
WlIvI^IAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
By the Prksidknt of the United States.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the Senate and House of Representatives at their last session
adopted a concurrent resolution, which was approved on the 2d day of
July instant and which was in the words following, namely:
That the President of the United States be requested to appoint a day for humili-
ation and prayer by the people of the United States; that he request his constitutional
advisers at the head of the Executive Departments to unite with him as Chief Magis-
trate of the nation, at the city of Washington, and the members of Congress, and all
magistrates, all civil, military, and naval ofl&cers, all soldiers, sailors, and marines,
with all loyal and law-abiding people, to convene at their usual places of worship, or
wherever they may be, to confess and to repent of their manifold sins; to implore the
compassion and forgiveness of the Almighty, that, if consistent with His will, the exist-
ing rebellion may be speedily suppressed and the supremacy of the Constitution and
laws of the United States may be established throughout all the States; to implore
222 Messages a?td Papers of the Presidejtts
Him, as the Supreme Ruler of the World, not to destroy iis as a people, nor suffer us to
be destroyed by the hostility or connivance of other nations or by obstinate adhesion
,to our own counsels, which may be in conflict with His eternal purposes, and to im-
plore Him to enlighten the mind of the nation to know and do His will, humbly
believing that it is in accordance with His will that our place should be maintained
as a united people among the family of nations; to implore Him to grant to our
armed defenders and the masses of the people that courage, power of resistance, and
endvu-ance necessary to secure that result; to implore Him in His infinite goodness
to soften the hearts, enlighten the minds, and quicken the consciences of those in
rebellion, that they may lay down their arms and speedily return to their allegiance
to the United States, that they may not be utterly destroyed, that the effusion of
blood may be stayed, and that unity and fraternity may be restored and peace estab-
lished throughout all our borders:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham lyincoln, President of the United States,
cordially concurring with the Congress of the United States in the peni-
tential and pious sentiments expressed in the aforesaid resolution and
heartily approving of the devotional design and purpose thereof, do
hereby appoint the first Thursday of August next to be observed by the
people of the United States as a day of national humiliation and prayer.
I do hereby further invite and request the heads of the Executive
Departments of this Government, together with all legislators, all judges
and magistrates, and- all other persons exercising authority in the land,
whether civil, military, or naval, and all soldiers, seamen, and marines
in the national service, and all the other loyal and law-abiding people of
the United States, to assemble in their preferred places of public worship
on that day, and there and then to render to the almighty and merciful
Ruler of the Universe such homages and such confessions and to offer to
Him such supplications as the Congress of the United States have in
their aforesaid resolution so solemnly, so earnestly, and so reverently
recommended.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 7th day of July, A. D.
1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^- ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
By the President:
William H. Skward,
Secretary of State,
By the; PR:esiDENT of thk Unitkd Statks.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas at the late session Congress passed a bill ' ' to guarantee to cer-
tain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a repub-
lican form of government," a copy of which is hereunto annexed; and
Whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the United
Abraham Lincoln 223
States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die adjourn-
ment of said session, and was not signed by him; and
Whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring
the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union,
which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which
plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham lyincoln. President of the United States,
do proclaim, declare, and make known that while I am (as I was in
December last, when, by proclamation, I propounded a plan for restora-
tion) unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly com-
mitted to any single plan of restoration, and while I am also unprepared
to declare that the free State constitutions and governments already
adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and
held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who
have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a constitutional
competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States, but am at the same
time sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment
abolishing slavery throughout the nation may be adopted, nevertheless
I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill
as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to
adopt it, and that I am and at all times shall be prepared to give the
Executive aid and assistance to any such people so soon as the military
resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such
State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their
obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in which
cases military governors will be appointed with directions to proceed
according to the bill.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -J Done at the city of Washington, this 8th day oiF July, A. D.
1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^- ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Sbward,
Secretary of State.
[H. R. 244, Thirty-eighth Congress, first session.]
AN ACT to guarantee to certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a
republican form of government.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled. That in the States declared in rebellion against the
United States the President shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
appoint for each a provisional governor, whose pay and emoluments shall not exceed
that of a brigadier-general of volunteers, who shall be charged with the civil admin-
istration of such State until a State government therein shall be recognized as here-
inafter provided.
224 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That so soon as the military resistance to the
United States shall have been suppressed in any such State and the people thereof
shall have sufl&ciently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws
of the United States the provisional governor shall direct the marshal of the United
States, as speedily as may be, to name a sufl&cient number of deputies, and to enroll
all white male citizens of the United States resident in the State in their respective
counties, and to request each one to take the oath to support the Constitution of the
United States, and in his enrollment to designate those who take and those who
refuse to take that oath, which rolls shall be forthwith returned to the provisional
governor; and if the persons taking that oath shall amount to a majority of the per-
sons enrolled in the State, he shall, by proclamation, invite the loyal people of the
State to elect delegates to a convention charged to declare the will of the people of
the State relative to the reestablishment of a State government, subject to and in
conformity with the Constitution of the United States.
Sec. 3. And be it further enacted. That the convention shall consist of as many
members as both houses of the last constitutional State legislature, apportioned by
the provisional governor among the counties, parishes, or districts of the State, in
proportion to the white population returned as electors by the marshal in compli-
ance with the provisions of this act. The provisional governor shall, by proclama-
tion, declare the number of delegates to be elected by each county, parish, or election
district; name a day of election not less than thirty days thereafter; designate the
places of voting in each county, parish, or district, conforming as nearly as may be
convenient to the places used in the State elections next preceding the rebellion;
appoint one or more commissioners to hold the election at each place of voting, and
provide an adequate force to keep the peace during the election.
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That the delegates shall be elected by the loyal
white male citizens of the United States of the age of 21 years, and resident at the
time in the county, parish, or district in which they shall offer to vote, and enrolled
as aforesaid, or absent in the military service of the United States, and who shall take
and subscribe the oath of allegiance to the United States in the form contained in the
act of Congress of July 2, 1862; and all such citizens of the United States who are
in the military service of the United States shall vote at the headquarters of their
respective commands, under such regulations as may be prescribed by the provisional
governor for the taking and return of their votes; but no person who has held or
exercised any ofl&ce, civil or military. State or Confederate, under the rebel usurpa-
tion, or who has voluntarily borne arms against the United States, shall vote or be
eligible to be elected as delegate at such election.
Sec. 5. And be it further enacted. That the said commissioners, or either of them,
shall hold the election in conformity with this act, and, so far as may be consistent
therewith, shall proceed in the manner used in the State prior to the rebellion. The
oath of allegiance shall be taken and subscribed on the poll book by every voter in
the form above prescribed, but every person known by or proved to the commissioners
to have held or exercised any office, civil or military, State or Confederate, under the
rebel usurpation, or to have voluntarily borne arms against the United States, shall
be excluded though he offer to take the oath; and in case any person who shall have
borne arms against the United States shall offer to vote, he shall be deemed to
have borne arms voluntarily unless he shall prove the contrary by the testimony of
a qualified voter. The poll book, showing the name and oath of each voter, shall be
returned to the provisional governor by the commissioners of election, or the one act-
ing, and the provisional governor shall canvass such returns and declare the person
having the highest number of votes elected.
Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That the provisional governor shall, by procla-
mation, convene the delegates elected as aforesaid at the capital of the State on a
day not more than three months after the election, giving at least thirty days' notice
Abraham Lincoln 225
of such day. In case the said capital shall in his judgment be unfit, he shall in his
proclamation appoint another place. He shall preside over the deliberations of the
convention and administer to each delegate, before taking his seat in the convention,
the oath of allegiance to the United States in the form above prescribed.
Sec. 7. And be it further enacted, That the convention shall declare on behalf of
the people of the State their submission to the Constitution and laws of the United
States, and shall adopt the following provisions, hereby prescribed by the United States
in the execution of the constitutional duty to guarantee a republican form of govern-
ment to every State, and incorporate them in the constitution of the State; that is
to say:
First. No person who has held or exercised any office, civil or military (except
offices merely ministerial and military offices below the grade of colonel). State or
Confederate, under the usurping power, shall vote for or be a member of the legis-
lature or governor.
Second. Involuntary servitude is forever prohibited, and the freedom of all persons
is guaranteed in said State.
Third. No debt. State or Confederate, created by or under the sanction of the
usurping power shall be recognized or paid by the State.
Sec. 8. And be it further enacted. That when the convention shall have adopted
those provisions it shall proceed to reestablish a republican form of government
and ordain a constitution containing those provisions, which, when adopted, the con-
vention shall by ordinance provide for submitting to the people of the State entitled
to vote under this law, at an election to be held in the manner prescribed by the act
for the election of delegates, but at a time and place named by the convention, at
which election the said electors, and none others, shall vote directly for or against
such constitution and form of State government. And the returns of said election
shall be made to the provisional governor, who shall canvass the same in the pres-
ence of the electors, and if a majority of the votes cast shall be for the constitution
and form of government, he shall certify the same, with a copy thereof, to the Pres-
ident of the United States, who, after obtaining the assent of Congress, shall, by
proclamation, recognize the government so established, and none other, as the con-
stitutional government of the State; and from the»date of such recognition, and not
before. Senators and Representatives and electors for President and Vice-President
may be elected in such State, according to the laws of the State and of the United
States.
Sec. 9. And be it further enacted, That if the convention shall refuse to reestab-
lish the State government on the conditions aforesaid the provisional governor shall
declare it dissolved; but it shall be the duty of the President, whenever he shall have
reason to believe that a sufficient number of the people of the State entitled to vote
under this act, in number not less than a majority of those enrolled as aforesaid, are
willing to reestablish a State government on the conditions aforesaid, to direct the
provisional governor to order another election of delegates to a convention for the
purpose and in the manner prescribed in this act, and to proceed in all respects as
hereinbefore provided, either to dissolve the convention or to certify the State gov-
ernment reestablished by it to the President.
Sec. id. And be it further enacted. That until the United States shall have recog-
nized a republican form of State government the provisional governor in each of
said States shall see that this act and the laws of the United States and the laws
of the State in force when the State government was overthrown by the rebellion
are faithfully executed within the State; but no law or usage whereby any person
was heretofore held in involuntary servitude shall be recognized or enforced by any
court or officer in such State; and the laws.for the trial and punishment of white per-
sons shall extend to all persons, and jurors shall have the qualifications of voters
under this law for delegates to the convention. The President shall appoint such
M P — VOL VI — 15
226 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
officer provided for by the laws of the State when its government was overthrown as
he may find necessary to the civil administration of the State, all which officers shall
be entitled to receive the fees and emoluments provided by the State laws for such
officers.
Sec. II. And he it further enacted. That until the recognition of a State govern-
ment as aforesaid the provisional governor shall, under such regulations as he may
prescribe, cause to be assessed, levied, and collected, for the year 1864 and every
year thereafter, the taxes provided by the laws of such State to be levied during the
fiscal year preceding the overthrow of the State* government thereof, in the manner
prescribed by the laws of the State, as nearly as may be; and the officers appointed
as aforesaid are vested with all powers of levying and collecting such taxes, by dis-
tress or sale, as were vested in any officers or tribunal of the State government afore-
said for those purposes. The proceeds of such taxes shall be accounted for to the
provisional governor and be by him applied to the expenses of the aaministration
of the laws in such State, subject to the direction of the President, and the surplus
shall be deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of such State,
to be paid to the State upon an appropriation therefor to be made when a repub-
lican form of government shall be recognized therein by the United States.
Sec. 12. And be it further enacted. That all persons held to involuntary servitude
or labor in the States aforesaid are hereby emancipated and discharged therefrom,
and they and their posterity shall be forever free. And if any such persons or their
posterity shall be restrained of liberty under pretense of any claim to such service
or labor, the courts of the United States shall, on habeas corpus, discharge them.
Sec. 13. And be it further enacted. That if any person declared free by this act,
or any law of the United States or any proclamation of the President, be restrained
of liberty with intent to be held in or reduced to involuntary servitude or labor, the
person convicted before a court of competent jiu-isdiction of such act shall be pun-
ished by fine of not less than $1,500 and be imprisoned not less than five nor more
than twenty years.
Sec. 14. And be it further enacted. That every person who shall hereafter hold or
exercise any office, civil or military (except offices merely ministerial and military
offices below the grade of colonel) , in the rebel service, State or Confederate, is hereby
declared not to be a citizen of the United States.
By thk Prksidknt of the: United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas by the act approved July 4, 1864, entitled "An act further to
regulate and provide for the enrolling and calling out the national forces
and for other purposes, " it is provided that the President of the United
States may, "at his discretion, at any time hereafter, call for any num-
ber of men, as volunteers for the respective terms of one, two, and three
years for military service," and "that in case. the quota or any part
thereof of any town, township, ward of a city, precinct, or election dis-
trict, or of a county not so subdivided, shall not be filled within the space
of fifty days after such call, then the President shall immediately order
a draft for one year to fill such quota or any part thereof which may
be unfilled; " and
Whereas the new enrollment heretofore ordered is so far completed as
Abraham Lincoln 227
that the aforementioned act of Congress may now be put in operation for
recruiting and keeping up the strength of the armies in the field, for gar-
risons, and such military operations as may be required for the purpose
of suppressing the rebellion and restoring the authority of the United
States Government in the insurgent States:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
do issue this my call for 500,000 volunteers for the military service:
Provided^ nevertheless, That this call shall be reduced by all credits which
may be established under section 8 of the aforesaid act on account of per-
sons who have entered the naval service during the present rebellion and
by credits for men furnished to the military service in excess of calls
heretofore made. Volunteers will be accepted under this call for one,
two, or three years, as they may elect, and will be entitled to the bounty
provided by the law for the period of service for which they enHst.
And I hereby proclaim, order, and direct that immediately after the
5th day of September, 1864, being fifty days from the date of this call,
a draft for troops to serve for one year shall be had in every town, town-
ship, ward of a city, precinct, or election district, or county not so sub-
divided, to fill the quota which shall be assigned to it under this call or
any part thereof which may be unfilled by volvmteers on the said 5th day
of September, 1864.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be afiixed.
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this i8th day of July, A. D.
1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^- ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
By the President:
Wii,i,iAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State,
By ths President of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the act of Congress of the 28th of September, 1850, entitled
"An act to create additional collection districts in the State of California,
and to change the existing districts therein, and to modify the existing col-
lection districts in the United States, ' ' extends to merchandise warehoused
under bond the privilege of being exported to the British North American
Provinces adjoining the United States in the manner prescribed in the
act of Congress of the 3d of March, 1845, which designates certain frontier
ports through which merchandise may be exported, and further provides
"that such other ports, situated on the frontiers of the United States
adjoining the British North American Provinces, as may hereafter be
h.
228 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
found expedient may have extended to them the Hke privileges on the
recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury and proclamation duly
made by the President of the United States specially designating the ports
to which the aforesaid privileges are to be extended: "
Now, therefore, I, Abraham I^incoln, President of the United States
of America, in accordance with the recommendation of the Secretary of
the Treasury, do hereby declare and proclaim that the port of Newport,
in the State of Vermont, is and shall be entitled to all the privileges in
regard to the exportation of merchandise in bond to the British North
American Provinces adjoining the United States which are extended to
the ports enumerated in the seventh section of the act of Congress of the
3d of March, 1845, aforesaid, from and after the date of this proclamation.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
p -1 Done at the city of Washington, this i8th day of August,
A. D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the eighty-ninth.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
By the President:
WiiyiyiAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State,
By the President of the United States oe America.
A PROCI/AMATION.
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year,
defending us with His guardian care against unfriendly designs from
abroad and vouchsafing to us in His mercy many and signal victories
over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our
Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our sol-
diers in their camps and our saildrs on the rivers and seas with unusual
health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipa-
tion and by immigration, while He has opened to us new sources of
wealth and has crowned the labor of our workingmen in every depart-
ment of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, He has been pleased
to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and
resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we have
been brought by our adherence as a nation to the cause of freedom and
humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy
deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as
a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever
they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God,
Abraham Lincoln 229
the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further
recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they
do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up
penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of
Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and
harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a
dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all gener-
ations.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of October,
A. D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-ninth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
Wii^iviAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States oe America.
A proclamation.
Whereas the Congress of the United States passed an act, which was
approved on the 21st day of March last, entitled "An act to enable the
people of Nevada to form a constitution and State government and for
the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the
original States; " and
Whereas the said constitution and State government have been formed,
pursuant to the conditions prescribed by the fifth section of the act of
Congress aforesaid, and the certificate required by the said act and also
a copy of the constitution and ordinances have been submitted to the
President of the United States:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States, in accordance with the duty imposed upon me by the
act of Congress aforesaid, do hereby declare and proclaim that the said
State of Nevada is admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the
original States.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
fsEAL 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 31st day of October,
A. D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-ninth. ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
By the President:
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
230 Messages and Papers of the Preside^its
By th^ Pre)Sident of thk United States of America,
a proclamation.
Whereas by my proclamation of the 19th of April, 1 861, it was declared
that the ports of certain States, including those of Norfolk, in the State
of Virginia, Fernandina and Pensacola, in the State of Florida, were, for
reasons therein set forth, intended to be placed under blockade; and
Whereas the said ports were subsequently blockaded accordingly, but
having for some time past been in the military possession of the United
States, it is deemed advisable that they should be opened to domestic and
foreign commerce:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth
section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July, 1861, entitled
"An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports, and
for other purposes," do hereby declare that the blockade of the said ports
of Norfolk, Fernandina, and Pensacola shall so far cease and determine,
from and after the ist day of December next, that commercial intercourse
with those ports, except as to persons, things, and information contra-
band of war, may from that time be carried on, subject to the laws of
the United States, to the limitations and in pursuance of the regulations
which may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and to such
military and naval regulations as are now in force or may hereafter be
found necessary.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
p -, Done at the city of Washington, this 19th day of November,
A. D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-ninth. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
By the President:
Wii,i,iAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, D. C, December 7, 186^.
Reliable information being received that the insurgent force is retreat-
ing from east Tennessee under circumstances rendering it probable that
the Union forces can not hereafter be dislodged from that important posi-
tion, and esteeming this to be of high national consequence, I recommend
Abraham Lincoln 231
that all loyal people do, on receipt of this information, assemble at their
places of worship and render special homage and gratitude to Almighty-
God for this great advancement of the national cause.
A. IvINCOI^N.
Generai. Orders, No. 398.
War Department,
Adjutant- Generai^'s Office,
Washington^ December 21, i86j,
The following joint resolution by the Senate and House of Represent-
atives of the United States is published to the Army:
JOINT RESOI/UTION of thanks to Major-Genefal Ulysses S. Grant and the officers and soldiers
who have fought under his command during this rebellion, and providing that the President
of the United States shall cause a medal to be struck, to be presented to Major-General Grant in
the name of the people of the United States of America.
Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled^ That the thanks of Congress be, and they hereby
are, presented to Major-General Ulysses S. Grant, and through him to the officers
and soldiers who have fought under his command during this rebellion, for their
gallantry and good conduct in the battles in which they have been engaged; and
that the President of the United States be requested to cause a gold medal to be
struck, with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions, to be presented to Major-
General Grant.
Sec 2. And be it further resolved. That when the said medal shall have been
struck the President shall cause a copy of this joint resolution to be engrossed on
parchment, and shall transmit the same, together with the said medal, to Major-
General Grant, to be presented to him in the name of the people of the United States
of America.
Sec 3. And be it further resolved. That a sufficient sum of money to carry this
resolution into effect is hereby appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not
otherwise appropriated.
SCHUYLER COLFAX,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
H. HAMLIN,
Vice-President of the United States and President of the Senate.
Approved, December 17, 1863.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By order of the Secretary of War:
B. D. TOWNSBND,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
ExBCuTivK Mansion, /<2ww«rj/ p, 1864..
Information having been received that Caleb B. Smith, late Secretary
of the Interior, has departed this life at his residence in Indiana, it is
ordered that the executive buildings at the seat of the Government be
draped in mourning for the period of fourteen days in honor of his memory
232 Messages and Papei^s of the Presidents
as a prudent and loyal counselor and a faithful and effective coadjutor
of the Administration in a time of public difficulty and peril.
The Secretary of State will communicate a copy of this order to the
family of the deceased, together with proper expressions of the profound
sympathy of the President and the heads of Departments in their irrepa-
rable bereavement.
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
War DkparTment,
"Washington City ^January 12^ 186^.
It is hereby ordered, That all orders and records relating to the Missouri
troops, designated, respectively, as Missouri State Militia (M. S. M.) and
as Enrolled Missouri Militia (K. M. M.), and which are or have been on
file in the offices of the adjutant-generals or their assistants at the dif-
ferent headquarters located in the State of Missouri, shall be open to
the inspection of the general assembly of Missouri or of persons com-
missioned by it, and that copies of such records be furnished them when
called for.
By order of the President:
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
ExE^cuTivE Mansion, February z, 186^.
Ordered, That a draft for 500,000 men, to serve for three years or during
the war, be made on the loth day of March next for the military service
of the United States, crediting and deducting therefrom so many as may
have been enlisted or drafted into the service prior to the ist day of March
and not heretofore credited.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
ExEJCuTivB Mansion, February z, 1864..
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.
Sir: You are directed to have a transport (either a steam or sailing
vessel, as may be deemed proper by the Quartermaster- General) sent to
the colored colony established by the United States at the island of
Vache, on the coast of San Domingo, to bring back to this country such
of the colonists there as desire to return. You will have the transport
furnished with suitable supplies for that purpose, and detail an officer
of the Quartermaster's Department, who, under special instructions to be
given, shall have charge of the business. The colonists will be brought
to Washington, unless otherwise hereafter directed, and be employed and
Abraham Lincoln 233
provided for at the camps for colored persons around that city. Those
only will be brought from the island who desire to return, and their
effects will be brought with them.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Gknkrai, Orders, No. 76.
War Dkpartmknt,
Adjutant- Genkrai^'s Offick,
Washington^ February 26^ 1864..
Sbntkncf^ of Dkskrt:ers.
The President directs that the sentences of all deserters who have been
condemned by court-martial to death, an-d that have not been otherwise
acted upon by him, be mitigated to imprisonment during the war at the
Dry Tortugas, Florida, where they will be sent under suitable guards by
orders from army commanders.
The commanding generals, who have power to act on proceedings of
courts-martial in such cases, are authorized in special cases to restore to
duty deserters under sentence, when in their judgment the service will
be thereby benefited.
Copies of all orders issued under the foregoing instructions will be
immediately forwarded to the Adjutant- General and to the Judge- Advo-
cate-General.
By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, March 7, 1864..
Whereas by an Executive order of the loth of November last permis-
sion was given to export certain tobacco belonging to the French Govern-
ment from insurgent territory, which tobacco was supposed to have been
purchased and paid for prior to the 4th day of March, 1861; but whereas
it was subsequently ascertained that a part at least of the said tobacco
had been purchased subsequently to that date, which fact made it neces-
vSary to suspend the carrying into effect of the said order; but whereas,
pursuant to mutual explanations, a satisfactory understanding upon the
subject has now been reached, it is directed that the order aforesaid may
be carried into effect, it being understood that the quantity of French
tobacco so to be exported shall not exceed 7,000 hogsheads, and that it
is the same tobacco respecting the exportation of which application was
originally made by the French Government.
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
234 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
In pursuance of the provisions of section 14 of the act of Congress
entitled **An act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph
line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the
Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes,"
approved July i, 1862, authorizing and directing the President of the
United States to fix the point on the western boundary of the State of
Iowa from which the Union Pacific Railroad Company is by said section
authorized and required to construct a single line of railroad and tele-
graph upon the most direct and practicable route, subject to the approval
of the President of the United States, so as to form a connection with the
lines of said company at some point on the one hundredth meridian of
longitude in said section named, I, Abraham lyincoln, President of the
United States, do, upon the application of the said company, designate
and establish such first above-named point on the western boundary of
the State of Iowa east of and opposite to the east line of section 10, in
township 15 north, of range 13 east, of the sixth principal meridian, in the
Territory of Nebraska.
Done at the city of Washington, this 7th day of March, A. D. 1864.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
KxBcuTiv^ Mansion,
Washington, D, C, March 10, 1864..
Under the authority of an act of Congress to revive the grade of lieu-
tenant-general in the United States Army, approved February 29, 1864,
Lieutenant- General Ulysses S. Grant, United States Army, is assigned to
the command of the armies of the United States.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
GKNBRAiy Orders, No. 98.
War Department,
Adjutant- General's Office,
Washington, March 12, 186^.
The President of the United States orders as follows:
I. Major-General H. W. Halleck is, at his own request, relieved from
duty as General in Chief of the Army, and Lieutenant- General U. S.
Grant is assigned to the command of the armies of the United States.
The headquarters of the Army will be in Washington and also with
Lieutenant- General Grant in the field.
II. Major-General H. W. Halleck is assigned to duty in Washington
as chief of staff of the Army, under the direction of the Secretary of War
and the Lieutenant- General Commanding. His orders will be obeyed
and respected accordingly.
Abraham Lincoln 235
III. Major-General W. T. Sherman is assigned to the command of the
MiUtary Division of the Mississippi, composed of the departments of
the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Tennessee and the Arkansas.
IV. Major-General J. B. McPherson is assigned to the command of
the Department and Army of the Tennessee.
V. In relieving Major-General Halleck from duty as General in Chief,
the President desires to express his approbation and thanks for the able
and zealous manner in which the arduous and responsible duties of that
position have been performed.
By order of the Secretary of War: ^ ^ TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
ExKCUTivB Mansion,
Washington^ March i^, 1864..
In order to supply the force required to be drafted for the Navy and to
provide an adequate reserve force for all contingencies, in addition to the
500,000 men called for February i, 1864, a call is hereby made and a draft
ordered for 200,000 men for the military service (Army, Navy, and Marine
Corps) of the United States.
The proportional quotas for the different wards, towns, townships,
precincts, or election districts, or counties, will be made known through
the Provost- Marshal- General's Bureau, and account will be taken of the
credits and deficiencies on former quotas.
The 15th day of April, 1864, is designated as the time up to which the
numbers required from each ward of a city, town, etc., may be raised by
voluntary enlistment, and drafts will be made in each ward of a city,
town, etc. , which shall not have filled the quota assigned to it within the
time designated for the number required to fill said quotas. The drafts
will be commenced as soon after the 15th of April as practicable.
The Government bounties as now paid continue until April i, 1864, at
which time the additional bounties cease. On and after that date $100
bounty only will be paid, as provided by the act approved July 22, 186 1
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Executive) Mansion, April 2, 1864..
Ordered, That the Executive order of September 4, 1863, in relation
to the exportation of live stock from the United States, be so extended
as to prohibit the exportation of all classes of salted provisions from any
part of the United States to any foreign port, except that meats cured,
salted, or packed in any State or Territory bordering on the Pacific Ocean
may be exported from any port of such State or Territory.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
236 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
The President of the United States:
I. The governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin offer to the Presi-
dent infantry troops for the approaching campaign as follows:
Ohio , 30, cxx)
Indiana 20, 000
Illinois 20, 000
Iowa 10, 000
Wisconsin 5, 000
II. The term of service to be one hundred days, reckoning from the date of muster
into the service of the United States, unless sooner discharged.
III. The troops to be mustered into the service of the United States by regiments,
when the regiments are filled up, according to regulations, to the minimum strength,
the regiments to be organized according to the regulations of the War Department.
The whole number to be furnished within twenty days from date of notice of the
acceptance of this proposition.
IV. The troops to be clothed, armed, equipped, subsisted, transported, and paid as
other United States infantry volunteers, and to serve in fortifications, or wherever
their services may be required, within or without their respective States.
V. No bounty to be paid the troops, nor the service charged or credited on any
draft.
VI. The draft for three years' service to go on in any State or district where the
quota is not filled up; but if any officer or soldier in this special service should be
drafted he shall be credited for the service rendered.
JOHN BROUGH,
Govertior of Ohio.
O. P. MORTON,
Governor 0/ Indiana.
RICHARD YATES,
Governor 0/ Illinois.
WM. M. STONE,
Governor of Iowa.
JAMES T. LEWIS,
Governor of Wisconsin.
April 23, 1864.
The foregoing proposition of the governors is accepted, and the Secre-
tary of War is directed to carry it into execution.
A. LINCOI.N.
ExKcuTivK Mansion,
Washington, May p, 186^.
To the Friends of the Union and Liberty:
Enough is known of the army operations within the last five days to
claim our especial gratitude to God, while what remains undone demands
our most sincere prayers to and reliance upon Him, without whom all
human efforts are in vain. I recommend that all patriots, at their homes,
in their places of public worship, and wherever they may be, unite in
common thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God.
ABRAHAM UNCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 237
Executive Mansion,
Washington^ May 18 , 1864..
Major-General John A. Dix,
Commanding at New York:
Whereas there has been wickedly and traitorously printed and pub-
lished this morning in the New York World and New York Journal of
Commerce, newspapers printed and published in the city of New York,
a false and spurious proclamation purporting to be signed by the Presi-
dent and to be countersigned by the Secretary of State, which publication
is of a treasonable nature, designed to give aid and comfort to the enemies
of the United States and to the rebels now at war against the Govern-
ment and their aiders and abettors, you are therefore hereby commanded
forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your
command the editors, proprietors, and publishers of the aforesaid news-
papers, and all such persons as, after public notice has been given of the
falsehood of said publication, print and publish the same with intent
to give aid and comfort to the enemy; and you will hold the persons so
arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a mili-
tary commission for their offense. You will also take possession by
mihtary force of the printing establishments of the New York World
and Journal of Commerce, and hold the same until further orders, and
prohibit any further publication therefrom. * -j. t-m^pqt -vt-
Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C.
The President of the United States directs that the four persons whose
names follow, to wit, Hon. Clement C. Clay, Hon. Jacob Thompson, Pro-
fessor James P. Holcombe, George N. Sanders, shall have safe conduct to
the city of Washington in company with the Hon. Horace Greeley, and
shall be exempt from arrest or annoyance of any kind from any officer of
the United States during their journey to the said city of Washington.
By order of the President: TOHN HAY
Major and Assistant Adjutant-General,
Executive Mansion,
Washington, July 18, 1864..
To whom it may concern:
Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity
of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes
by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against
the United States, will be received and considered by the executive gov-
ernment of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other
substantial and collateral points; and the bearer or bearers thereof shall
have safe conduct both ways. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
238 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
ExBCuTivB Mansion, Washington, August jz, 1864..
Any person or persons engaged in bringing out cotton, in strict con-
formity with authority given by W. P. Fessenden, Secretary of the United
States Treasury, must not be hindered by the War, Navy, or any other
Department of the Government or any person engaged under any of said
Departments. ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
ExKCUTivB Mansion, September j, 1864..
The national thanks are tendered by the President to Major- General
William T. Sherman and the gallant oflScers and soldiers of his command
before Atlanta for the distinguished ability, courage, and perseverance dis-
played in the campaign in Georgia, which, under divine favor, has resulted
in the capture of the city of Atlanta. The marches, battles, sieges, and
other military operations that have signalized this campaign must render
it famous in the annals of war, and have entitled those who have partici-
pated therein to the applause and thanks of the nation.
ABRAHAM LINCOI^N.
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington City, September j, 1864.
Ordered, first. That on Monday, the 5th day of September, commencing
at the hour of 12 o'clock noon, there shall be given a salute of 100 guns at
the arsenal and navy-yard at Washington, and on Tuesday, the 6th of Sep-
tember, or on the day after the receipt of this order, at each arsenal and
navy-yard in the United States, for the recent brilliant achievements of
the fleet and land forces of the United States in the harbor of Mobile and
in the reduction of Fort Powell, Fort Gaines, and Fort Morgan. The Sec-
retary of War and Secretary of the Navy will issue the necessary direc-
tions in their respective Departments for the execution of this order.
Second. That on Wednesday, the 7th day of September, commencing at
the hour of 12 o'clock noon, there shall be fired a salute of 100 guns at the
arsenal at Washington, and at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Pittsburg, Newport, Ky. , and St. lyouis, and at New Orleans, Mobile, Pen-
sacola, Hilton Head, and New Berne the day after the receipt of this order,
for the brilliant achievements of the army under command of Major- Gen-
eral Sherman in the State of Georgia and the capture of Atlanta. The
Secretary of War will issue directions for the execution of this order.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
BxE)CuTivB) Mansion, Washington, September j, 1864.
The signal success that Divine Providence has recently vouchsafed to
the operations of the United States fleet and army in the harbor of
Abraham Lincoln 239
Mobile, and the reduction of Fort Powell, Fort Gaines, and Fort Mor-
gan, and the glorious achievements of the army under Major- General
Sherman in the State of Georgia, resulting in the capture of the city
of Atlanta, call for devout acknowledgment to the Supreme Being, in
whose hands are the destinies of nations. It is therefore requested that
on next Sunday, in all places of public worship in the United States,
thanksgiving be offered to Him for His mercy in preserving our national
existence against the insurgent rebels who so long have been waging a
cruel war against the Government of the United States for its over-
throw; and also that prayer be made for the divine protection to our
brave soldiers and their leaders in the field, who have so often and so gal-
lantly periled their lives in battling with the enemy, and for blessing and
comfort from the Father of Mercies to the sick, wounded, and prisoners,
and to the orphans and widows of those who have fallen in the service
of their country; and that He will continue to uphold the Government of
the United States against all the efforts of public enemies and secret foes.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Bx^cuTnm Mansion, September j, 1864..
The national thanks are tendered by the President to Admiral Farra-
gut and Major-General Canby for the skill and harmony with which
the recent operations in Mobile Harbor and against Fort Powell, Fort
Gaines, and Fort Morgan were planned and carried into execution; also
to Admiral Farragut and Major- General Granger, under whose immedi-
ate command they were conducted, and to the gallant commanders on sea
and land, and to the sailors and soldiers engaged in the operations, for
their energy and courage, which, under the blessing of Providence, have
been crowned with brilliant success and have won for them the applause
and thanks of the nation. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Executive Mansion,
Washington City^ September 10, 1864,
The term of one hundred days for which the National Guard of Ohio
volunteered having expired, the President directs an ofl&cial acknowledg-
ment to be made of their patriotic and valuable services during the recent
campaigns. The term of service of their enlistment was short, but dis-
tinguished by memorable events. In the Valley of the Shenandoah, on
the Peninsula, in the operations on the James River, around Petersburg
and Richmond, in the battle of Monocacy, and in the intrenchments of
Washington, and in other important service, the National Guard of Ohio
performed with alacrity the duty of patriotic volunteers, for which they
are entitled to and are hereby tendered, through the governor of their
State, the national thanks.
¥
240 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
The Secretary of War is directed to transmit a copy of this order to
the governor of Ohio and to cause a certificate of their honorable service
to be deHvered to the officers and soldiers of the Ohio National Guard
who recently served in the military force of the United States as volunteers
for one hundred days. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
ExKCuTivB Mansion, September 24., 186^.
I. Congress having authorized the purchase for the United States of
the product of States declared in insurrection, and the Secretary of the
Treasury having designated New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Pensa-
cola. Port Royal, Beaufort, N. C, and Norfolk as places of purchase, and
with my approval appointed agents and made regulations under which
said products may be purchased: Therefore,
II. All persons, except such as may be in the civil, military, or naval
service of the Government, having in their possession any products of
States declared in insurrection which said agents are authorized to pur-
chase, and all persons owning or controlling such products therein, are
authorized to convey such products to either of the places which have
been hereby or may hereafter be designated as places of purchase, and
such products so destined shall not be liable to detention, seizure, or for-
feiture while in transitu or in store awaiting transportation.
III. Any person having the certificate of a purchasing agent, as pre-
scribed by Treasury Regulations, VIII, is authorized to pass, with the
necessary means of transportation, to the points named in said certificate,
and to return therefrom with the products required for the fulfillment of
the stipulations set forth in said certificate.
IV. Any person having sold and delivered to a purchasing agent any
products of an insurrectionary State in accordance with the regulations
in relation thereto, and having in his possession a certificate setting forth
the fact of such purchase and sale, the character and quantity of prod-
ucts, and the aggregate amount paid therefor, as prescribed by Regula-
tion IX, shall be permitted by the military authority commanding at the
place of sale to purchase from any authorized dealer at such place, or
any other place in a loyal State, merchandise and other articles not con-
traband of war nor prohibited by the order of the War Department, nor
coin, bullion, or foreign exchange, to an amount not exceeding in value
one-third of the aggregate value of the products sold by him, as certified
by the agent purchasing; and the merchandise and other articles so pur-
chased may be transported by the same route and to the same place from
and by which the products sold and delivered reached the purchasing
agent, as set forth in the certificate; and such merchandise and other
articles shall have safe conduct, and shall not be subject to detention,
seizure, or forfeiture while being transported to the places and by the
route set forth in the said certificate.
AOraham Lincoln 241
V. Generals commanding military districts and commandants of mili-
tary posts and detachments, and officers commanding fleets, flotillas, and
gunboats, will give safe conduct to persons and products, merchandise,
and other articles duly authorized as aforesaid, and not contraband of war
or prohibited by order of the War Department, or the orders of such gen-
erals commanding, or other duly authorized military or naval officer, made
in pursuance thereof; and all persons hindering or preventing such safe
conduct of persons or property will be deemed guilty of a military offense
and punished accordingly.
VI. Any person transporting or attempting to transport any merchan-
dise or other articles, except in pursuance of regulations of the Secretary
of the Treasury dated July 29, 1864, or in pursuance of this order, or trans-
porting or attempting to transport any merchandise or other articles con-
traband of war or forbidden by any order of the War Department, will
be deemed guilty of a military offense and punished accordingly; and all
products of insurrectionary States found ^>^ trajisitu to any other person
or place than a purchasing agent and a designated place of purchase shall
be seized and forfeited to the United States, except such as may be mov-
ing to a loyal State under duly authorized permits of a proper officer of
the Treasury Department, as prescribed by Regulation XXXVIII, con-
cerning "commercial intercourse," dated July 29, 1864, or such as may
have been found abandoned or have been captured and are moving in
pursuance of the act of March 12, 1863.
VII. No militarj^ or naval officer of the United States, or person in the
military or naval service, nor any civil officer, except such as are appointed
for that purpose, shall engage in trade or traffic in the products of in-
surrectionary States, or furnish transportation therefor, under pain of
being deemed guilty of unlawful trading with the enemy and punished
accordingly.
VIII. The Secretary of War will make such general orders or regula-
tions as will insure the proper observance and execution of this order,
and the Secretary of the Navy will give instructions to officers command-
ing fleets, flotillas, and gunboats in conformity therewith.
ABRAHAM lylNCOI^N.
KxKCuTivs Mansion,
Washington^ October z, 1864..
Speciai, ExKCuTivK ORD:eR Rk'Turning Thanks to the VoIvUN-
TKKRS FOR One Hundred Days from the States of Indiana,
Ii.i,iNois, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
The term of one hundred days for which volunteers from the States
of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin volunteered, under the call of
their respective governors, in the months of May and June, to aid in the
M P— vol, VI — 16
242 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
campaign of General Sherman, having expired, the President directs an
official acknowledgment to be made of their patriotic service. It was
their good fortune to render efficient service in the brilliant operations
in the Southwest and to contribute to the victories of the national arms
over the rebel forces in Georgia under command of Johnston and Hood.
On all occasions and in every service to which they were assigned their
duty as patriotic volunteers was performed with alacrity and courage,
for which they are entitled to and are hereby tendered the national
thanks through the governors of their respective States.
The Secretary of War is directed to transmit a copy of this order to
the governors of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin and to cause a
certificate of their honorable service to be delivered to the officers and
soldiers of the States above named who recently served in the military
force of the United States as volunteers for one hundred days.
A. LINCOLN.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, October 12, 186^.
The Japanese Government having caused the construction at New
York of a vessel of war called the Fusigama, and application having
been made for the clearance of the same, in order that it may proceed to
Japan, it is ordered, in view of the state of affairs in that country ^nd of
its relation with the United States, that a compliance with the applica-
tion be for the present suspended. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
General Orders, No. 282.
War Department,
Adjutant-General's Office,
Washington, November 14., 186^.
Ordered by the President, I. That the resignation of George B. Mc-
Clellan as major-general in the United States Army, dated November 8
and received by the Adjutant- General on the loth instant, be accepted
as of the 8th of November.
II. That for the personal gallantry, military skill, and just confidence
in the courage and patriotism of his troops displayed by Philip H. Sheridan
on the 19th day of October at Cedar Run, whereby, under the blessing of
Providence, his routed army was reorganized, a great national disaster
averted, and a brilliant victory achieved over the rebels for the third time
in pitched battle within thirty days, Philip H. Sheridan is appointed*
major-general in the United States Army, to rank as such from the 8th
day of November, 1864.
By order of the President of the United States:
E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant- General.
Abraham Lincoln
243
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington^ December j, 186^.
A war steamer, called the Funayma Solace, having been built in this
country for the Japanese Government and at the instance of that Govern-
ment, it is deemed to comport with the public interest, in view of the
unsettled condition of the relations of the United States with that Empire,
that the steamer should not be allowed to proceed to Japan. If, however,
the Secretary of the Navy should ascertain that the steamer is adapted to
our service, he is authorized to purchase her, but the purchase money will
be held in trust toward satisfying any valid claims which may be presented
by the Japanese on account of the construction of the steamer and the
failure to deliver the same, as above set forth.
ABRAHAM UNCOLN.
FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.
Deckmbbr 6, 1864.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate a7id House of Representatives:
Again the blessings of health and abundant harvests claim our pro-
foundest gratitude to Almighty God.
The condition of our foreign affairs is reasonably satisfactory.
Mexico continues to be a theater of civil war. While our political re-
lations with that country have undergone no change, we have at the same
time strictly maintained neutrality between the belligerents.
At the request of the States of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, a competent
engineer has been authorized to make a survey of the river San Juan and
the port of San Juan. It is a source of much satisfaction that the diffi-
culties which for a moment excited some political apprehensions and
caused a closing of the interoceanic transit route have been amicably
adjusted, and that there is a good prospect that the route will soon be
reopened with an increase of capacity and adaptation. We could not
exaggerate either the commercial or the political importance of that great
improvement.
It would be doing injustice to an important South American State not
to acknowledge the directness, frankness, and cordiality with which the
United States of Colombia have entered into intimate relations with this
Government. A claims convention has been constituted to complete the
unfinished work of the one which closed its session in 1861.
^^^ The new hberal constitution of Venezuela having gone into effect with
^^■le universal acquiescence of the people, the Government under it has
244 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
and friendly spirit. The long-deferred Aves Island claim has been satis-
factorily paid and discharged.
Mutual payments have been made of the claims awarded by the late
joint commission for the settlement of claims between the United States
and Peru. An earnest and cordial friendship continues to exist between
the two countries, and such efforts as were in my power have been used
to remove misunderstanding and avert a threatened war between Peru
and Spain.
Our relations are of the most friendly nature with Chile, the Argen-
tine Republic, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, San Salvador, and Hayti.
During the past year no differences of any kind have arisen with any
of those Republics, and, on the other hand, their sympathies with the
United States are constantly expressed with cordiality and earnestness.
The claim arising from the seizure of the cargo of the brig Macedonian
in 182 1 has been paid in full by the Government of Chile.
Civil war continues in the Spanish part of San Domingo, apparently
without prospect of an early close.
Official correspondence has been freely opened with Liberia, and it
gives us a pleasing view of social and political progress in that Repub-
lic. It may be expected to derive new vigor from American influence,
improved by the rapid disappearance of slavery in the United States.
I solicit your authority to furnish to the Republic a gunboat at mod-
erate cost, to be reimbursed to the United States by installments. * Such
a vessel is needed for the safety of that State against the native African
races, and in Siberian hands it would be more effective in arresting the
African slave trade than a squadron in our own hands. The possession
of the least organized naval force would stimulate a generous ambition in
the Republic, and the confidence which we should manifest by furnishing
it would win forbearance and favor toward the colony from all civilized
nations.
The proposed overland telegraph between America and Europe, by the
way of Behrings Straits and Asiatic Russia, which was sanctioned by
Congress at the last session, has been undertaken, under very favorable
circumstances, by an association of American citizens, with the cordial
good will and support as well of this Government as of those of Great
Britain and Russia. Assurances have been received from most of the
South American States of their high appreciation of the enterprise and
their readiness to cooperate in constructing lines tributary to that world-
encircling communication. I learn with much satisfaction that the noble
design of a telegraphic communication between the eastern coast of
America and Great Britain has been renewed, with full expectation
of its early accomplishment.
Thus it is hoped that with the return of domestic peace the country
will be able to resume with energy and advantage its former high career
of commerce and civilization.
Abraham Lincoln 245
Our very popular and estimable representative in Egypt died in April
last. An unpleasant altercation which arose between the temporary in-
cumbent of the office and the Government of the Pasha resulted in a sus-
pension of intercourse. The evil was promptly corrected on the arrival
of the successor in the consulate, and our relations with Egypt, as well
as our relations with the Barbary Powers, are entirely satisfactory.
The rebellion which has so long been flagrant in China has at last been
suppressed, with the cooperating good offices of this Government and of
the other Western commercial States. The judicial consular establish-
ment there has become very difficult and onerous, and it will need legisla-
tive revision to adapt it to the extension of our commerce and to the
more intimate intercourse which has been instituted with the Govern-
ment and people of that vast Empire. China seems to be accepting with
hearty good will the conventional laws which regulate commercial and
social intercourse among the Western nations.
Owing to the peculiar situation of Japan and the anomalous form of
its Government, the action of that Empire in performing treaty stipula-
tions is inconstant and capricious. Nevertheless, good progress has been
effected by the Western powers, moving with enlightened concert. Our
own pecuniary claims have been allowed or put in course of settlement,
and the inland sea has been reopened to commerce. There is reason also
to believe that these proceedings have increased rather than diminished
the friendship of Japan toward the United States.
The ports of Norfolk, Fernandina, and Pensacola have been opened by
proclamation. It is hoped that foreign merchants will now consider
whether it is not safer and more profitable to themselves, as well as just
to the United States, to resort to these and other open ports than it is to
pursue, through many hazards and at vast cost, a contraband trade with
other ports which are closed, if not by actual military occupation, at least
by a lawful and effective blockade.
For myself, I have no doubt of the power and duty of the Executive,
under the law of nations, to exclude enemies of the human race from an
asylum in the United States. If Congress should think that proceedings
in such cases lack the authority of law, or ought to be further regulated
by it, I recommend that provision be made for effectually preventing for-
eign slave traders from acquiring domicile and facilities for their criminal
occupation in our country.
It is possible that if it were a new and open question the maritime pow-
ers, with the lights they now enjoy, would not concede the privileges of a
naval belligerent to the insurgents of the United States, destitute, as they
are, and always have been, equally of ships of war and of ports and har-
bors. Disloyal emissaries have been neither less assiduous nor more
successful during the last year than they were before that time in their
efforts, under favor of that privilege, to embroil our country in foreign
wars. The desire and determination of the governments of the maritime
f
246 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
\
states to defeat that design are believed to be as sincere as and can not be
more earnest than our own. Nevertheless, unforeseen political difficul-
ties have arisen, especially in Brazilian and British ports and on the north-
em boundary of the United States, which have required, and are likely to
continue to require, the practice of constant vigilance and a just and con-
ciliatory spirit on the part of the United States, as well as of the nations
concerned and their governments.
Commissioners have been appointed under the treaty with Great Brit-
ain on the adjustment of the claims of the Hudsons Bay and Pugets SoUnd
Agricultural Companies, in Oregon, and are now proceeding to the exe-
cution of the trust assigned to them.
In view of the insecurity of life and property in the region adjacent to
the Canadian border, by reason of recent assaults and depredations com-
mitted by inimical and desperate persons who are harbored there, it has
been thought proper to give notice that after the expiration of six
months, the period conditionally stipulated in the existing arrangement
with Great Britain, the United States must hold themselves at liberty to
increase their naval armament upon the Lakes if they shall find that
proceeding necessary. The condition of the border will necessarily come
into consideration in connection with the question of continuing or modi-
fying the rights of transit from Canada through the United States, as
well as the regulation of imposts, which were temporarily established by
the reciprocity treaty of the 5th June, 1854.
I desire, however, to be understood while making this statement that
the colonial authorities of Canada are not deemed to be intentionally
unjust or unfriendly toward the United States, but, on the contrary, there
is every reason to expect that, with the approval of the Imperial Govern-
ment, they will take the necessary measures to prevent new incursions
across the border.
The act passed at the last session for the encouragement of immigra-
tion has so far as was possible been put into operation. It seems to need
amendment which will enable the officers of the Government to prevent
the practice of frauds against the immigrants while on their way and on
their arrival in the ports, so as to secure them here a free choice of avo-
cations and places of settlement. A liberal disposition toward this great
national policy is manifested by most of the European States, and ought
to be reciprocated on our part by giving the immigrants effective national
protection. I regard our immigrants as one of the principal replenishing
streams which are appointed by Providence to repair the ravages of
internal war and its wastes of national strength and health. All that is
necessary is to secure the flow of that stream in its present fullness, and
to that end the Government must in every way make it manifest that it
neither needs nor designs to impose involuntary military service upon
those who come from other lands to cast their lot in our country.
The financial affairs of the Government have been successfully admin-
Abraham Lincoln 247
istered during the last year. The legislation of the last session of Con-
gress has beneficially affected the revenues, although sufficient time has
not yet elapsed to experience the full effect of several of the provisions
of the acts of Congress imposing increased taxation.
The receipts during the year from all sources, upon the basis of war-
rants signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, including loans and the bal-
ance in the Treasury on the ist day of July, 1863, were $1,394,796,007.62,
and the aggregate disbursements, upon the same basis, were $1,298,056,-
101.89, leaving a balance in the Treasury, as shown by warrants, of
$96, 739,905- 73.
Deduct from these amounts the amount of the principal of the public
debt redeemed and the amount of issues in substitution therefor, and the
actual cash operations of the Treasury were: Receipts, $884,076,646.57;
disbursements, $865,234,087.86; which leaves a cash balance in the
Treasury of $18,842,558.71.
Of the receipts there were derived from customs $102,316,152.99, from
lands $588,333.29, from direct taxes $475,648.96, from internal revenue
$109,741,134.10, from miscellaneous sources $47,511,448.10, and from
loans applied to actual expenditures, including former balance, $623,-
443,929- 13-
There were disbursed for the civil service $27,505,599.46, for pensions
and Indians $7,517,930.97, for the War Department $690,791,842.97, for
the Navy Department $85,733,292.77, for interest on the public debt
$53,685,421.69, making an aggregate of $865,234,087.86 and leaving a
balance in the Treasury of $18,842,558.71, as before stated.
For the actual receipts and disbursements for the first quarter and the
estimated receipts and disbursements for the three remaining quarters of
the current fiscal year, and the general operations of the Treasury in
detail, I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury. I
concur with him in the opinion that the proportion of moneys required
to meet the expenses consequent upon the war derived from taxation
should be still further increased; and I earnestly invite your attention to
this subject, to the end that there may be such additional legislation as
shall be required to meet the just expectations of the Secretary.
The public debt on the ist day of July last, as appears by the books
of the Treasury, amounted to $1,740,690,489.49. Probably, should the
war continue for another year, that amount may be increased by not far
from five hundred millions. Held, as it is, for the most part by our own
people, it has become a substantial branch of national, though private,
property. For obvious reasons the more nearly this property can be
distributed among all the people the better. To favor such general dis-
tribution, greater inducements to become owners might, perhaps, with
good effect and without injury be presented to persons of limited means.
With this view I suggest whether it might not be both competent and
expedient for Congress to provide that a limited amount of some future
248 Messages and Papers of the Presidents ' \
issue of public securities might be held by any bo7ia fide purchaser ex-
empt from taxation and from seizure for debt, under such restrictions
and limitations as might be necessary to guard against abuse of so impor-
tant a privilege. This would enable every prudent person to set aside a
small annuity against a possible day of want.
Privileges like these would render the possession of such securities to
the amount limited most desirable to every person of small means who
might be able to save enough for the purpose. The great advantage of
citizens being creditors as well as debtors with relation to the pubHc debt
is obvious. Men readily perceive that they can not be much oppressed
by a debt which they owe to themselves.
The public debt on the ist day of July last, although somewhat
exceeding the estimate of the Secretary of the Treasury made to Con-
gress at the commencement of the last session, falls short of the esti-
mate of that officer made in the preceding December as to its probable
amount at the beginning of this year by the sum of $3,995,097.31. This
fact exhibits a satisfactory condition and conduct of the operations of
the Treasury.
The national banking system is proving to be acceptable to capitalists
and to the people. On the 25th day of November 584 national banks
had been organized, a considerable number of which were conversions
from State banks. Changes from State systems to the national system
are rapidly taking place, and it is hoped that very soon there will be in
the United States no banks of issue not authorized by Congress and no
bank-note circulation not secured by the Government. That the Gov-
ernment and the people will derive great benefit from this change in the
banking systems of the country can hardly be questioned. The national
system will create a reliable and permanent influence in support of the
national credit and protect the people against losses in the use of paper
money. Whether or not any further legislation is advisable for the sup-
pression of State-bank issues it will be for Congress to determine. It
seems quite clear that the Treasury can not be satisfactorily conducted
unless the Government can exercise a restraining power over the bank-
note circulation of the country.
The report of the Secretary of War and the accompanying documents
will detail the campaigns of the armies in the field since the date of the
last annual message, and also the operations of the several administrative
bureaus of the War Department during the last year. It will also specify
the measures deemed essential for the national defense and to keep up
and supply the requisite military force.
The report of the Secretary of the Navy presents a comprehensive and
satisfactory exhibit of the affairs of that Department and of the naval
service. It is a subject of congratulation and laudable pride to our
countrymen that a Navy of such vast proportions has been organized in
so brief a period and conducted with so much efficiency and success.
Abraham Liitcoln
249
The general exhibit of the Navy, including vessels under construction
on the ist of December, 1864, shows a total of 671 vessels, carrying 4,610
guns, and of 510,396 tons, being an actual increase during the year, over
and above all losses by shipwreck or in battle, of 83 vessels, 167 guns, and
42,427 tons.
The total number of men at this time in the naval service, including
officers, is about 51,000.
There have been captured by the Navy during the year 324 veSvSels,
and the whole number of naval captures since hostilities commenced is
1,379, of which 267 are steamers.
The gross proceeds arising from the sale of condemned prize property
thus far reported amount to $14,396,250.51. A large amount of such
proceeds is still under adjudication and yet to be reported.
The total expenditure of the Navy Department of every description,
including the cost of the immense squadrons that have been called into
existence from the 4th of March, 1861, to the ist of November, 1864,
is $238,647,262.35.
Your favorable consideration is invited to the various recommenda-
tions of the Secretary of the Navy, especially in regard to a navy-yard
and suitable establishment for the construction and repair of iron ves-
sels and the machinery and armature for our ships, to which reference
was made in my last annual message.
Your attention is also invited to the views expressed in the report in
relation to the legislation of Congress at its last session in respect to prize
on our inland waters.
I cordially concur in the recommendation of the Secretary as to the
propriety of creating the new rank of vice-admiral in our naval service.
Your attention is invited to the report of the Postmaster- General for
a detailed account of the operations and financial condition of the Post-
Office Department.
The postal revenues for the year ending June 30, 1864, amounted to
$12,438,253.78 and the expenditures to $12,644,786.20, the excess of
expenditures over receipts being $206,652.42.
The views presented by the Postmaster- General on the subject of spe-
cial grants by the Government in aid of the establishment of new lines
of ocean mail steamships and the policy he recommends for the develop-
ment of increased commercial intercourse with adjacent and neighboring
countries should receive the careful consideration of Congress.
It is of noteworthy interest that the steady expansion of population,
improvement, and governmental institutions over the new and unoccu-
pied portions of our country have scarcely been checked, much less im-
peded or destroyed, by our great civil war, which at first glance would
seem to have absorbed almost the entire energies of the nation.
The organization and admission of the State of Nevada has been com-
pleted in conformity with law, and thus our excellent system is firmly
250 Messages mid Papers of the Presidents
established in the mountains, which once seemed a barren and uninhab-
itable waste between the Atlantic States and those which have grown up
on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.
. The Territories of the Union are generally in a condition of prosperity
and rapid growth. Idaho and Montana, by reason of their great distance
and the interruption of communication with them by Indian hostilities,
have been only partially organized; but it is understood that these diffi-
culties are about to disappear, which will permit their governments, like
those of the others, to go into speedy and full operation.
As intimately connected with and promotive of this material growth
of the nation, I ask the attention of Congress to the valuable information
and important recommendations relating to the public lands, Indian
affairs, the Pacific Railroad, and mineral discoveries contained in the
report of the Secretary of the Interior which is herewith transmitted,
and which report also embraces the subjects of patents, pensions, and
other topics of public interest pertaining to his Department.
The quantity of public land disposed of during the five quarters ending
on the 30th of September last was 4,221,342 acres, of which 1,538,614
acres were entered under the homestead law. The remainder was located
with military land warrants, agricultural scrip certified to States for rail-
roads, and sold for cash. The cash received from sales and location fees
was $1,019,446.
The income from sales during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864,
was $678,007.21, against $136,077.95 received during the preceding year.
The aggregate number of acres surveyed during the year has been
equal to the quantity disposed of, and there is open to settlement about
133,000,000 acres of surveyed land.
The great enterprise of connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific States
by railways and telegraph lines has been entered upon with a vigor that
gives assurance of success, notwithstanding the embarrassments arising
from the prevailing high prices of materials and labor. The route of the
main line of the road has been definitely located for 100. miles westward
from the initial point at Omaha City, Nebr., and a preliminary location
of the Pacific Railroad of California has been made from Sacramento
eastward to the great bend of the Truckee River in Nevada.
Numerous discoveries of gold, silver, and cinnabar mines have been
added to the many heretofore known, and the country occupied by the
Sierra Nevada and Rocky mountains and the subordinate ranges now
teems with enterprising labor, which is richly remunerative. It is be-
lieved that the product of the mines of precious metals in that region has
during the year reached, if not exceeded, one hundred millions in value.
It was recommended in my last annual message that our Indian sys-
tem be remodeled. Congress at its last session, acting upon the recom-
mendation, did provide for reorganizing the system in California, and
it is believed that under the present organization the management of
Abraham Lincoln 251
the Indians there will be attended with reasonable success. Much yet
remains to be done to provide for the proper government of the Indians
in other parts of the country, to render it secure for the advancing set-
tler, and to provide for the welfare of the Indian. The Secretary re-
iterates his recommendations, and to them the attention of Congress is
invited.
The liberal provisions made by Congress for paying pensions to inva-
lid soldiers and sailors of the Republic and to the widows, orphans, and
dependent mothers of those who have fallen in battle or died of disease
contracted or of wounds received in the service of their country have been
diligently administered. There have been added to the pension rolls dur-
ing the year ending the 30th day of June last the names of 16,770 invalid
soldiers and of 271 disabled seamen, making the present number of army
invalid pensioners 22,767 and of navy invalid pensioners 712.
Of widows, orphans, and mothers 22,198 have been placed on the
army pension rolls and 248 on the navy rolls. The present number
of army pensioners of this class is 25,433 ^^<i of navy pensioners 793.
At the beginning of the year the number of Revolutionary pensioners
was 1,430. Only 12 of them were soldiers, of whom 7 have since died.
The remainder are those who under the law receive pensions because of
relationship to Revolutionary soldiers. During the year ending the 30th
of June, 1864, $4,504,616.92 have been paid to pensioners of all classes.
I cheerfully commend to your continued patronage the benevolent insti-
tutions of the District of Columbia which have hitherto been established
or fostered by Congress, and respectfully refer for information concerning
them and in relation to the Washington Aqueduct, the Capitol, and other
matters of local interest to the report of the Secretary.
The Agricultural Department, under the supervision of its present ener-
getic and faithful head, is rapidly commending itself to the great and
vital interest it was created to advance It is peculiarly the people's
Department, in which they feel more directly concerned than in any other.
I commend it to the continued attention and fostering care of Congress.
The war continues. Since the last annual message all the important
lines and positions then occupied by our forces have been maintained and
our arms have steadily advanced, thus liberating the regions left in rear,
so that Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of other States have
again produced reasonably fair crops.
The most remarkable feature in the military operations of the year
is General Sherman's attempted march of 300 miles directly through
the insurgent region. It tends to show a great increase of our relative
strength that our General in Chief should feel able to confront and hold
in check every active force of the enemy, and yet to detach a well-
appointed large army to move on such an expedition. The result not
yet being known, conjecture in regard to it is not here indulged.
Important movements have also occurred during the year to the effect
252 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of molding societ}^ for durability in the Union. Although short of com-
plete success, it is much in the right direction that 12,000 citizens in each
of the States of Arkansas and Louisiana have organized loyal State gov-
ernments, with free constitutions, and are earnestly struggling to maintain
and administer them. The movements in the same direction, more exten-
sive though less definite, in Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee should
not be overlooked. But Maryland presents the example of complete suc-
cess. Maryland is secure to liberty and union for all the future. The
genius of rebellion will no more claim Marjdand. Like another foul
spirit being driven out, it may seek to tear her, but it will woo her no
more.
At the last session of Congress a proposed amendment of the Constitu-
tion abolishing slavery throughout the United States passed the Senate,
but failed for lack of the requisite two-thirds vote in the House of Repre-
sentatives. Although the present is the same Congress and nearly the
same members, and without questioning the wisdom or patriotism of those
who stood in opposition, I venture to recommend the reconsideration and
passage of the measure at the present session. Of course the abstract
question is not changed; but an intervening election shows almost cer-
tainly that the next Congress will pass the measure if this does not.
Hence there is only a question of time as to when the proposed amendment
will go to the States for their action. And as it is to so go at all events,
may we not agree that the sooner the better? It is not claimed that the
election has imposed a duty on members to change their views or their
votes any further than, as an additional element to be considered, their
judgment may be affected by it. It is the voice of the people now for the
first time heard upon the question. In a great national crisis like ours
unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable —
almost indispensable. And yet no approach to such unanimity is attain-
able unless some deference shall be paid to the will of the majority simply
because it is the will of the majorit^^ In this case the common end is
the maintenance of the Union, and among the means to secure that end
such wall, through the election, is most clearly declared in favor of such
constitutional amendment.
The most reliable indication of public purpose in this country is derived
through our popular elections. Judging by the recent canvass and its
result, the purpose of the people within the loyal States to maintain
the integrity of the Union was never more firm nor more nearly unani-
mous than now. The extraordinary calmness and good order with
which the millions of voters met and mingled at the polls give strong
assurance of this. Not only all those who supported the Union ticket,
so called, but a great majority of the opposing party also may be fairly
claimed to entertain and to be actuated by the same purpose. It is an
unanswerable argument to this effect that no candidate for any office
whatever, high or low, has ventured to seek votes on the avowal that
Abraham Lincoln
253
he was for giving up the Union. There have been much impugning of
motives and much heated controversy as to the proper means and best
mode of advancing the Union cause, but on the distinct issue of Union
or no Union the poHticians have shown their instinctive knowledge
that there is no diversity among the people. In affording the people the
fair opportunity of showing one to another and to the world this firmness
and unanimity of purpose, the election has been of vast value to the
national cause.
The election has exhibited another fact not less valuable to be known — -
the fact that we do not approach exhaustion in the most important
branch of national resources, that of living men. While it is melan-
choly to reflect that the war has filled so many graves and carried mourn-
ing to so many hearts, it is some relief to know that, compared with the
surviving, the fallen have been so few. While corps and divisions and
brigades and regiments have formed and fought and dwindled and gone
out of existence, a great majority of the men who composed them are still
living. The same is true of the naval service. The election returns
prove this. So many voters could not else be found. The States reg-
ularly holding elections, both now and four years ago, to wit, California,
Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Mary-
land, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ver-
mont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, cast 3,982,011 votes now, against
3,870,222 cast then, showing an aggregate now of 3,982,01 1. To this is to
be added 33,762 cast now in the new States of Kansas and Nevada, which
States did not vote in i860, thus swelling the aggregate to 4,015,773
and the net increase during the three years and a half of war to 145,551.
A table is appended showing particulars. To this again should be added
the number of all soldiers in the field from Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
New Jersey, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, and California, who by the laws
of those States could not vote away from their homes, and which number
can not be less than 90,000. Nor yet is this all. The number in organ-
ized Territories is triple now what it was four years ago, while thousands,
white and black, join us as the national arms press back the insurgent
Hnes. So much is shown, affirmatively and negatively, by the election.
It is not material to inquire how the increase has been .produced or to
vShow that it would have been greater but for the war, which is probably
true. The important fact remains demonstrated that we have more men
now than we had when the war began; that we are not exhausted nor in
process of exhaustion; that we 3x0^ gaining strength and may if need be
maintain the contest indefinitely. This as to men. Material resources
are now more complete and abundant than ever.
The national resources, then, are unexhausted, and, as we believe, in-
exhaustible. The public purpose to reestablish and maintain the national
authority is unchanged, and, as we believe, unchangeable. The manner
254 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of continuing the effort remains to choose. On careful consideration of
air the evidence accessible it seems to me that no attempt at negotiation
with the insurgent leader could result in any good. He would accept
nothing short of severance of the Union, precisely what we will not and
can not give. His declarations to this effect are explicit and oft repeated.
He does not attempt to deceive us. He affords us no excuse to deceive
ourselves. He can not voluntarily reaccept the Union; we can not vol-
untarily yield it. Between him and us the issue is distinct, simple, and
inflexible. It is an issue which can only be tried by war and decided
by victory. If we yield, we are beaten; if the Southern people fail him,
he is beaten. Either way it would be the victory and defeat following
war. What is true, however, of him who heads the insurgent cause is
not necessarily true of those who follow. Although he can not reac-
cept the Union, they can. Some of them, we know, already desire peace
and reunion. The number of such may increase. They can at any
moment have peace simply by laying down their arms and submitting
to the national authority under the Constitution. After so "much the
Government could not, if it would, maintain war against them. The
loyal people would not sustain or allow it. If questions should remain,
we would adjust them by the peaceful means of legislation, conference,
courts, and votes, operating only in constitutional and lawful channels.
Some certain, and other possible, questions are and would be beyond the
Executive power to adjust; as, for instance, the admission of members
into Congress and whatever might require the appropriation of money.
The Executive power itself would be greatly diminished by the cessation
of actual war. Pardons and remissions of forfeitures, however, would
still be within Executive control. In what spirit and temper this con-
trol would be exercised can be fairly judged of by the past.
A year ago general pardon and amnesty, upon specified terms, were
offered, to all except certain designated classes, and it was at the same
time made known that the excepted classes were still within contempla-
tion of special clemency. During the year many availed themselves of
the general provision, and many more would, only that the signs of bad
faith in some led to such precautionary measures as rendered the practical
process less easy and certain. During the same time also special pardons
have been granted to individuals of the excepted classes, and no volun-
tary application has been denied. Thus practically the door has been for
a full year open to all except such as were not in condition to make free
choice; that is, such as were in custody or under constraint. It is still
so open to all. But the time may come, probably will come, when public
duty shall demand that it be closed and that in lieu more rigorous meas-
ures than heretofore shall be adopted.
In presenting the abandonment of armed resistance to the national
authority on the part of the insurgents as the only indispensable condi-
tion to ending the war on the part of the Government, I retract nothing
Abraham Lincoln
255
heretofore said as to slavery. I repeat the declaration made a year ago,
that ' ' while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract
or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery
any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation or by any of the
acts of Congress." If the people should, by whatever mode or means,
make it an Executive duty to reenslave such persons, another, and not I,
must be their instrument to perform it.
In stating a single condition of peace I mean simply to say that the war
will cease on the part of the Government whenever it shall have ceased
on the part of those who began it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Table showing the aggregate votes in the States named, at the Presidential elections^
respectively, in i860 and 1864.
California
Connecticut
Delaware
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts. . .
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Ohio
Oregon
Pennsylvania . . .
Rhode Island. . .
Vermont
West Virginia . . .
Wisconsin .......
Kansas .
Nevada .
Total
Net increase
i860.
118,840
77, 246
16, 039
339, 693
272, 143
128, 331
146, 216
97,918
92, 502
169, 533
154, 747
34,799
165,538
65, 953
121, 125
675, 156
442,441
14, 410
476, 442
19, 931
42,844
46, 195
152, 180
3, 870, 222
1864.
* no, 000
86,616
16,924
348, 235
280, 645
143, 331
♦91,300
"5, 141
72, 703
175, 487
162, 413
42,53*
*90, 000
69, III
128, 680
730, 664
470, 745
1 14, 410
572,697
22, 187
55,811
33, 874
148, 513
3,982,011
17,234
16, 528
33, 762
3,982,011
4, 015, 773
3, 870, 222
145, 551
* Nearly.
t £)stimated.
256 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington City, December 5, 1864..
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
In conformity to the law of July 16, 1862, 1 most cordially recommend
that Captain John A. Winslow, United States Navy, receive a vote of
thanks from Congress for the skill and gallantry exhibited by him in
the brilliant action, while in command of the United States steamer
Kearsarge, which led to the total destruction of the piratical craft Ala-
bama on the 19th of June, 1864 — a vessel superior in tonnage, superior
in number of guns, and superior in number of crew.
This recommendation is specially made in order to comply with the
requirements of the ninth section of the aforesaid act, which is in the
following words, namely:
That any line officer of the Navy or Marine Corps may be advanced one grade if
upon recommendation of the President by name he receives the thanks of Congress
for highly distinguished conduct in conflict with the enemy or for extraordinary
heroism in the Hue of his profession.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington City, December 5, 1864..
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
In conformity to the law of July 16, 1862, 1 most cordially recommend
that Lieutenant William B. Cushing, United States Navy, receive a vote
of thanks from Congress for his important, gallant, and perilous achieve-
ment in destroying the rebel ironclad steamer Albemarle on the night
of the 27th of October, 1864, at Plymouth, N. C.
The destruction of so formidable a vessel, which had resisted the
continued attacks of a number of our vessels on former occasions, is an
important event touching our future naval and military operations, and
would reflect honor on any officer, and redounds to the credit of this
young officer and the few brave comrades who assisted in this successful
and daring undertaking.
This recommendation is specially made in order to comply with the
requirements of the ninth section of the aforesaid act, which is in the
following words, namely :
That any line officer of the Navy or Marine Corps may be advanced one grade if
upon recommendation of the President by name he receives the thanks of Congress
for highly distinguished conduct in conflict with the enemy or for extraordinary
heroism in the line of his profession.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
Abraham Lincoln 257
Washington City, December 5, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
By virtue of the authority contained in the sixth section of the act of
2ist April, 1864, which enacts "that any officer in the naval service, by
and with the advice and consent of the Senate, may be advanced not
exceeding thirty numbers in his own grade for distinguished conduct in
battle or extraordinary heroism," I recommend Commander William H.
Macomb, United States Navy, for advancement in his grade ten num-
bers, to take rank next after Commander William Ronckendorff, for dis-
tinguished conduct in the capture of the town of Plymouth, N. C. , with
its batteries, ordnance stores, etc., on the 31st October, 1864, by a por-
tion of the naval division under his command. The affair was executed
in a most creditable manner. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
Washington City, December 5, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
By virtue of the authority contained in the sixth section of the act
of 2ist April, 1864, which enacts " that any officer in the naval service,
by and^ with the advice and consent of the Senate, may be advanced
not exceeding thirty numbers in his own grade for distinguished con-
duct in battle or extraordinary heroism, ' ' I recommend Lieutenant- Com-
mander James S. Thornton, United States Navy, the executive officer of
the United States steamer Kearsarge, for advancement in his grade ten
numbers, to take rank next after Lieutenant-Commander William D.
Whiting, for his good conduct and faithful discharge of his duties in the
brilliant action with the rebel steamer Alabama, which led to the destruc-
tion of that vessel on the 19th June, 1864.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December 7, 1864.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the Senate's resolution of yesterday, requesting informa-
tion in regard to aid furnished to the rebellion by British subjects, I
transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the documents by which
it was accompanied. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, December ij, 1864..
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification,
"a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation between the United
States of America and the Republic of Honduras, ' ' signed by their respec-
tive plenipotentiaries at Comayagua on the 4th of July (1864) last.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
M P — voi, VI — 17
258 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, December zj, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification,
*' a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, and for the extradition of
fugitive criminals, between the United States of America and the Republic
of Hayti, signed by their respective plenipotentiaries at Port au Prince on
the 3d of November ' ' last.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, fanuary 7, 1863.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of two treaties between the United States
and Belgium, for the extinguishment of the Scheldt dues, etc., concluded
on the 20th of May, 1863, and 20th of July, 1863, respectively, the ratifi-
cations of which were exchanged at Brussels on the 24th of June last; and
I recommend an appropriation to carry into effect the provisions thereof
relative to the payment of the proportion of the United States toward the
capitalization of the said dues,
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Hon. SCHUYi.BR Colfax, Washinston, January 9, 1863.
Speaker House of Representatives.
Sir : I transmit herewith the letter of the Secretary of War, with accom-
panying report of the Adjutant- General, in reply to the resolution of the
House of Representatives dated December 7, 1864, requesting me *'to
communicate to the House the report made by Colonel Thomas M. Key
of an interview between himself and General Howell Cobb on the 14th
day of June, 1862, on the bank of the Chickahominy, on the subject of
the exchange of prisoners of war. ' '
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ABRAHAM WNCOIyN.
Washington, fanuary g, 1865.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 15th ultimo,
requesting information concerning an arrangement limiting the naval
armament on the Lakes, I transmit a report of this date from the Secre-
tary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Abraham Lmcoln 259
Executive) Mansion,
Washington, January 77, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded at the Isabella Indian Reservation, in the State of
Michigan, on the i8th day of October, 1864, between H. J. Alvord, spe-
cial commissioner, and D. C. Leach, United States Indian agent, acting
as commissioner on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and
headmen of the Chippewas of Saginaw, Swan Creek, and Black River,
in the State of Michigan, parties to the treaty of August 2, 1855, with
amendments.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 1 2th instant and a copy
of a communication of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 2 2d
ultimo, with inclostire, accompany the treaty.
ABRAHAM I^INCOIvN.
Hon. H. HAMI.IN, WASHINGTON, D. C, January 31. 1865.
President of the Senate:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of War, cover-
ing papers bearing on the arrest and imprisonment of Colonel Richard T.
Jacobs, heutenant-governor of the State of Kentucky, and Colonel Frank
Wolford, one of the Presidential electors of that State, requested by reso-
lution of the Senate dated December 20, 1864.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
Washington, February ^, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 13th ultimo,
requesting information upon the present condition of Mexico and the
case of the French war transport steamer Rhine, I transmit a report from
the Secretary of State and the papers by which it was accompanied.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, February 8, 1863.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a note of the 4th instant addressed by
J. Hume Burnley, esq.. Her Britannic Majesty's charge d'affaires, to the
Secretary of State, relative to a sword which it is proposed to present to
Captain Henry S. Stellwagen, commanding the United States frigate Con-
stitution, as a mark of gratitude for his services to the British brigantine
Mersey. The expediency of sanctioning the acceptance of the gift is
submitted to your consideration.
^^suumi
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
a6o Messages and Papers of the Presidents
ExBCUTivK Mansion, February 8, i86^.
To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives:
The joint resolution entitled * 'Joi^t resolution declaring certain States
not entitled to representation in the electoral college ' ' has been signed by
the Executive in deference to the view of Congress implied in its passage
and presentation to him. In his own view, however, the two Houses of
Congress, convened under the twelfth article of the Constitution, have
complete power to exclude from counting all electoral votes deemed by
them to be illegal, and it is not competent for the Executive to defeat or
obstruct that power by a veto, as would be the case if his action were at all
essential in the matter. He disclaims all right of the Executive to inter-
fere in any way in the matter of canvassing or counting electoral votes,
and he also disclaims that by signing said resolution he has expressed any
opinion on the recitals of the preamble or any judgment of his owp upon
the subject of the resolution. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, February lo, i86^.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 8th instant, request-
ing information concerning recent conversations or communications with
insurgents under Executive sanction, I transmit a report from the Sec-
retary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
ExKcuTivK Mansion, February lo, 1863.
To the Honorable the House of Representatives:
In response to your resolution of the 8th instant, requesting informa-
tion in relation to a conference recently held in Hampton Roads, I have
the honor to state that on the day of the date I gave Francis P. Blair, sr. ,
a card, written on as follows, to wit:
December 28, 1864.
Allow the bearer, F. P. Blair, sr., to pass our lines, go South, and return.
A. UNCOLN.
That at the time I was informed that Mr. Blair sought the card as a
means of getting to Richmond, Va. , but he was given no authority to
speak or act for the Government, nor was I informed of anything he
would say or do on his own account or otherwise. Afterwards Mr. Blair
told me that he had been to Richmond and had seen Mr. Jefferson Davis;
and he (Mr. B.) at the same time left with me a manuscript letter, as
follows, to wit:
F. P. B1.AIR, Esq. RICHMOND, Va., January 12, 1865.
Sir: I have deemed it proper, and probably desirable to you, to give you in this
form the substance of remarks made by me, to be repeated by you to President I^in-
coln. etc., etc.
Abraham Lincoln 261
I have no disposition to find obstacles in forms, and am willing, now as hereto-
fore, to enter into negotiations for the restoration of peace, and am ready to send a
commission whenever I have reason to suppose it will be received, or to receive a
commission if the United States Government shall choose to send one. That not-
withstanding the rejection of our former offers, I would, if you could promise that a
commissioner, minister, or other agent would be received, appoint one immediately,
and renew the effort to enter into conference with a view to secure peace to the
two countries.
Yours, etc., JEFFERSON DAVIS.
Afterwards, and with the view that it should be shown to Mr. Davis, I
wrote and delivered to Mr. Blair a letter, as follows, to wit:
F. P. B1.AIR, Esq. Washington, January 18, 1863.
Sir: Your having shown me Mr. Davis's letter to you of the 12th instant, you
may say to him that I have constantly been, am now, and shall continue ready to
receive any agent whom he or any other influential person now resisting the national
authority may informally send to me with the view of securing peace to the people
of our one common country.
Y<^^^' ^tc, ^ LINCOLN.
Afterwards Mr. Blair dictated for and authorized me to make an entry
on the back of my retained copy of the letter last above recited, which
entry is as follows:
January 28, 1865.
To-day Mr. Blair tells me that on the 21st instant he delivered to Mr. Davis the
original of which the within is a copy, and left it with him; that at the time of de-
livering it Mr. Davis read it over twice in Mr. Blair's presence, at the close of which
he (Mr. Blair) remarked that the part about "our one common country" related to
the part of Mr. Davis's letter about "the two countries," to which Mr. Davis replied
that he so understood it. . j TNCOT N
Afterwards the Secretary of War placed in my hands the following
telegram, indorsed by him, as appears:
Office United States Miwtary Tei*egraph,
War Department.
The following telegram received at Washington January 29, 1865, from headquar-
ters Army of James, 6.30 p. m., January 29, 1865:
"Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
''''Secretary of War:
"The following dispatch just received from Major-General Parke, who refers it to
me for my action. I refer it to you in Lieutenant-General Grant's absence.
"E. O. C. ORD, Major-General^ Commanding.'''*
'Headquarters Army oe Potomac,
'Major-General E. O. C. Ord, ^January 29, 1865-4 P- nt.
'Headquarters Army of James:
'The following dispatch is forwarded to you for your action. Since I have no
knowledge of General Grant's having had any understanding of this kind, I refer
the matter to you as the ranking officer present in the two armies.
'JNO. G. PARKE, Major-General, Commanding.^
262 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
' From Headquarters Ninth Army Corps, 2gth.
' Major-General Jno. G. Parke,
'■Headquarters Army of Potomac:
* Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter, and J. A. Campbell desire to cross my
lines, in accordance with, an understanding claimed to exist with Ivieutenant-Gen-
eral Grant, on their way to Washington as peace commissioners. Shall they be
admitted ? They desire an early answer, to come through immediately. Would like
to reach City Point to-night if they can. If they can not do this, they would like to
come through at 10 a. m. to-morrow morning. < q -d WILCOX
^Major-General, Commanding Ninth Corps.'
"January 29— 8.30 p. m.
* * Respectfully referred to the President for such instructions as he may be pleased
*^^^^- "EDWIN M. STANTON,
* ' Secretary of War, ' '
It appears that about the time of placing the foregoing telegram in my
hands the Secretary of War dispatched General Ord as follows, to wit:
War Department,
Washington City,fanuary zg, 1865 — 10 p. m.
Major-General Ord. (^^^^ ^^ ^ ^' ^- S^th. )
Sir: This Department has no knowledge of any understanding by General Grant
to allow any person to come within his lines as commissioner of any sort. You will
therefore allow no one to come into your lines under such character or profession
until you receive the President's instructions, to whom your telegram will be sub-
mitted for his directions. ^^^^^ ^ STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Afterwards, by my direction, the Secretary of War telegraphed Gen-
eral Ord as follows, to wit:
War Department,
Washington, D. C, January jo, 1865 — J0.30 a. m.
Major-General E. O. C. Ord,
Headquarters Army of the James.
Sir: By direction of the President, you are instructed to inform the three gentle-
men, Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, that a messenger will be dispatched
to them at or near where they now are without unnecessary delay.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Afterwards I prepared and put into the hands of Major Thomas T.
Bckert the following instructions and message:
Executive Mansion,
Major T. T. EckerT. Washington, January 30, 1865.
Sir: You will proceed with the documents placed in your hands, and on reach-
ing General Ord will deliver him the letter addressed to him by the Secretary of
War; then, by General Ord's assistance, procure an interview with Messrs. Stephens,
Hunter, and Campbell, or any of them. Deliver to him or them the paper on which
your own letter is written. Note on the copy which you retain the time of delivery
Abraham Lincolw 263
and to whom delivered. Receive their answer in writing, waiting a reasonable time
for it, and which, if it contain their decision to come through without further con-
dition, will be your warrant to ask General Ord to pass them through, as directed in
the letter of the Secretary of War to him. If by their answer they decline to come,
or propose other terms, do not have them pass through. And this being your whole
duty, return and report to me. ^ I,INCOLN
City Point, Va., February /, 1865.
Messrs. Ai.kxande;r H. Stephens, J. A. Campbei.1., and R. M. T. Hunter.
GentIvEmen: I am instructed by the President of the United States to place this
paper in your hands, with the information that if you pass through the United States
military lines it will be understood that you do so for the purpose of an informal con-
ference on the basis of the letter a copy of which is on the reverse side of this sheet,
and that if you choose to pass on such understanding, and so notify me in writing, I
will procure the commanding general to pass you through the lines and to Fortress
Monroe under such military precautions as he may deem prudent, and at which
place you will be met in due time by some person or persons for the purpose of
such informal conference; and, further, that you shall have protection, safe conduct,
and safe return in all events. THOMAS T. ECKBRT,
Major and Aid-de-Camp.
F. P. B1.AIR, Esq. ^^Ssi^^^o^ January 18,1865.
Sir: Your having shown me Mr. Davis's letter to you of the 12th instant, you
may say to him that I have constantly been, am now, and shall continue ready to
receive any agent whom he or any other influential person now resisting the national
authority may informally send to me with the view of securing peace to the people
of our one common country.
Y«^«'^^^-' A. LINCOLN.
Afterwards, but before Major Eckert had departed, the following dis-
patch was received from General Grant:
Oeeice United States Miwtary TeIvEGraph,
War Department.
The following telegram received at Washington January 31, 1865, from City Point,
Va., 10.30 a. m., January 30, 1865:
** His Excellency Abraham LiNCOi^N,
''President of the United States:
"The following communication was received here last evening:
'Petersburg, Nk. January jo, 1865,
* Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant,
' Commanding Armies United States.
' Sir : We desire to pass your lines under safe conduct, and to proceed to Wash-
ington to hold a conference with President Lincoln upon the subject of the existing
war, and with a view of ascertaining upon what terms it may be terminated, in pur-
suance of the course indicated by him in his letter to Mr. Blair of January 18, 1865,
of which we presume you have a copy; and if not, we wish to see you in person, if
convenient, and to confer with you upon the subject.
* Very respectfully, yours. . ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.
«J. A. CAMPBELL.
♦R. M. T. HUNTER.'
264 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
" I have sent directions to receive these gentlemen, and expect to have them at my
quarters this evening, awaiting your instructions. •* U S GRANT
^^Lieutenant-General, Commanding Armies United States.''''
This, it will be perceived, transferred General Ord's agency in the
matter to General Grant. I resolved, however, to send Major Bckert
forward with his message, and accordingly telegraphed General Grant as
follows, to wit:
BxEcuTnrB Mansion,
Washington, January 31, 1865.
Lieutenant-General Grant, (^^^* ^^ ^-3° P- ^- )
City Point, Va.:
A messenger is coming to you on the business contained in your dispatch.
Detain the gentlemen in comfortable quarters until he arrives, and, then act upon
the message he brings as far as applicable, it having been made up to pass through
General Ord's hands, and when the gentlemen were supposed to be beyond our lines.
A. LINCOIyN.
When Major Kckert departed, he bore with him a letter of the Secretary
of War to General Grant, as follows, to wit:
War Department,
Lieutenant-General Grant, Washington, D. C , January 30, 1865.
Comm,anding, etc.
General,: The President desires that you will please procure for the bearer. Major
Thomas T. Bckert, an interview with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, and
if on his return to you he requests it pass them through our lines to Fortress Monroe
by such route and under such military precautions as you may deem prudent, giving
them protection and comfortable quarters while there, and that you let none of this
have any effect upon your movements or plans.
By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Supposing the proper point to be then reached, I dispatched the Secre-
tary of State with the following instructions. Major Eckert, however,
going ahead of him:
ExEcuTrvE Mansion,
Hon. WttMAM H. SEWARD, ' Washington, January jr, 1865.
Secretary of State:
You will proceed to Fortress Monroe, Va. , there to meet and informally confer with
Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell on the basis of my letter to F. P. Blair, esq.,
of January i8, 1865, a copy of which you have.
You will make known to them that three things are indispensable, to wit:
1. The restoration of the national authority throughout all the States.
2. No receding by the Executive of the United States on the slavery question from
the position assumed thereon in the ate annual message to Congress and in preceding
documents.
3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war and the disbanding of all
forces hostile to the Government.
Abraham Lincoln 265
You will inform them that all propositions of theirs not inconsistent with the above
will be considered and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality. You will hear
all they may choose to say and report it to me.
You will not assume to definitely consummate anything.
Yours, etc., ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
On the day of its date the following telegram was sent to General
Grant:
War Department,
Washington, D. C, February /, 1863.
Lieutenant-General Grant, (^^^^ ^* 9-30 a. m. )
City Point, Va.:
Let nothing which is transpiring change, hinder, or delay your military movements
°^P^^^"- A. LINCOLN.
Afterwards the following dispatch was received from General Grant:
Office United States Mii,itary TeivEGraph,
War Department.
The following telegram received at Washington 2.30 p. m. February i, 1865, from
City Point, Va., February i, 12.30 p. m., 1865:
"His Excellency A. LincoIvN,
'■'President United States:
"Your dispatch received. There will be no armistice in consequence of the pres-
ence of Mr. Stephens and others within our lines. The troops are kept in readiness
to move at the shortest notice if occasion should justify it.
"U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-General:'
To notify Major Eckert that the Secretary of State would be at Fortress
Monroe, and to put them in communication, the following dispatch was
sent:
War Department,
Major T. T. BckerT, Washington, D. C, February i, 1863.
Care of General Grant, City Point, Va.:
Call at Fortress Monroe and put yourself under direction of Mr. S. , whom you will
fi^^*^^^^- A. LINCOLN.
On the morning of the 2d instant the following telegrams were received
by me respectively from the Secretary of State and Major Eckert:
Fort Monroe, Va. , i^^/^rwarj/ 1,1865— 11.30 p.m.
The President of the United States:
Arrived at 10 this evening. Richmond party not here. I remain here.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
His Excellency A. Lincoi^n, ^^'^^ P^^^'^' V^-' February i, 1865-10 p. m.
President of the United States:
I have the honor to report the delivery of your communication and my letter at
4.15 this afternoon, to which I received a reply at 6 p. m., but not satisfactory.
266 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
At 8 p. m. the following note, addressed to General Grant, was received:
- Lieutenant-General Grant. '' ^^'^^ P^^^'^' '^^'^ February /, 1865.
** Sir: We desire to go to Washington City to confer informally with the President
personally in reference to the matters mentioned in his letter to Mr. Blair of the i8th
January ultimo, without any personal compromise on any question in the letter. We
have the permission to do so from the authorities in Richmond.
-Very respectfully, yours, -AIvBX. H. STEPHENS.
"R. M. T. HUNTER.
"J. A. CAMPBELL."
At 9.30 p. m. I notified them that they could not proceed further unless they com-
plied with the terms expressed in my letter. The point of meeting designated in the
above note would not, in my opinion, be insisted upon. Think Fort Monroe would
be acceptable. Having complied with my instructions, I will return to Washington
to-morrow unless otherwise ordered. ^^^^ ^ ECKERT, Major, etc.
On reading this dispatch of Major Kckert I was about to recall him and
the Secretary of State, when the following telegram of General Grant
to the Secretary of War was shown me:
Office United States Mii^itary Tei^egraph,
War Department,
The following telegram received at Washington 4.35 a. m. February 2, 1865, from
City Point, Va., February i, 10.30 p. m., 1865:
"Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
^'Secretary of War:
"Now that the interview between Major Eckert, under his written instructions,
and Mr. Stephens and party has ended, I will state confidentially, but not officially
to become a matter of record, that I am convinced upon conversation with Messrs.
Stephens and Hunter that their intentions are good and their desire sincere to restore
peace and union. I have not felt myself at liberty to express even views of my own
or to account for my reticency. This has placed me in an awkward position, which
I could have avoided by not seeing them in the first instance. I fear now their going
back without any expression from anyone in authority will have a bad influence.
At the same time, I recognize the difficulties in the way of receiving these informal
commissioners at this time, and do not know what to recommend. I am sorry,
however, that Mr. Lincoln can not have an interview with the two named in this
dispatch, if not all three now within our lines. Their letter to me was all that the
President's instructions contemplated to secure their safe conduct if they had used
the same language to Major Eckert.
"U. S. GRANT, Lieutenant-Generaiy
This dispatch of General Grant changed my purpose, and accordingly
I telegraphed him and the Secretary of State, respectively, as follows:
War Department,
Washington^ D. C, February 2, 1865,
Lieutenant-General Grant, (^^^^ ^^ 9 a. m. )
City Point, Va.:
Say to the gentlemen I will meet them personally at Fortress Monroe as soon as I
can get there. A. LINCOLN.
Abraham Lincoln 267
War Department,
Washington^ D, C. , February 2^ iS6s.
Hon. WiWAM H. SEWARD, (S^^^ ^* 9 a. m. )
Fortress Monroe^ Va.:
Induced by a dispatch from General Grant, I join you at Fort Monroe as soon as I
^^^^^^^' A.I.INCOLN.
Before starting, the following dispatch was shown me. I proceeded,
nevertheless.
Office United States Mii^itary Tei^egraph,
War Department.
The following telegram received at Washington February 2, 1865, from City Point,
Va., 9 a. m., February 2, 1865:
"Hon. Wii.i<iAM H. Seward,
'■'•Secretary of State ^ Fort Monroe:
"The gentlemen here have accepted the proposed terms, and will leave for Fort
Monroe at 9.30 a. m. "US GRANT
''^Lieutenant-General.'*'*
(Copy to Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington.)
On the night of the 2d I reached Hampton Roads, found the Secretary
of State and Major Eckert on a steamer anchored offshore, and learned of
them that the Richmond gentlemen were on another steamer also an-
chored offshore, in the Roads, and that the Secretary of State had not yet
seen or communicated with them. I ascertained that Major Eckert had
literally complied with his instructions, and I saw for the first time the
answer of the Richmond gentlemen to him, which in his dispatch to me
of the ist he characterizes as ''not satisfactory." That answer is as
follows, to wit:
Thomas T. Eckbrt, City Point, Va., February i, 1865.
Major and Aid-de-Camp.
Major: Your note, delivered by yourself this day, has been considered. In reply
we have to say that we were furnished with a copy of the letter of President Lincoln
to Francis P. Blair, esq., of the i8th of January ultimo, another copy of which is
appended to yoiur note.
Our instructions are contained in a letter of which the following is a copy:
" Richmond, /<2««ar|/ 28, iSSj.
"In conformity with the letter of Mr. Lincoln, of which the foregoing is a copy,
you are to proceed to Washington City for informal conference with him upon the
issues involved in the existing war, and for the purpose of securing peace to the two
countries.
• With great respect, your obedient servant,
"JEFFKRSON DAVIS."
The substantial object to be obtained by the informal conference is to ascertain
upon what terms the existing war can be terminated honorably.
Our instructions contemplate a personal interview between President Lincoln and
ourselves at Washington City, but with this explanation we are ready to meet any
268 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
person or persons that President Lincoln may appoint at such place as he may
designate.
Om- earnest desire is that a just and honorable peace may be agreed upon, and
we are prepared to receive or to submit propositions which may possibly lead to the
attainment of that end.
Very respectfully, yours, ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.
R. M. T. HUNTER.
JOHN A. CAMPBELL.
A note of these gentlemen, subsequently addressed to General Grant,
has already been given in Major Bckert's dispatch of the ist instant.
I also here saw, for the first time, the following note addressed by the
Richmond gentlemen to Major Eckert:
Thomas T. Eckert, ^^'^^ ^«^^'^' ^^^ ^^^^"^'C^ ^' ^^^5-
Major and Aid-de-Camp.
Major: In reply to your verbal statement that your instructions did not allow you
to alter the conditions upon which a passport could be given to us, we say that we
are willing to proceed to Fortress Monroe and there to have an informal conference
with any person or persons that President Lincoln may appoint on the basis of his
letter to Francis P. Blair of the i8th of January ultimo, or upon any other terms or
conditions that he may hereafter propose not inconsistent with the essential princi-
ples of self-government and popular rights, upon which our institutions are founded.
It is our earnest wish to ascertain, after a free interchange of ideas and information,
upon what principles and terms, if any, a just and honorable peace can be established
without the further effusion of blood, and to contribute oiur utmost efforts to accom-
plish such a result.
We think it better to add that in accepting your passport we are not to be under-
stood as committing ourselves to anything but to carry to this informal conference
the views and feelings above expressed.
Very respectfully, yours, etc., ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.
J. A. CAMPBELL.
R. M. T. HUNTER.
Note. — The above communication was delivered to me at Fort Monroe at 4.30 p. m.
February 2 by Lieutenant-Colonel Babcock, of General Grant's staff.
THOMAS T. ECKERT,
Major and Aid-de-Camp.
On the morning of the 3(1 the three gentlemen, Messrs. Stephens, Hun-
ter, and Campbell, came aboard of our steamer and had an interview with
the Secretary of State and myself of several hours' duration. No question
of preliminaries to the meeting was then and there made or mentioned; no
other person was present; no papers were exchanged or produced; and it
was in advance agreed that the conversation was to be informal and verbal
merely. On our part the whole substance of the instructions to the Sec-
retary of State hereinbefore recited was stated and insisted upon, and
nothing was said inconsistent therewith; while by the other party it was
not said that in any event or on any condition they ever would consent to
reunion, and yet they equally omitted to declare that they never yjqv\^ so
Abraham Lincoln 269
consent. They seemed to desire a postponement of that question and
the adoption of some other course first, which, as some of them seemed to
argue, might or might not lead to reunion, but which course we thought
would amount to an indefinite postponement. The conference ended
without result.
The foregoing, containing, as is believed, all the information sought, is
respectfully submitted. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, February ij, 1865,
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a dispatch of the 1 2th ultimo, addressed
to the Secretary of State by the minister resident of the United States at
Stockholm, relating to an international exhibition to be held at Bergen,
in Norway, during the coming summer. The expediency of any legislation
upon the subject is submitted for your consideration.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
Washington, February zj, 186^.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a note of the 2d instant, addressed to
the Secretary of State by the Commander J. C. de Figaniere a Mora6,
envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of His Most Faithful
Majesty the King of Portugal, calling attention to a proposed interna-
tional exhibition at the city of Oporto, to be opened in August next, and
inviting contributions thereto of the products of American manufactures
and industry. The expediency of any legislation on the subject is sub-
mitted for your consideration. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, February ^5, 1863.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 23d instant, I
transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with the accom-
panying General Orders, No. 23,* issued by Major-General Banks at
New Orleans, February 3, 1864. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
KxBCuTivB Mansion,
Washington^ February ^7, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty made and concluded with the Klamath and Modoc tribes of
Indians of Oregon, at Fort Klamath, on the 5th day of October, 1864.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of this date, a copy of the
*On the subject of compensated plantation labor, public or private.
270 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 24th instant, and
a communication of the superintendent of Indian affairs in Oregon
accompany the treaty. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
BxKcuTivK Mansion,
Hon. H. HAMI.IN Washington, D. C, February 28, 1865.
President United States Senate.
Sir: In reply to the resolution of the Senate dated February 14, 1865,
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of War, for-
warding a copy of the report of the court of inquiry ' ' in respect to the
explosion of the mine in front of Petersburg. ' '
I am, sir, very respectfully, yotir obedient servant,
ABRAHAM IvINCOI^N.
Washington, D. C, March 2, 186^,
Hon. ScHUYiy:^R CoIvFAx,
Speaker of the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith the report of the Secretary of War, which, with
my permission, has been delayed until the present time to enable the
lyieutenant- General to furnish his report. *^ LINCOLN
[The same message was addressed to the President of the Senate.]
Washington, March 3, 1863,
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I herewith transmit to Congress a report, dated ist instant, with the
accompanying papers, received from the Secretary of State in compliance
with the requirements of the eighteenth section of the act entitled "An
act to regulate the diplomatic and consular systems of the United States, "
approved August i8, 1856. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
VETO MESSAGE.*
BxKCUTivK Mansion, fanuary 5, 186^,
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I herewith return to your honorable body, in which it originated, a
' * Joint resolution to correct certain clerical errors in the internal-revenue
act," without my approval.
My reason for so doing is that I am informed that this joint resolution
* Pocket veto.
Abraham Lincoln 271
was prepared during the last moments of the last session of Congress for
the purpose of correcting certain errors of reference in the internal-reve-
nue act which were discovered on an examination of an official copy
procured from the State Department a few hours only before the adjourn-
ment. It passed the House and went to the Senate, where a vote was
taken upon it, but by some accident it was not presented to the President
of the Senate for his signature.
Since the adjournment of the last session of Congress other errors of a
kind similar to those which this resolution was designed to correct have
been discovered in the law, and it is now thought most expedient to
include all the necessary corrections in one act or resolution.
The attention of the proper committee of the House has, I am informed,
been already directed to the preparation of a bill for this purpose.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
PROCLAMATIONS.
By thk Prksidbnt of thk Unitejd States.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas by the act approved July 4, 1864, entitled *'An act further to
regulate and provide for the enrolling and calling out the national forces,
and for other purposes," it is provided that the President of the United
States may, ' ' at his discretion, at any time hereafter, call for any num-
ber of men, as volunteers for the respective terms of one, two, and three
years for military service, ' ' and * ' that in case the quota or any part
thereof of any town, township, ward of a city, precinct, or election dis-
trict, or of any county not so subdivided, shall not be filled within the
space of fifty days after such call, then the President shall immediately
order a draft for one year to fill such quota or any part thereof which
may be unfilled; ' ' and
Whereas J^y the credits allowed in accordance with the act of Congress
on the call for 500,000 men, made July 18, 1864, the number of men to
be obtained under that call was reduced to 280,000; and
Whereas the operations of the enemy in certain States have rendered
it impracticable to procure from them their full quotas of troops under
said call; and
Whereas from the foregoing causes but 240,000 men have been put
into the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps under the said call of July 18,
1864, leaving a deficiency on that call of two hundred and sixty thousand
(260,000):
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of
272 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
America, in order to supply the aforesaid deficiency and to provide for
casualties in the military and naval service of the United States, do issue
this my call for three hundred thousand (300,000) volunteers to serve for
one, two, or three years. The quotas of the States, districts, and subdis-
tricts under this call will be assigned by the War Department through
the bureau of the Provost- Marshal- General of the United States, and "in
case the quota or any part thereof of any town, township, ward of a city,
precinct, or election district, or of any county not so subdivided, shall not
be filled" before the 15th day of February, 1865, then a draft shall be
made to fill such quota or any part thereof under this call which may
be unfilled on said 15th day of February, 1865.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 19th day of December,
A. D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-ninth. ABRAHAM I.INCOLN.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Skward,
Secretary of State,
By th:^ Prksidknt of the) Unitkd States of Amkrica.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the act of Congress of the 28th of September, 1850, entitled
* 'An act to create additional collection districts in the State of California,
and to change the existing districts therein, and to modify the existing
collection districts in the United States, ' ' extends to merchandise ware-
housed under bond the privilege of being exported to the British North
American Provinces adjoining the United States in the manner prescribed
in the act of Congress of the 3d of March, 1845, which designates certain
frontier ports through which merchandise may be exported, and further
provides * * that such other ports situated on the frontiers of the United
States adjoining the British North American Provinces as may here-
after be found expedient may have extended to them the like privileges
on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury and proclama-
tion duly made by the President of the United States specially designat-
ing the ports to which the aforesaid privileges are to be extended: "
Now, therefore, I, Abraham I^incoln, President of the United States
of America, in accordance with the recommendation of the Secretary of
the Treasury, do hereby declare and proclaim that the port of St. Albans,
in the State of Vermont, is and shall be entitled to all the privileges in
regard to the exportation of merchandise in bond to the British North
American Provinces adjoining the United States which are extended to
Abraham Lincoln 273
the ports enumerated in the seventh section of the act of Congress of the
3d of March, 1845, aforesaid, from and after the date of this proclamation.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this loth day of January,
A. D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the eighty-ninth.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI,N.
By the President:
WlI^IvIAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State,
By the Prksidknt of thk United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas objects of interest to the United States require that the Senate
should be convened at 12 o'clock on the 4th of March next to receive
and act upon such communications as may be made to it on the part of
the Executive:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham I^incoln, President of the United States,
have considered it to be my duty to issue this my proclamation, declar-
ing that an extraordinary occasion requires the Senate of the United
States to convene for the transaction of business at the Capitol, in the
city of Washington, on the 4th day of March next, at 12 o'clock at noon
on that day, of which all who shall at that time be entitled to act as
members of that body are hereby required to take notice.
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States at Washing-
r -1 ton, the 17th day of February, A. D. 1865, and of the Inde-
pendence of the United States of America the eighty-ninth.
ABRAHAM I,INCOI.N.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
Executive Mansion, December 10, 1864.,
Ordered, first. That Major-General WiUiam F. Smith and the Hon.
Henry Stanbery be, and they are hereby, appointed special commissioners
to investigate and report, for the information of the President, upon the
civil and military administration in the military division bordering upon
and west of the Mississippi, under such instructions as shall be issued by
authority of the President and the War Department.
M P — ^voi, VI— 18
274 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Second. Said commissioners shall have power to examine witnesses
upon oath, and to take such proofs, orajly or in writing, upon the subject-
matters of investigation as they may deem expedient, and return the same
together with their report.
Third.' All officers and persons in the military, naval, and revenue
services, or in any branch of the public service under the authority of
the United States Government, are required, upon subpoena issued by
direction of the said commissioners, to appear before them at such time
and place as may be designated in said subpoena and to give testimony
on oath touching such matters as may be inquired of by the commission-
ers, and to produce such books, papers, writings, and documents as they
may be notified or required to produce by the commissioners, and as may
be in their possession.
Fourth. Said special commissioners shall also investigate and report
upon any other matters that may hereafter be directed by the Secretary
of War, and shall with all convenient dispatch make report to him in
writing of their investigation, and shall also from time to time make spe-
cial reports to the Secretary of War upon such matters as they may deem
of importance to the public interests.
Fifth. The Secretary of War shall assign to the said commissioners
such aid and assistance as may be required for the performance of their
duties, and make such just and reasonable allowances and compensation
for the said commissioners and for the persons employed by them as he
may deem proper.
ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
D^PARTMKN'T OF STATE),
Washington^ December ly, i86^.
The President directs that, except immigrant passengers directly enter-
ing an American port by sea, henceforth no traveler shall be allowed to
enter the United States from a foreign country without a passport. If a
citizen, the passport must be from this Department or from some United
States minister or consul abroad; and if an alien, from the competent
authority of his own country, the passport to be countersigned by a dip-
lomatic agent or consul of the United States. This regulation is intended
to apply especially to persons proposing to come to the United States from
the neighboring British Provinces. Its observance will be strictly enforced
by all officers, civil, military, and naval, in the service of the United States,
and the State and municipal authorities are requested to aid in its execu-
tion. It is expected, however, that no immigrant passenger coming in
manner aforesaid will be obstructed, or any other persons who may set
out on their way hither before intelligence of this regulation could rea-
sonably be expected to reach the country from which they may have
started.
WII.I.IAM H. SEWARD.
Abraham Lincoln 275
Washington, D. C, December ji, 1864..
By the authority conferred upon the President of the United States
by the second section of the act of Congress approved July 2, 1864, enti-
tled "An act to amend an act to aid in the construction of a railroad and
telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean," etc., I,
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby designate the
Merchants' National Bank, Boston; the Chicago and Rock Island Rail-
road Company's office, Chicago; the First National Bank at Philadelphia;
the First National Bank at Baltimore; the First National Bank at Cin-
cinnati, and the Third National Bank at St. Louis, in addition to the
general office of the Union Pacific Railroad Company in the city of New
York, as the places at which the said Union Pacific Railroad Company
shall cause books to be kept open to receive subscriptions to the capital
stock of said company. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
KxBCuTiVK Mansion, Washington City, January 20, 186^.
Ordered, That no clearances for the exportation of hay from the
United States be granted until further orders, unless the same shall
have been placed on shipboard before the publication hereof.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
KxBCuTivK Mansion, Washington City, February 6, 1863.
Whereas complaints are made in some localities respecting the assign-
ments of quotas and credits allowed for the pending call of troops to fill
up the armies:
Now, in order to determine all controversies in respect thereto and to
avoid any delay in filling up the armies, it is ordered that the Attorney-
General, Brigadier- General Richard Delafield, and Colonel C. W. Foster
be, and they are hereby, constituted a board to examine into the proper
quotas and credits of the respective States and districts under the call
of December 19, 1864, with directions, if any errors be found therein, to
make such corrections as the law and facts may require and report their
determination to the Provost- Marshal- General. The determination of
said board to be final and conclusive, and the draft to be made in con-
formity therewith.
2. The Provost- Marshal- General is ordered to make the draft in the
respective districts as speedily as the same can be done after the 15th of
this month. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Washington, February 13, 186^.
To the Military Officers Commanding in West Tennessee:
While I can not order as within requested, allow me to say that it is
my wish for you to relieve the people from all burdens, harassments, and
oj^pressions so far as is possible consistently with your military necessities;
276 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
that the object of the war being to restore and maintain the blessings of
peace and good government, I desire you to help, and not hinder, every
advance in that direction.
Of your military necessities you must judge and execute, but please do
so in the spirit and with the purpose above indicated.
ABRAHAM LINCOI.N.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, February 22, 1865.]
Dkpartmknt of State,
Washifigton, February 21, 1865.
The Department buildings will be illuminated on the night of Wash-
ington's birthday, in honor of the recent triumphs of the Union.
By order of the President: WILUAM H. SEWARD.
SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
FiSiyiyOW- Countryman: At this second appearing to take the oath of
the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than
there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course
to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four
years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth
on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the atten-
tion and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be
presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends,
is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably
satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no
prediction in regard to it is ventured.
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were
anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought
to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this
place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent
agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dis-
solve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties depre-
cated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation
survive, and the other would accept ^ox rather than let it perish, and the
war came.
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distrib-
uted generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it.
These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen,
perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insur-
gents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed
Abraham Lincoln 277
no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which
it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the con-
flict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease.
Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and
astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to' the same God, and
each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any
men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not
judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither
has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe
unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses
come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall
suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the
providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued
through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives
to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by
whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from
those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe
to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it con-
tinue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as
was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ** the judgments
of the lyord are true and righteous altogether. ' '
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work
we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have
borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with
all nations.
March 4, 1865.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, D. C, March 8, 1865.
To the Senate of the United States:
The fourth section of the law of i6th January, 1857, provides that
reserved officers may be promoted on the reserved list, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate, and under this authority various officers
of the Navy have been promoted one grade from time to time.
I therefore nominate Commander John J. Young, now on the reserved
278 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
list, to be a captain in the Navy on the reserved hst from the 12th
August, 1854, the date when he was entitled to his regular promotion
had he not been overslaughed. It is due to this officer to state that he
was passed over in consequence of physical disability, this disability hav-
ing occurred in the discharge of his duties; and prior to his misfortune
he bore the reputation of an efficient and correct officer, and subsequently
has evinced a willingness to perform whatever duties were assigned him.
ABRAHAM LINCOIyN.
Washington, March 8, 1865.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the Senate's resolution of the 6th instant, requesting the
return of a certain joint resolution,* I transmit a report from the Secretary
^^ ^^^^^' ABRAHAM I^INCOIyN.
PROCLAMATIONS.
By THE) Prksidknt of thk Unitkd Staters of Amkrica.
A proclamation.
Whereas the twenty-first section of the act of Congress approved on
the 3d instant, entitled "An act to amend the several acts heretofore
passed to provide for the enrolling and calling out the national forces and
for other purposes, ' ' requires ' ' that, in addition to the other lawful penal-
ties of the crime of desertion from the military or naval service, all per-
sons who have deserted the military or naval service of the United States
who shall not return to said service or report themselves to a provost-
marshal within sixty days after the proclamation hereinafter mentioned
shall be deemed and taken to have voluntarily relinquished and forfeited
their rights of citizenship and their rights to become citizens, and such
deserters shall be forever incapable of holding any office of trust or profit
under the United States or of exercising any rights of citizens thereof;
and all persons who shall hereafter desert the military or naval serv-
ice, and all persons who, being duly enrolled, shall depart the jurisdiction
of the district in which he is enrolled or go beyond the limits of the United
States with intent to avoid any draft into the military or naval service
duly ordered, shall be liable to the penalties of this section. And the
President is hereby authorized and required, forthwith on the passage
of this act, to issue his proclamation setting forth the provisions of this
section, in which proclamation the President is requested to notify all
♦Entitled "Joint resolution in relation to certain railroads."
Abraham Lincoln
279
[eserters returning within sixty days as aforesaid that they shall be par-
>ned on condition of returning to their regiments and companies or to
ich other organizations as they may be assigned to until they shall have
irved for a period of time equal to their original term of enlistment:"
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham lyincoln, President of
bhe United States, do issue this my proclamation, as required by said act,
ordering and requiring all deserters to return to their proper posts; and
I do hereby notify them that all deserters who shall, within sixty days
from the date of this proclamation, viz, on or before the loth day of
May, 1865, return to service or report themselves to a provost-marshal
shall be pardoned, on condition that they return to their regiments and
companies or to such other organizations as they may be assigned to
and serve the remainder of their original terms of enlistment and in addi-
tion thereto a period equal to the time lost by desertion.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this nth day of March,
A. D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-ninth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WiiyiyiAM H. Seaward,
Secretary of State.
By th^ Prksidknt of thk United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas reliable information has 'been received that hostile Indians
within .the limits of the United States have been furnished with arms and
munitions of war by persons dwelling in conterminous foreign territory,
and are thereby enabled to prosecute their savage warfare upon the ex-
posed and sparse settlements of the frontier:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States of America, do hereby proclaim and direct that all
persons detected in that nefarious traffic shall be arrested and tried by
court-martial at the nearest military post, and if convicted shall receive
the punishment due to their deserts.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 17th day of March,
A. D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-ninth. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
By the President:
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
28o Messages and Papers of the Presidents
By thk) Prkside)nt of thk United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas by my proclamations of the 19th and 27th days of April,
A. D. 1 86 1, the ports of the United States in the States of Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, I^ouisi-
ana, and Texas were declared to be subject to blockade; but
Whereas the said blockade has, in consequence of actual military occu-
pation by this Government, since been conditionally set aside or relaxed
in respect to the ports of Norfolk and Alexandria, in the State of Vir-
ginia; Beaufort, in the State of North Carolina; Port Royal, in the State
of South Carohna; Pensacola and Fernandina, in the State of Florida;
and New Orleans, in the State of lyouisiana; and
Whereas by the fourth section of the act of Congre pproved on the
13th of July, 186 1, entitled *'An act further to provide .or the collection
of duties on imports, and for other purposes," the President, for the
reasons therein set forth, is authorized to close certain ports of entry:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham I^incoln, President of
the United States, do hereby proclaim that the ports of Richmond, Tappa-
hannock. Cherrystone, Yorktown, and Petersburg, in Virginia; of Camden
(Elizabeth City), Bdenton, Plymouth, Washington, Newbern, Ocracoke,
and Wilmington, in North Carolina; of Charleston, Georgetown, and
Beaufort, in South Carolina; of Savannah, St. Marys, and Brunswick
(Darien), in Georgia; of Mobile, in Alabama; of Pearl River (Shields-
boro), Natchez, and Vicksburg, in Mississippi; of St. Augustine, Key
West, St. Marks (Port I^eon), St. Johns (Jacksonville), and Apalachicola,
in Florida; of Teche (Franklin), in L<ouisiana; of Galveston, La Salle,
Brazos de Santiago (Point Isabel), and Brownsville, in Texas, are hereby
closed, and all right of importation, warehousing, and other privileges
shall, in respect to the ports aforesaid, cease until they shall have again
been opened by order of the President; and if while said ports are so
closed any ship or vessel from beyond the United States or having on
board any articles subject to duties shall attempt to enter any such port,
the same, together with its tackle, apparel, furniture, and cargo, shall be
forfeited to the United States.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this i ith day of April, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
Wii^iviAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
Abraham Lincoln 281
By thk President of the United States of America.
a proclamation.
Whereas by my proclamation of this date the port of Key West, in
the State of Florida, was inadvertently included among those which are
not open to commerce:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham I^incoln, President of
the United States, do hereby declare and make known that the said port
of Key West is and shall remain open to foreign and domestic commerce
upon the same conditions by which that commerce has there hitherto
been governed.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this nth day of April, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WiLiviAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas for some time past vessels of war of the United States have
been refused in certain foreign ports privileges and immunities to which
they were entitled by treaty, public law, or the comity of nations, at the
same time that vessels of war of the country wherein the said privileges
and immunities have been withheld have enjoyed them fully and unin-
terruptedly in ports of the United States, which condition of things has
not always been forcibly resisted by the United States, although, on the
other hand, they have not at any time failed to protest against and de-
clare their dissatisfaction with the same. In the view of the United
States, no condition any longer exists which can be claimed to justify
the denial to them by any one of such nations of customary naval rights
as has heretofore been so unnecessarily persisted in.
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
do hereby make known that if after a reasonable time shall have elapsed
for intelligence of this proclamation to have reached any foreign country
in whose ports the said privileges and immunities shall have been refused
as aforesaid they shall continue to be so refused, then and thenceforth
the same privileges and immunities shall be refused to the vessels of war
of that country in the ports of the United States; and this refusal shall
continue until war vessels of the United States shall have been placed
upon an entire equality in the foreign ports aforesaid with similar ves-
sels of other countries. The United States, whatever claim or pretense
282 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
may have existed heretofore, are now, at least, entitled to claim and con-
cede an entire and friendly equality of rights and hospitalities with all
maritime nations.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P n Done at the city of Washington, this i ith day of April, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth. ABRAHAM I.INCOI.N.
By the President:
WlIyUAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, March 8, 186^.
Whereas, pursuant to the order of the President of the United States,
directions were issued from this Department, under date of the 17th of
December, 1864, requiring passports from all travelers entering the United
States, except immigrant passengers directly entering an American port
from a foreign country; but whereas information has recently been re-
ceived which affords reasonable grounds to expect that Her Britannic
Majesty's Government and the executive and legislative branches of the
government of Canada have taken and will continue to take such steps as
may be looked for from a friendly neighbor and will be effectual toward
preventing hostile incursions from Canadian territory into the United
States, the President directs that from and after this date the order above
referred to requiring passports shall be modified, and so much thereof as
relates to persons entering this country from Canada shall be rescinded,
saving and reserving the order in all other respects in full force.
WILIylAM H. SKWARD.
Department of State,
Washington, March 14., 186^.
The President directs that all persons who now are or hereafter shall
be found within the United States who have been engaged in holding
intercourse or trade with the insurgents by sea, if they are citizens of the
United States or domiciled aliens, shall be arrested and held as prisoners
of war until the war shall close, subject, nevertheless, to prosecution,
trial, and conviction for any offense committed by them as spies or
otherwise against the laws of war. The President further directs that
all nonresident foreigners who now are or hereafter shall be found in the
p
Abraham Lincoln 283
United States, and who have been or shall have been engaged in vio-
lating the blockade of the insurgent ports, shall leave the United States
within twelve days from the publication of this order, or from their sub-
sequent arrival in the United States, if on the Atlantic side, and forty
days if on the Pacific side, of the country; and such persons shall not
return to the United States during the continuance of the war. Provost-
marshals and marshals of the United States will arrest and commit to
military custody all such offenders as shall disregard this order, whether
they have passports or not, and they will be detained in such custody
until the end of the war, or until discharged by subsequent orders of
the President. W.H.SEWARD,
Secretary of State,
Gknkrai, Ordkrs, No. 50.
War Department,
Adjutant- Gknerai^'s Office,
Washington, March 27, 1863.
Ordered, first. That at the hour of noon on the 14th day of April,
1865, Brevet Major- General Anderson will raise and plant upon the ruins
of Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, the same United States flag which
floated over the battlements of that fort during the rebel assault, and
which was lowered and saluted by him and the small force of his command
when the works were evacuated on the 14th day of April, 1861.
Second. That the flag, when raised, be saluted by one hundred guns
from Fort Sumter and by a national salute from every fort and rebel
battery that fired upon Fort Sumter.
Third. That suitable ceremonies be had upon the occasion, under the
direction of Major- General William T. Sherman, whose military opera-
tions compelled the rebels to evacuate Charleston, or, in his absence,
under the charge of Major-General Q. A. Gillmore, commanding the
department. Among the ceremonies will be the delivery of a public
address by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.
Fourth. That the naval forces at Charleston and their commander on
that station be invited to participate in the ceremonies of the occasion.
By order of the President of the United States:
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
To all whom these presents may concern:
Whereas for some time past evil-disposed persons have crossed the
borders of the United States or entered their ports by sea from countries
where they are tolerated, and have committed capital felonies against the
284 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
property and life of American citizens, as well in the cities as in the rural
districts of the country:
Now, therefore, in the name and by the authority of the President
of the United States, I do hereby make known that a reward of $1,000
will be paid at this Department for the capture of each of such offenders,
upon his conviction by a civil or military tribunal, to whomsoever shall
arrest and deliver such offenders into the custody of the civil or military
authorities of the United States. And the like reward will be paid
upon the same terms for the capture of any such persons so entering
the United States whose offenses shall be committed subsequently to the
publication of this notice.
A reward of $500 will be paid upon conviction for the arrest of any
person who shall have aided and abetted offenders of the class before
named within the territory of the United States.
Given under my hand and the seal of the Department of State, at
Washington, this 4th day of April, A. D. 1865.
[SBAi..] WII^IvIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
DEATH OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE VICE-PRESIDENT.
[From the original, Department of State.]
Washington City, D. C,
April 15, 1865,
Andrew Johnson,
Vice-President of the United States.
Sir: Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, was shot by an
assassin last evening at Ford's Theater, in this city, and died at the hour
of twentj^-two minutes after 7 o'clock.
About the same time at which the President was shot an assassin
entered the sick chamber of the Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of
State, and stabbed him in several places — in the throat, neck, and face —
severely if not mortally wounding him. Other members of the Secre-
tary's family were dangerously wounded by the assassin while making
his escape. By the death of President Lincoln the office of President has
devolved, under the Constitution, upon you. The emergency of the Gov-
ernment demands that you should immediately qualify, according to the
requirements of the Constitution, and enter upon the duties of President
Abraham Lincoln 285
of the United States. If you will please make known your pleasure,
such arrangements as you deem proper will be made.
Your obedient servants,
HUGH McCUI^IvOCH, W. DBNNISON,
Secretary of the Treasury. Postmaster- General.
EDWIN M. STANTON, J. P. USHER,
Secretary of War. Secretary of the Interior.
GIDEON WELLES, JAMES SPEED,
Secretary of Navy. Attorney -General.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, April 17, 1865.]
The Vice-President responded that it would be agreeable to him to
qualify himself for the high office to which he had been so unexpectedly
called, under such melancholy circumstances, at his rooms at the Kirk-
wood Hotel; and at 1 1 o'clock a. m. [15th] the oath of office was adminis-
tered to him by Chief Justice Chase, of the Supreme Court of the United
States, in the presence of nearly all the Cabinet officers; the Hon. Solo-
mon Foot, United States Senator from Vermont; the Hon. Alexander
Ramsey, United States Senator from Minnesota; the Hon. Richard Yates,
United States Senator from Illinois; the Hon. John P. Hale, late Sen-
ator from New Hampshire; General Farnsworth, of the House of Repre-
sentatives, from Illinois; F. P. Blair, sr.; Hon. Montgomery Blair, late
Postmaster- General, and some others.
[For Inaugural Address of President Johnson, see pp. 305-306.]
ANNOUNCEMENT TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED
STATES ABROAD.
[From official-records, Department of State.]
CiRCUIvAR.
Dkpartmknt of State,
Washington, April 77, 186^.
Sir: The melancholy duty devolves upon me officially to apprise you
of the assassination of the President at Ford's Theater, in this city, in
the evening of the 14th instant. He died the next morning from the
effects of the wound.
About the same time an attempt was made to assassinate the Secre-
tary of State in his own house, where he was in bed suffering from the
effects of the late accident. The attempt failed, but Mr. Seward was
severely cut, on the face especially, it is supposed with a bowie knife.
Mr. F. W. Seward was felled by a blow or blows on the head, and for
286 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
some time afterwards was apparently unconscious. Both the Secretary
and Assistant Secretary are better, especially the former.
' Andrew Johnson has formally entered upon the duties of President.
I have been authorized temporarily to act as Secretary of State.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
W. HUNTER, Acting Secretary.
ANNOUNCEMENT TO REPRESENTATIVES OF FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS
IN THE UNITED STATES.
[From official records, Department of State.]
Department of State, ■
Washington, April 75, 186^.
Sir: It is my great misfortune to be obliged to inform you of events
not less afflicting to the people of the United States than distressing to my
own feelings and the feelings of all those connected with the Government.
The President of the United States was shot with a pistol last night
while attending a theater in this city, and expired this morning from the
effects of the wound. At about the same time an attempt was made
to assassinate the Secretary of State, which, though it fortunately failed,
left him severely, but it is hoped not dangerously, wounded with a knife
or dagger. Mr. F. W. Seward was also struck in the head with a heavy
weapon, and is in a critical condition from the effect of the blows.
Pursuant to the provision of the Constitution of the United States,
Andrew Johnson, the Vice-President, has formally assumed the functions
of President. I have by him been authorized to perform the duties of
Secretary of State until otherwise ordered.
I avail myself of the occasion to offer to you the assurance of my dis-
tinguished consideration. ^ HUNTER, Acting Secretary,
ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE ARMY.
[From official records, War Department.]
Generai, Orders, No. 66.
War Department,
Adjutant- Genkrai^'s Office,
Washington, April 16, 1865.
The following order of the Secretary of War announces to the armies
of the United States the untimely and lamentable death of the illustrious
Abraham lyincoln, late President of the United States:
War Department, Washington City, April 16, 1865.
The distressing duty has devolved upon the Secretary of War to an-
nounce to the armies of the United States that at twenty-two minutes
Abraham Lincoht 287
after 7 o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the 15th day of April, 1865,
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, died of a mortal wound
inflicted upon him by an assassin.
The armies of the United States will share with their fellow-citizens
the feelings of grief and horror inspired by this most atrocious murder of
their great and beloved President and Commander in Chief, and with
profound sorrow will mourn his death as a national calamity.
The headquarters of every department, post, station, fort, and arsenal
will be draped in mourning for thirty days, and appropriate funeral hon-
ors will be paid by every army, and in every department, and at every
military post, and at the Military Academy at West Point, to the mem-
ory of the late illustrious Chief Magistrate of the nation and Commander
in Chief of its armies.
Lieutenant- General Grant will give the necessary instructions for car-
rying this order into effect. ^Tmm M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
On the day after the receipt of this order at the headquarters of each
military division, department, army, post, station, fort, and arsenal and
at the Military Academy at West Point the troops and cadets will be
paraded at 10 o'clock a. m. and the order read to them, after which all
labors and operations for the day will cease and be suspended as far as
practicable in a state of war.
The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.
At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, and afterwards at intervals
of thirty minutes between the rising and setting sun a single gun, and at
the clOvSe of the day a national salute of thirty-six guns.
The officers of the armies of the United States will wear the badge of
mourning on the left arm and on their swords and the colors of their
commands and regiments will be put in mourning for the period of six
months.
By command of Lieutenant- General Grant:
W. A. NICHOLS, Assistant Adjutant-General.
ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE NAVY.
[From General Orders and Circulars, Navy Department, 1863 to 1887.]
Gknkrai. Order No. 51.
Navy Department, Washington, April 75, 1865.
The Department announces with profound sorrow to the officers and
men of the Navy and Marine Corps the death of Abraham Lincoln, late
President of the United States. Stricken down by the hand of an assas-
sin on the evening of the 14th instant, when surrounded by his family
288 Messages and Papers of the Fresideitts
and friends, he lingered a few hours after receiving the fatal wound, and
died at 7 o'clock 22 minutes this morning.
A grateful people had given their willing confidence to the patriot and
statesman under whose wise and successful administration the nation was
just emerging from the civil strife which for four years has afilicted the
land when this terrible calamity fell upon the country. To him our grati-
tude was justly due, for to him, under God, more than to any other person,
are we indebted for the successful vindication of the integrity of the Union
and the maintenance of the power of the Republic.
The ofiicers of the Navy and of the Marine Corps will, as a manifesta-
tion of their respect for the exalted character, eminent position, and ines-
timable public services of the late President, and as an indication of their
sense of the calamity which the country has sustained, wear the usual
badge of mourning for six months.
The Department further directs that upon the day following the receipt
of this order the commandants of squadrons, navy-yards, and stations will
cause the ensign of every vessel in their several commands to be hoisted
at half-mast, and a gun to be fired every half hour, beginning at sunrise
and ending at sunset. The flags of the several navy-yards and marine
barracks will also be hoisted at half-mast.
GIDEON WEl^IvES,
Secretary of the Navy.
ANNOUNCKMENT TO THE REVENUE MARINE.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, April i8, 1865.]
Generai, Order.
Treasury Department, April //, 1865.
The Secretary of the Treasury with profound sorrow announces to
the Revenue Marine the death of Abraham Lincoln, late President of the
United States. He died in this city on the morning of the 15th instant,
at twenty-two minutes past 7 o'clock.
The officers of the Revenue Marine will, as a manifestation of their
respect for the exalted character and eminent public services of the illus-
trious dead and of their sense of the calamity the country has sustained
by this afflicting dispensation of Providence, wear crape on the left arm
and upon the hilt of the sword for six months.
It is further directed that funeral honors be paid on board all revenue
vessels in commission by firing thirty-six minute guns, commencing at
meridian, on the day aftfer the receipt of this order, and by wearing their
Bags at half-mast. HUGH McCULLOCH,
Secretary of the Treasury.
Abraham Lincoln 1389
ACTION OF SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES IN WASHINGTON.
[From Appendix to Memorial Address on the I^ife and Character of Abraham lyincoln.]
The members of the Thirty-ninth Congress then in Washington met in
the Senate reception room, at the Capitol, on the 17th of April, 1865, at
noon. Hon. I^afayette S. Foster, of Connecticut, President pro tempore
of the Senate, was called to the chair, and the Hon. Schu3der Colfax, of
Indiana, Speaker of the House in the Thirty-eighth Congress, was chosen
secretary.
Senator Foot, of Vermont, who was visibly affected, stated that the
object of the meeting was to make arrangements relative to the funeral
of the deceased President of the United States.
On motion of Senator Sumner, of Massachusetts, a committee of five
members from each House was ordered to report at 4 p. m. what action
would be fitting for the meeting to take.
The chairman appointed Senators Sumner, of Massachusetts; Harris,
of New York; Johnson, of Maryland; Ramsey, of Minnesota, andConness,
of California, and Representatives Washburne, of Illinois; Smith, of Ken-
tucky; Schenck, of Ohio; Pike, of Maine, and Coffroth, of Pennsylvania;
and on motion of Mr. Schenck the chairman and secretary of the meeting
were added to the committee, and then the meeting adjourned until 4 p. m.
The meeting reassembled at 4 p. m., pursuant to adjournment.
Mr. Sumner, from the committee heretofore appointed, reported that
they had selected as pallbearers on the part of the Senate Mr. Foster, of
Connecticut; Mr. Morgan, of New York; Mr. Johnson, of Maryland; Mr.
Yates, of Illinois; Mr. Wade, of Ohio, and Mr. Conness, of California;
on the part of the House, Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts; Mr. Coffroth, of
Pennsylvania; Mr. Smith, of Kentucky; Mr. Colfax, of Indiana; Mr.
Worthington, of Nevada, and Mr. Washburne, of Illinois.
They also recommended the appointment of one member of Congress
from each State and Territory to act as a Congressional committee to
accompany the remains of the late President to Illinois, and presented the
following names as such committee, the chairman of the meeting to have
the authority of appointing hereafter for the States and Territories not
represented to-day from which members may be present at the Capitol by
the day of the funeral.
Maine, Mr. Pike; New Hampshire, Mr. E. H. Rollins; Vermont, Mr.
Foot; Massachusetts, Mr. Sumner; Rhode Island, Mr. Anthony; Con-
necticut, Mr. Dixon; New York, Mr. Harris; Pennsylvania, Mr. Cowan;
Ohio, Mr. Schenck; Kentucky, Mr. Smith; Indiana, Mr. Julian; Illi-
nois, the delegation* Michigan, Mr. Chandler; Iowa, Mr. Harlan; Cali-
fornia, Mr. Shannon; Minnesota, Mr. Ramsey; Oregon, Mr. Williams
Kansas, Mr. S. Clarke; West Virginia, Mr. Whaley; Nevada, Mr. Nye
Nebraska, Mr. Hitchcock; Colorado, Mr. Bradford; Dakota, Mr. Todd
Idaho, Mr. Wallace.
M P — vol. VI — 19
290 Messages and Papers of the Presidents \
The committee also recommended the adoption of the following reso-
lution:
Resolved, That the Sergeants-at-Arms of the Senate and House, with their neces-
sary assistants, be requested to attend the committee accompanying the remains of
the late President, and to make all the necessary arrangements.
All of which was concurred in unanimously.
Mr, Sumner, from the same committee, also reported the following,
which was unanimously agreed to:
The members of the Senate and House of Representatives now assembled in Wash-
ington, humbly confessing their dependence upon Almighty God, who rules all that
is done for human good, make haste at this informal meeting to express the emotions
with which they have been filled by the appalling tragedy which has deprived the
nation of its head and covered the land with mourning; and in further declaration
of their sentiments unanimously resolve:
1. That in testimony of their veneration and affection for the illustrious dead, who
has been permitted," under Providence, to do so much for his country and for liberty,
they will unite in the funeral services and by an appropriate comndttee will accom-
pany his remains to their place of burial in the State from which he was taken for
the national service.
2. That in the life of Abraham Lincoln, who by the benignant favor of republican
institutions rose from humble beginnings to the heights of power and fame, they
recognize an example of purity, simplicity, and virtue which should be a lesson to
mankind, while in his death they recognize a martyr whose memory will become
more precious as men learn to prize those principles of constitutional order and those
rights — civil, political, and human — for which he was made a sacrifice.
3. That they invite the President of the United States, by solemn proclamation, to
recommend to the people of the United States to assemble on a day to be appointed
by him, publicly to testify their grief and to dwell on the good which has been done
on earth by him whom we now mourn.
4. That a copy of these resolutions be communicated to the President of the
United States, and also that a copy be communicated to the afilicted widow of the late
President as an expression of sympathy in her great bereavement.
The meeting then adjourned.
ORDERS OF THE HEADS OF THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS.
rprom official records, Department of State.]
Department of State,
Washington, April ly, 186^.
It is hereby ordered that, in honor to the memory of our late illustrious
Chief Magistrate, all officers and others subject to the orders of the
Secretary of State wear crape upon the left arm for the period of six
months.
W. HUNTER,
Acti7ig Secretary,
Abraham Lincoln
[From official records, Treasury Department.]
291
Treasury Department,
Washington, April ly, 186^.
It is hereby ordered that, in honor to the memory of our late illustrious
Chief Magistrate, all officers and others subject to the orders of the Sec-
retary of the Treasury wear crape upon the left arm for the period of six
'°°°'^^- H.MCCULLOCH,
Secretary of the Treasury.
[From official records, War Department.j
Generai, Orders, No. 69.
War Department,
Adjutant-Generai^'s Office,
Washington, April ly, 1865.
By direction of the President of the United States the War Department
will be closed on Wednesday next, the day of the funeral of the late
President of the United States.
I^abor on that day will be suspended at all military posts and on all
public works under the direction of the War Department. The flags at
all military posts, stations, forts, and buildings will be kept at half-staff
during the day, and at 12 o'clock m. twenty-one minute guns will be fired
from all forts and at all military posts and at the Military Academy.
By order of the Secretary of War:
W. A. NICHOIvS,
A ssistant A dju tant- General.
[From General Orders and Circulars, Navy Department, 1863 to 1887.]
Speciai, Order.
Aprii, 17, 1865.
By order of the President of the United States the Navy Department
will be closed on Wednesday next, the day of the funeral solemnities of
the late President of the United States. L<abor will also be suspended on
that day at each of the navy-yards and naval stations and upon all the ves-
sels of the United States. The flags of all vessels and at all the navy
yards and stations and marine barracks will be kept at half-mast during
the day, and at 12 o'clock m. twenty-one minute guns will be fired by the
senior officer of each squadron and the commandants of the navy yards
and stations. GIDEON WELLES,
Secretary of the Navy.
292 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, April 18, 1865.]
Post-Offick Department,
To Deputy Postmasters: Washington, April z/, 1865.
Business in all the post-offices of the United States will be suspended
and the offices closed from 11 a. m. to 3 p. m. on Wednesday, the 19th in-
stant, during the funeral solemnities of Abraham lyincoln, late President
of the United States. ^ DENNISON,
Postmaster-General,
[From official records, Post-Office Department.]
Speciai, Order.
Post-Ofpice Department,
Washington, April 18, 186^.
It is hereby ordered that, in honor of the memory of Abraham Lincoln,
our lamented Chief Magistrate, the officers and employees of this Depart-
ment wear crape upon the left arm for the period of six months.
W. DKNNISON,
Postmaster- General.
[From official records, Department of the Interior.]
Department of the Interior,
Washington, April 18, 186^.
It is hereby ordered that, in honor of the memory of the late Chief Mag-
istrate of the nation, the officers and employees of this Department wear
crape upon the left arm for the period of six months.
J. P. USHER,
Secretary,
FUNBRAIv ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE PUBLIC.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, April 17, 1865.]
Department of State,
Washing to7i, April z/, i86^.
To the People of the United States:
The undersigned is directed to announce that the funeral ceremonies
of the late lamented Chief Magistrate will take place at the Executive
Mansion, in this city, at 12 o'clock m. on Wednesday, the 19th instant.
The various religious denominations throughout the country are
Abraham Lincoln 293
invited to meet in their respective places of worship at that hour for the
purpose of solemnizing the occasion with appropriate ceremonies.
W. HUNTER,
Admg Secretary of State.
OFFICIAIy ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE FUNERAIy.
[From official records, War Department.] *
War Dkpartmejnt,
Adjutant- General's Office,
Washington, April z/, 186^.
The following order of arrangement is directed:
Ordejr of thf Procession.
funfrai, escort.
(In column of march. )
One regiment of cavalry.
Two batteries of artillery. ^
Battalion of marines.
Two regiments of infantry.
Commander of escort and staff.
Dismounted officers of Marine Corps, Navy, and Army, in the order named.
Mounted officers of 'Marine Corps, Navy, and Army, in the order named.
(All military officers to be in uniform, with side arms.)
CIVIC PROCESSION.
Marshal.
Clergy in attendance.
The Surgeon-General of the United States Army and physicians to the deceased.
Hearse.
Pallbearers.
On the part of the Senate: Mr. Foster, of ponnecticut; Mr. Morgan, of New York;
Mr. Johnson, of Maryland; Mr. Yates, of Illinois; Mr. Wade, of Ohio; Mr. Conness,
of California.
On the part of the House: Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts; Mr Coffroth, of Pennsyl-
vania; Mr. Smith, of Kentucky; Mr, Colfax, of Indiana; Mr. Worthington, of
Nevada; Mr. Washburne, of Illinois.
Army: Lieutenant-General U. S. Grant; Major-General H. W. Halleck; Brevet
Brigadier-General W. A. Nichols,
Navy: Vice-Admiral D. G. Farragut; Rear- Admiral W. B. Shubrick; Colonel Jacob
Zelin, Marine Corps.
Civilians: O. H. Browning, George Ashman, Thomas Corwin, Simon Cameron.
Family. \
Relatives.
The delegations of the States of Illinois and Kentucky, as mourners.
The President.
The Cabinet ministers.
The diplomatic corps.
294 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Bx-Presidents.
The Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Co\irt.
The Senate of the United States.
Preceded by their officers.
Members of the House of Representatives of the United States.
Governors of the several States and Territories.
Legislatures of the several States and Territories.
The Federal judiciary and the judiciary of the several States and Territories.
The Assistant Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, Navy, Interior, and the Assistant
Postmasters-General, and the Assistant Attorney-General.
Officers of the Smithsonian Institution.
The members and officers of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions.
Corporate authorities of Washington, Georgetown, and other cities.
Delegations of the several States.
The reverend the clergy of the various denominations.
The clerks and employees of the several Departments and bureaus, preceded by the
heads of such bureaus and their respective chief clerks.
Such societies as may wish to join the procession.
Citizens and strangers.
The troops designated to form the escort will assemble in the Avenue,
north of the President's house, and form line precisely at 1 1 o'clock a. m.
on Wednesday, the 19th instant, with the left resting on Fifteenth street.
The procession will move precisely at 2 o'clock p. m., on the conclusion
of the religious services at the Executive Mansion (appointed to com-
mence at 12 o'clock m.), when minute guns will be fired by detachments
of artillery stationed near St. John's Church, the City Hall, and at the
Capitol. At the same hour the bells of the several churches in Wash-
ington, Georgetown, and Alexandria will be tolled.
At sunrise on Wednesday, the 19th instant, a Federal salute will be
fired from the military stations in the vicinity of Washington, minute
guns between the hours of 12 and 3 o'clock, and a national salute at the
setting of the sun.
The usual badge of mourning will be worn on the left arm and on the
hilt of the sword.
By order of the Secretary of War:
W. A. NICHOLS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
The funeral ceremonies took place in the Bast Room of the Executive
Mansion at noon on the 19th of April, and the remains were then escorted
to the Capitol, where they lay in state in the Rotunda.
On the morning of April 2 1 the remains were taken from the Capitol
and placed in a funeral car, in which they were taken to Springfield, 111.
Halting at the principal cities along the route, that appropriate honors
might be paid to the deceased, the funeral cortege arrived on the 3d of
May at Springfield, 111., and the next day the remains were deposited in
Oak Ridge Cemetery, near that city.
Abraham Lincoln 395
GUARD OF HONOR.
[From oflScial records, War Department.]
Gknkrai. Orders, No. 72.
War Department,
Adjutant- Generai^'s Office,
Washington^ April 20, 1865.
The following general officers and guard of honor will accompany the
remains of the late President from the city of Washington to Springfield,
the capital of the State of Illinois, and continue with them until they are
consigned to their final resting place:
Brevet Brigadier- General E. D. Townsend, Assistant Adjutant- Gen-
eral, to represent the Secretary of War.
Brevet Brigadier- General Charles Thomas, Assistant Quartermaster-
General.*
Brigadier- General A. B. Baton, Commissary- General of Subsistence.
Brevet Major- General J. G. Barnard, lyieutenant-Colonel of Engineers.
Brigadier- General G. D. Ramsay, Ordnance Department.
Brigadier- General A. P. Howe, Chief of Artillery.
Brevet Brigadier- General D. C. McCallum, Superintendent Military
Railroads.
Major-General D. Hunter, United States Volunteers.
Brigadier- General J. C. Caldwell, United States Volunteers.
Twenty-five picked men, under a captain.
By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant- General,
[From ofl&cial records, Navy Department.]
SPECiAiy Order.
Aprii. 20, 1865.
The following officers of the Navy and Marine Corps will accompany
the remains of the late President from the city of Washington to Spring-
field, the capital of the State of Illinois, and continue with them until
they are consigned to their final resting place:
Rear- Admiral Charles Henry Davis, Chief Bureau Navigation.
Captain William Rogers Taylor, United States Navy.
Major Thomas Y. Field, United States Marine Corps.
GIDEON WELLES,
Secretary of the Navy.
* Brevet Brigadier-General James A. Ekin, Quartermaster's Department, United States Army,
substituted.
296 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
ACTION OF CONGRESS.
[From Appendix to Memorial Address on the Ivife and Character of Abraham I^incoln.]
President Johnson, in his annual message to Congress at the commence-
ment of the session of 1865-66, thus announced the death of his prede-
cessor:
To express gratitude to God in the name of the people for the preservation of the
United States is my first duty in addressing you. Our thoughts next revert to the
death of the late President by an act of parricidal treason. The grief of the nation is
still fresh. It finds some solace in the consideration that he lived to enjoy the high-
est proof of its confidence by entering on the renewed term of the Chief Magistracy
to which he had been elected; that he brought the civil war substantially to a close;
that his loss was deplored in all parts of the Union, and that foreign nations have
rendered justice to his memory.
Hon. E. B. Washburne, of Ilhnois, immediately after the President's
message had been read in the House of Representatives, offered the fol-
lowing joint resolution, which was unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That a committee of one member from each State represented in this
House be appointed on the part of this House, to join such committee as may be
appointed on the part of the Senate, to consider and report by what token of respect
and affection it may be proper for the Congress of the United States to express the
deep sensibility of the nation to the event of the decease of their late President,
Abraham Lincoln, and that so much of the message of the President as refers to
that melancholy event be referred to said committee.
On motion of Hon. Solomon Foot, the Senate unanimously concurred
in the passage of the resolution, and the following joint committee was
appointed, thirteen on the part of the Senate and one for every State
represented (twenty-four) on the part of the House of Representatives:
Senate: Hon. Solomon Foot, Vermont; Hon. Richard Yates, Illinois;
Hon. Benjamin F. Wade, Ohio; Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, Maine;
Hon. Henry Wilson, Massachusetts; Hon. James R. Doolittle, Wiscon-
sin; Hon. James H. lyane, Kansas; Hon. Ira Harris, New York; Hon.
James W. Nesmith, Oregon; Hon. Henry S. Lane, Indiana; Hon. Wait-
man T. Willey, West Virginia; Hon. Charles R. Buckalew, Pennsylva-
nia; Hon. John B. Henderson, Missouri.
House of Representatives: Hon. Klihu B. Washburne, Illinois; Hon.
James G. Blaine, Maine; Hon. James W. Patterson, New Hampshire;
Hon. Justin S. Morrill, Vermont; Hon. Nathaniel P. Banks, Massachu-
setts; Hon. Thomas A. Jenckes, Rhode Island; Hon. Henry C. Deming,
Connecticut; Hon. John A. Griswold, New York; Hon. Edwin R. V.
Wright, New Jersey; Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania; Hon. John
A. Nicholson, Delaware; Hon. Francis Thomas, Maryland; Hon. Robert
C. Schenck, Ohio; Hon. George S. Shanklin, Kentucky; Hon. Godlove S.
Orth, Indiana; Hon. Joseph W. McClurg, Missouri; Hon. Fernando C.
Beaman, Michigan; Hon. John A. Kasson, Iowa; Hon. Ithamar C. Sloan,
Wisconsin; Hon. William Higby, California; Hon. WiUiam Windom,
Abraha7it Lincoln 297
Minnesota; Hon. J. H. D. Henderson, Oregon; Hon. Sidney Clarke, Kan-
sas; Hon. Kellian V. Whaley, West Virginia.
The joint committee made the following report, which was concurred
in by both Houses nem. con. :
Whereas the melancholy event of the violent and tragic death of Abraham Lincoln,
^ate President of the United States, having occurred during the recess of Congress,
and the two Houses sharing in the general grief and desiring to manifest their sensi-
bility upon the occasion of the public bereavement: Therefore,
Be it resolved by the Senate {the House of Representatives concurring'), That the
two Houses of Congress will assemble in the Hall of the House of Representatives on
Monday, the 12th day of February next, that being his anniversary birthday, at the
hour of 12 m. , and that, in the presence of the two Houses there assembled, an address
upon the life and character of Abraham Lincoln, late President of the United States,
be pronounced by Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,* and that the President of the Senate
pro tempore and the Speaker of the House of Representatives be requested to invite
the President of the United States, the heads of the several Departments, the judges
of the Supreme Court, the representatives of the foreign governments near this Gov-
ernment, and such officers of the Army and Navy as have received the thanks of
Congress who may then be at the seat of Government to be present on the occasion.
And be it further resolved. That the President of the United States be requested
to transmit a copy of these resolutions to Mrs. Lincoln, and to assure her of the pro-
found sympathy of the two Houses of Congress for her deep personal affliction and
of their sincere condolence for the late national bereavement.
[For proclamations of President Johnson recommending, in consequence
of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, late President of the United
States, a day for special humiliation and prayer, see pp. 306-307, and
for Executive order in connection therewith see p. 339. For Executive
order closing the Executive Office and the Departments on the day of the
funeral of the late President, at Springfield, 111., see p. 335. For Execu-
tive order closing the public offices April 14, 1866, in commemoration of
the assassination of the late President, see p. 440.]
*Mr. Stanton having declined, Hon. George Bancroft, of New York, in response to an invitation
from the joint committee, consented to deliver the address.
Andrew Johnson
April IB, 1866, to March 4, 1869
299
i
r ID Fi If; W ^J O H N S O N
Andrew Johnson
Andrkw Johnson was born in Raleigh, N. C, December 29, 1808.
His parents were very poor. When he was 4 years old his father died
of injuries received in rescuing a person from drowning. At the age of
10 years Andrew was apprenticed to a tailor. His early education was
almost entirely neglected, and, notwithstanding his natural craving to
learn, he never spent a day in school. Was taught the alphabet by a
fellow- workman, borrowed a book, and learned to read. In 1824 removed
to Laurens Court- House, S. C, where he worked as a journeyman tailor.
In May, 1826, returned to Raleigh, and in September, with his mother
and stepfather, set out for Greeneville, Tenn., in a two-wheeled cart
drawn by a blind pony. Here he married Eliza McCardle, a woman of
refinement, who taught him to write, and read to him while he was at
work during the day. It was not until he had been in Congress that
he learned to write with ease. From Greeneville went to the West, but
returned after the lapse of a year. In 1828 was elected alderman; was
reelected in 1829 and 1830, and in 1830 was advanced to the mayoralty,
which office he held for three years. In 1831 was appointed by the
county court a trustee of Rhea Academy, and about this time partici-
pated in the debates of a society at Greeneville College. In 1834 advo-
cated the adoption of a new State constitution, by which the influence
of the large landholders was abridged. In 1835 represented Greene and
Washington counties in the legislature. Was defeated for the legislature
in 1837, hut in 1839 was reelected. In 1836 supported Hugh L. White
for the Presidency, and in the political altercations between John Bell
and James K. Polk, which distracted Tennessee at the time, supported
the former. Mr. Johnson was the only ardent follower of Bell that
failed to go over to the Whig party. Was an elector for the State at
large on the Van Buren ticket in 1840, and made a State reputation by
the force of his oratory. In 1841 was elected to the State senate from
Greene and Hawkins counties, and while in that body was one of the
''immortal thirteen" Democrats who, having it in their power to pre-
vent the election of a Whig Senator, did so by refusing to meet the
301
302 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
house in joint convention; also proposed that the basis of representa-
tion should rest upon white votes, without regard to the ownership of
slaves. Was elected to Congress in 1843 over John A. Asken, a United
States Bank Democrat, who was supported by the Whigs. His first
speech was in support of the resolution to restore to General Jackson the
fine imposed upon him at New Orleans; also supported the annexation
of Texas. In 1845 was reelected, and supported Polk's Administration.
Was regularly reelected to Congress until 1853. During this period
opposed all expenditures for internal improvements that were not gen-
eral; resisted and defeated the proposed contingent tax of 10 per cent on
tea and coffee; made his celebrated defense of the veto power; urged the
adoption of the homestead law, which was obnoxious to the extreme
Southern element of his party; supported the compromise measures of
1850 as a matter of expediency, but opposed compromises in general as
a sacrifice of principle. Was elected governor of Tennessee in 1853
over Gustavus A. Henry, the ' * Kagle Orator ' ' of the State. In his
message to the legislature he dwelt upon the homestead law and other
measures for the benefit of the working classes, and earned the title of
the "Mechanic Governor." Opposed the Know-nothing movement with
characteristic vehemence. Was reelected governor in 1855, defeating
Meredith P. Gentry, the Whig- American candidate, after a most re-
markable canvass. The Kansas- Nebraska bill received his earnest sup-
port. In 1857 was elected to the United States Senate, where he urged
the passage of the homestead bill, and on May 20, 1858, made his great-
est speech on this subject. Opposed the grant of aid for the construction
of a Pacific railroad. Was prominent in debate, and frequently clashed
with Southern supporters of the Administration. His pronounced Union-
ism estranged him from the extremists on the Southern side, while his
acceptance of slavery as an institution guaranteed by the Constitution
caused him to hold aloof from the Republicans on the other. At the
Democratic convention at Charleston, S. C, in i860 was a candidate for
the Presidential nomination, but received only the vote of Tennessee,
and when the convention reassembled in Baltimore withdrew his name.
In the canvass that followed supported John C. Breckinridge. At the
session of Congress beginning in December, i860, took decided and une-
quivocal grounds in opposition to secession, and on December 13 intro-
duced a joint resolution proposing to amend the Constitution so as to
elect the President and Vice-President by district votes, Senators by a
direct popular vote, and to limit the terms of Federal judges to twelve
years, the judges to be equally divided between slaveholding and non-
slaveholding States. In his speech on this resolution, December 18 and
19, declared his unyielding opposition to secession and announced his in-
tention to stand by and act under the Constitution. Retained his seat
in the Senate until appointed by President Lincoln military governor of
Tennessee, March 4, 1862. March 12 reached Nashville, and organized
Andrew Johnson 303
a provisional government for the State; March 18 issued a proclama-
tion in which he appealed to the people to return to their allegiance,
to uphold the law, and to accept * ' a full and complete amnesty for all past
acts and declarations;" April 5 removed the mayor and other officials of
Nashville for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States,
and appointed others; urged the holding of Union meetings throughout
the State, and frequently attended them in person; completed the railroad
from Nashville to the Tennessee River; raised twenty-five regiments for
service in the State; December 8, 1862, issued a proclamation ordering
Congressional elections, and on the 15th levied an assessment upon the
richer Southern sympathizers * ' in behalf of the many helpless widows,
wives, and children in the city of Nashville who have been reduced to
poverty and wretchedness in consequence of their husbands, sons, and
fathers having been forced into the armies of this unholy and nefarious
rebellion." Was nominated for Vice-President of the United States at
the national Republican convention at Baltimore June 8, 1864, and was
elected on November 8. In his letter of acceptance of the nomination
Mr. Johnson virtually disclaimed any departure from his principles as
a Democrat, but placed his acceptance upon the ground of ''the higher
duty of first preserving the Government." On the night of the 14th of
April, 1865, President lyincoln was shot by an assassin and died the next
morning. At 11 o'clock a. m. April 15 Mr. Johnson was sworn in as
President, at his rooms in the Kirkwood House, Washington, by Chief Jus-
tice Chase, in the presence of nearly all the Cabinet officers and others.
April 29, 1865, issued a proclamation for the removal of trade restric-
tions in most of the insurrectionary States, which, being in contraven-
tion of an act of Congress, was subsequently modified. May 9 issued an
Executive order restoring Virginia to the Union. May 22 proclaimed
all ports, except four in Texas, opened to foreign commerce on July i,
1865. May 29 issued a general amnesty proclamation, after which the
fundamental and irreconcilable differences between President Johnson
and the party that had elevated him to power became more apparent.
He exercised the veto power to a very great extent, but it was gener-
ally nullified by the two- thirds votes of both Houses From May 29 to
July 13, 1865, proclaimed provisional governors for North Carolina, Mis-
sissippi, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida, whose
duties were to reorganize the State governments. The State govern-
ments were reorganized, but the Republicans claimed that the laws
passed were so stringent in reference to the negroes that it was a worse
form of slavery than the old. The thirteenth amendment to the Consti-
tution became a law December 18, 1865, with Mr. Johnson's concurrence.
The first breach between the President and the party in power was the
veto of the Freedmen's Bureau bill, in February, 1866, which was de-
signed to protect the negroes. March 27 vetoed the civil-rights bill, but
it was passed over his veto. In a message of June 22, 1866, opposed the
304 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
joint resolution proposing the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution.
In June, 1866, the Republicans in Congress brought forward their plan
of reconstruction, called the "Congressional plai;," in contradistinction
to that of the President. The chief features of the Congressional plan
were to give the negroes the right to vote, to protect them in this right,
and to prevent Confederate leaders from voting. January 5, 1867, vetoed
the act giving negroes the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia,
but it was passed over his veto. An attempt was made to impeach the
President, but it failed. In January, 1867, a bill was passed to deprive
the President of the power to proclaim general amnesty, which he disre-
garded. Measures were adopted looking to the meeting of the Fortieth
and all subsequent Congresses immediately after the adjournment of the
preceding. The President was deprived of the command of the Army by
a rider to the army appropriation bill, which provided that his orders
should only be given through the General, who was not to be removed
without the previous consent of the Senate. The bill admitting Ne-
braska, providing that no law should ever be passed in that State deny-
ing the right of suffrage to au}^ person because of his color or race, was
vetoed by the President, but pavSsed over his veto. March 2, 1867, vetoed
the act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,
but it was passed over his veto. It embodied the Congressional plan of
reconstruction, and divided the Southern States into five military dis-
tricts, each under an officer of the Army not under the rank of brigadier-
general, who was to exercise all the functions of government until the
citizens had *' formed a constitution of government in conformity with
the Constitution of the United States in all respects. ' ' On the same day
vetoed the tenure- of- office act, which was also passed over his veto. It
provided that civil officers should remain in office until the confirmation
of their successors; that the members of the Cabinet should be removed
only with the consent of the Senate, and that when Congress was not in
session the President could suspend but not remove any official, and in
case the Senate at the next session should not ratify the suspension the
suspended official should be reinducted into his office. August 5, 1867,
requested Kdwin M. Stanton to resign his office as Secretary of War.
Mr. Stanton refused, was suspended, and General Grant was appointed
Secretary of War ad interim. When Congress met, the Senate refused to
ratify the suspension. General Grant then resigned, and Mr. Stanton
resumed the duties of his office. The President removed him and ap-
pointed lyorenzo Thomas, Adjutant- General of the Army, Secretary of
War ad interim. The Senate declared this act illegal, and Mr. Stanton
refused to comply, and notified the Speaker of the House. On February
24, 1868, the House of Representatives resolved to impeach the Presi-
dent, and on March 2 and 3 articles of impeachment were agreed upon
by the House of Representatives, and on the 4th were presented to the
Senate. The trial began on March 30. May 16 the test vote was had;
Andrew Johnson 305
thirty-five Senators voted for conviction and nineteen for acquittal. A
change of one vote would have carried conviction. A verdict of acquittal
wavS entered, and the Senate sitting as a court of impeachment adjourned
sine die. After the expiration of his term the ex- President returned
to Tennessee. Was a candidate for the United States Senate, but was
defeated. In 1872 was an unsuccessful candidate for Congressman from
the State at large. In January, 1875, was elected to the United States
Senate, and took his seat at the extra session of that year. Shortly after
the session began made a speech which was a skillful but bitter attack
upon President Grant. While visiting his daughter near Elizabethton, in
Carter County, Tenn. , was stricken with paralysis July 30, 1875, and died
the following day. He was buried at Greeneville, Tenn.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
[From the Sunday Morning Chronicle, Washington, April i6, 1865, and The Sun, Baltimore,
April 17, 1865.]
-^ GknTlkmkn: I must be permitted to say that I have been almost
overwhelmed by the announcement of the sad event which has so re-
cently occurred. I feel incompetent to perform duties so important and
responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.
As to an indication of any policy which may be pursued by me in the
administration of the Government, I have to say that that must be left
for development as the Administration progresses. The message or dec-
laration must be made by the acts as they transpire. The only assur-
ance that I can now give of the future is reference to the past. The
course which I have taken in the past in connection with this rebellion
must be regarded as a guaranty of the future. My past public life,
which has been long and laborious, has been founded, as I in good con-
science believe, upon a great principle of right, which lies at the basis of
all things. The best energies of my life have been spent in endeavor-
ing to establish and perpetuate the principles of free government, and I
believe that the Government in passing through its present perils will
settle down upon principles consonant with popular rights more per-
manent and enduring than heretofore. I must be permitted to say, if
I understand the feelings of my own heart, that I have long labored to
ameliorate and elevate the condition of the great mass of the American
people. Toil and an honest advocacy of the great principles of free gov-
ernment have been my lot. Duties have been mine; consequences are
God's. This has been the foundation of my political creed, and I feel
that in the end the Government will triumph and that these great prin-
ciples will be permanently established.
M P — vol. VI— 20
3o6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
In conclusion, gentlemen, let me say that I want your encouragement
and countenance. I shall ask and rely upon you and others in carrying
the Government through its present perils. I feel in making this request
that it will be heartily responded to by you and all other patriots and
lovers of the rights and interests of a free people.
Aprii, 15, 1865.*
PROCLAMATIONS.
By th:^ President of the United States of America.
A PROCIyAMATION.
Whereas, by my direction, the Acting Secretary of State, in a notice
to the public of the 17th, requested the various religious denominations to
assemble on the 19th instant, on the occasion of the obsequies of Abra-
ham lyincoln, late President of the United States, and to observe the
same with appropriate ceremonies; but
Whereas our country has become one great house of mourning, where
the head of the family has been taken away, and believing that a special
period should be assigned for again humbling ourselves before Almighty
God, in order that the bereavement may be sanctified to the nation:
Now, therefore, in order to mitigate that grief on earth which can only
be assuaged by communion with the Father in heaven, and in compliance
with the wishes of Senators and Representatives in Congress, communi-
cated to me by resolutions adopted at the National Capitol, I, Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States, do hereby appoint Thurs-
day, the 25th day of May next, to be observed, wherever in the United
States the flag of the country may be respected, as a day of humiliation
and mourning, and I recommend my fellow-citizens then to assemble in
their respective places of worship, there to unite in solemn service to
Almighty God in memory of the good man who has been removed, so
that all shall be occupied at the same time in contemplation of his virtues
and in sorrow for his sudden and violent end.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, the 25th day of April, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. Hunter,
Acting Secretary of State.
Andrew Johnson 2P1
By thk President of thk United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas by my proclamation of the 25th instant Thursday, the 25th
day of next month, was recommended as a day for special humiliation
and prayer in consequence of the assassination of Abraham I^incoln, late
President of the United States; but
Whereas my attention has since been called to the fact that the day
aforesaid is sacred to large numbers of Christians as one of rejoicing for
the ascension of the Savior:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do hereby suggest that the religious services recommended
as aforesaid should be postponed until Thursday, the ist day of June
next.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 29th day of April, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-nintli. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. Hunter,
Acting Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIyAMATlON.
Whereas it appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military Justice
that the atrocious murder of the late President, Abraham Lincoln, and
the attempted assassination of the Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of
State, were incited, concerted, and procured by and between Jefferson
Davis, late of Richmond, Va., and Jacob Thompson, Clement C. Clay,
Beverley Tucker, George N. Sanders, William C. Cleary, and other rebels
and traitors against the Government of the United States harbored in
Canada:
Now, therefore, to the end that justice may be done, I, Andrew John-
son, President of the United States, do offer and promise for the arrest
of said persons, or either of them, within the limits of the United States,
so that they can be brought to trial, the following rewards:
One hundred thousand dollars for the arrest of Jefferson Davis.
Twenty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of Clement C. Clay.
Twenty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of Jacob Thompson, late of
Mississippi.
Twenty-five thousand dollars for the arrest of George N. Sanders.
3o8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Twenty- five thousand dollars for the arrest of Beverley Tucker.
Ten thousand dollars for the arrest of William C. Cleary, late clerk of
Clement C. Clay.
The Provost-Marshal-General of the United States is directed to cause
a description of said persons, with notice of the above rewards, to be
published.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
r -I Done at the city of Washington, this 2d day of May, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. HuNTBR,
Acting Secretary of State,
By th:^ Pr^sidbjnt of thk United Statjss of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas the President of the United States, by his proclamation of the
19th day of April, 1861, did declare certain States therein mentioned in
insurrection against the Government of the United States; and
Whereas armed resistance to the authority of this Government in the
said insurrectionary States may be regarded as virtually at an end, and
the persons by whom that resistance, as well as the operations of insur-
gent cruisers, was directed are fugitives or captives; and
Whereas it is understood that some of those cruisers are still infesting
the high seas and others are preparing to capture, burn, and destroy
vessels of the United States:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of
the United States, hereby enjoin all naval, military, and civil officers
of the United States diligently to endeavor, by all lawful means, to arrest
the said cruisers and to bring them into a port of the United States, in
order that they may be prevented from committing further depredations
on commerce and that the persons on board of them may no longer enjoy
impunity for their crimes.
And I do further proclaim and declare that if, after a reasonable time
shall have elapsed for this proclamation to become known in the ports of
nations claiming to have been neutrals, the said insurgent cruisers and
the persons on board of them shall continue to receive hospitality in the
said ports, this Government will deem itself justified in refusing hospi-
tality to the public vessels of such nations in ports of the United States
and in adopting such other measures as may be deemed advisable toward
vindicating the national sovereignty.
Andrew Johnson 309
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be afl&xed.
P 1 Done at the city of Washington, this loth day of May, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. Hunter,
Acting Secretary of State,
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas by the proclamation of the President of the nth day of April
last certain ports of the United States therein specified, which had previ-
ously been subject to blockade, were, for objects of public safety, declared,
in conformity with previous special legislation of Congress, to be closed
against foreign commerce during the national will, to be thereafter ex-
pressed and made known by the President; and
Whereas events and circumstances have since occurred which, in my
judgment, render it expedient to remove that restriction, except as to
the ports of Galveston, La Salle, Brazos de Santiago (Point Isabel), and
Brownsville, in the State of Texas:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do hereby declare that the ports aforesaid, not excepted
as above, shall be open to foreign commerce from and after the ist day
of July next; that commercial intercourse with the said ports may from
that time be carried on, subject to the laws of the United States and in
pursuance of such regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of
the Treasury. If, however, any vessel from a foreign port shall enter
any of the before-named excepted ports in the State of Texas, she will
continue to be held liable to the penalties prescribed by the act of Con-
gress approved on the 13th day of July, 1861, and the persons on board
of her to such penalties as may be incurred, pursuant to the laws of war,
for trading or attempting to trade with an enemy.
And I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do hereby
declare and make known that the United States of America do hence-
forth disallow to all persons trading or attempting to trade in any ports
of the United States in violation of the laws thereof all pretense of bel-
ligerent rights and privileges; and I give notice that from the date of
this proclamation all such offenders will be held and dealt with as pirates.
It is also ordered that all restrictions upon trade heretofore imposed in
the territory of the United States east of the Mississippi River, save those
relating to contraband of war, to the reservation of the rights of the
United States to property purchased in the territory of an enemy, and to
3IO Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the 25 per cent upon purchases of cotton be removed. All provisions
of the internal-revenue law will be carried into effect under the proper
officers.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 2 2d day of May, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. HUNTKR,
Acting Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidknt of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the President of the United States, on the 8th day of Decem-
ber, A. D. 1863, and on the 26th day of March, A. D. 1864, did, with the
object to suppress the existing rebellion, to induce all persons to return
to their loyalty, and to restore the authority of the United States, issue
proclamations offering amnesty and pardon to certain persons who had,
directly or by implication, participated in the said rebellion; and
Whereas many persons who had so engaged in said rebellion have,
since the issuance of said proclamations, failed or neglected to take the
benefits offered thereby; and
Whereas many persons who have been justly deprived of all claim to
amnesty and pardon thereunder by reason of their participation, directly
or by implication, in said rebellion and continued hostility to the Gov-
ernment of the United States since the date of said proclamations now
desire to apply for and obtain amnesty and pardon.
To the end, therefore, that the authority of the Government of the
United States may be restored and that peace, order, and freedom may
be established, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do
proclaim and declare that I hereby grant to all persons who have, directly
or indirectly, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter
excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all rights of property,
except as to slaves and except in cases where legal proceedings under
the laws of the United States providing for the confiscation of property
of persons engaged in rebellion have been instituted; but upon the con-
dition, nevertheless, that every such person shall take and subscribe the
following oath (or affirmation) and thenceforward keep and maintain
said oath inviolate, and which oath shall be registered for permanent
preservation and shall be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:
I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm), in presence of Almighty God, that I
will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United
Andrew Johnson 311
States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will in like manner abide
by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during
the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves. So help me God.
The following classes of persons are excepted from the benefits of this
proclamation:
First. All who are or shall have been pretended civil or diplomatic
officers or otherwise domestic or foreign agents of the pretended Con-
federate government.
Second. All who left judicial stations under the United States to aid
the rebellion.
Third. All who shall have been military or naval officers of said pre-
• tended Confederate government above the rank of colonel in the army or
lieutenant in the navy.
Fourth. All who left seats in the Congress of the United States to aid
the rebellion.
Fifth. All who resigned or tendered resignations of their commissions
in the Army or Navy of the United States to evade duty in resisting the
rebellion.
Sixth. All who have engaged in any way in treating otherwise than
lawfully as prisoners of war persons found in the United States service
as officers, soldiers, seamen, or in other capacities.
Seventh. All persons who have been or are absentees from the United
States for the purpose of aiding the rebellion.
Eighth. All military and naval officers in the rebel service who were
educated by the Government in the Military Academy at West Point or
the United States Naval Academy.
Ninth. All persons who held the pretended offices of governors of
States in insurrection against the United States.
Tenth. All persons who left their homes within the jurisdiction and
protection of the United States and passed beyond the Federal military
lines into the pretended Confederate States for the purpose of aiding the
rebellion.
Eleventh. All persons who have been engaged in the destruction of
the commerce of the United States upon the high seas and all persons
who have made raids into the United States from Canada or been en-
gaged in destroying the commerce of the United States upon the lakes
and rivers that separate the British Provinces from the United States.
Twelfth. All persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain the
benefits hereof by taking the oath herein prescribed, are in military, naval,
or civil confinement or custody, or under bonds of the civil, military, or
naval authorities or agents of the United States as prisoners of war,
or persons detained for offenses of aay kind, either before or after con-
viction.
Thirteenth. All persons who have voluntarily participated in said re-
bellion and the estimated value of whose taxable property is over |2o,ooo.
312 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Fourteenth. All persons who have taken the oath of amnesty as pre-
scribed in the President's proclamation of December 8, A. D. 1863, or
an oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States since the
date of said proclamation and who have not thenceforward kept and
maintained the same inviolate.
Provided, That special application may be made to the President for
pardon by any person belonging to the excepted classes, and such clem-
ency will be liberally extended as may be consistent with the facts of the
case and the peace and dignity of the United States.
The Secretary of State will establish rules and regulations for admin-
istering and recording the said amnesty oath, so as to insure its benefit
to the people and guard the Government against fraud.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
p -1 Done at the city of Washington, the 29th day of May, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^*^- ^ ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
WlI^IylAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State,
By thk Prejsidknt of thk Unitkd Statks of Ame^rica.
' A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of
the United States declares that the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government and shall protect
each of them against invasion and domestic violence; and
Whereas the President of the United States is by the Constitution
made Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as chief civil
executive officer of the United States, and is bound by solemn oath faith-
fully to execute the office of President of the United States and to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed; and
Whereas the rebellion which has been waged by a portion of the peo-
ple of the United States against the properly constituted authorities of
the Government thereof in the most violent and revolting form, but
whose organized and armed forces have now been almost entirely over-
come, has in its revolutionary progress deprived the people of the State
of North Carolina of all civil government; and
Whereas it becomes necessary and proper to carry out and enforce the
obligations of the United States to the people of North Carolina in secur-
ing them in the enjoyment of a republican form of government:
Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution of the United States and for the purpose
Andrew Johnson 313
of enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a State government
whereby justice may be established, domestic tranquillity insured, and
loyal citizens protected in all their rights of life, liberty, and property,
I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States and Commander in
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do hereby appoint
William W. Holden provisional governor of the State of North Carolina,
whose duty it shall be, at the earliest practicable period, to prescribe such
rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for convening a
convention composed of delegates to be chosen by that portion of the
people of said State who are loyal to the United States, and no others,
for the purpose of altering or amending the constitution thereof, and
with authority to exercise within the limits of said State all the powers
necessary and proper to enable such loyal people of the State of North
Carolina to restore said State to its constitutional relations to the Federal
Government and to present such a republican form of State government
as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United States therefor
and its people to protection by the United States against invasion, insur-
rection, and domestic violence: Provided, That in any election that may
be hereafter held for choosing delegates to any State convention as afore-
said no person shall be qualified as an elector or shall be eligible as a
member of such convention unless he shall have previously taken and
subscribed the oath of amnesty as set forth in the President's proclama-
tion of May 29, A. D. 1865, and is a voter qualified as prescribed by the
constitution and laws of the State of North Carolina in force immediately
before the 20th day of May, A. D. 1861, the date of the so-called ordi-
nance of secession; and the 'said convention, when convened, or the legis-
lature that may be thereafter assembled, will prescribe the qualification
of electors and the eligibility of persons to hold office under the constitu-
tion and laws of the State — a power the people of the several States com-
posing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of
the Government to the present time.
And I do hereby direct —
First. That the military commander of the department and all officers
and persons in the military and naval service aid and assist the said pro-
visional governor in carrying into effect this proclamation; and they are
enjoined to abstain from in any way hindering, impeding, or discour-
aging the loyal people from the organization of a State government as
herein authorized.
Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws
of the United States the administration whereof belongs to the State
Department applicable to the geographical limits aforesaid.
Third. That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed to nominate for
appointment assessors of taxes and collectors of customs and internal
revenue and such other officers of the Treasury Department as are au-
thorized by law and put in execution the revenue laws of the United
314 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
States within the geographical limits aforesaid. In making appoint-
ments the preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing
within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed;
but if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then persons
residing in other States or districts shall be appointed.
Fourth. That the Postmaster- General proceed to establish post-ofiices
and post routes and put into execution the postal laws of the United
States within the said State, giving to loyal residents the preference of
appointment; but if suitable residents are not found, then to appoint
agents, etc. , from other States.
Fifth. That the district judge for the judicial district in which North
Carolina is included proceed to hold courts within said State in accord-
ance with the provisions of the act of Congress. The Attorney- General
will insitruct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment, confisca-
•tion, and sale property subject to confiscation and enforce the adminis-
tration of justice within said State in all matters within the cognizance
and jurisdiction of the Federal courts.
Sixth. That the Secretary of the Navy take possCvSsion of all public
property belonging to the Navy Department within said geographical
limits and put in operation all acts of Congress in relation to naval affairs
having application to the said State.
Seventh. That the Secretary of the Interior put in force the laws
relating to the Interior Department applicable to the geographical limits
aforesaid.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 29th day of May, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
ninth.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii^iyiAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
By thk Prbsidknt of the United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of
the United States declares that the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government and shall protect
each of them against invasion and domestic violence; and
Whereas the President of the United States is by the Constitution
made Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as chief civil
Andrew Johnson 315
executive officer of the United States, and is bound by solemn oath faith-
fully to execute the office of President of the United States and to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed; and
Whereas the rebellion which has been waged by a portion of the peo-
ple of the United States against the properly constituted authorities of
the Government thereof in the most violent and revolting form, but
whose organized and armed forces have now been almost entirely over-
come, has in its revolutionary progress deprived the people of the State
of Mississippi of all civil government; and
Whereas it becomes necessary and proper to carry out and enforce the
obligations of the United States to the people of Mississippi in securing
them in the enjoyment of a republican form of government:
Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution of the United States and for the purpose
of enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a State government
whereby justice may be established, domestic tranquillity insured, and
loyal citizens protected in all their rights of life, liberty, and property,
I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States and Commander in
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do hereby appoint
William L. Sharkey, of Mississippi, provisional governor of the State of
Mississippi, whose duty it shall be, at the earliest practicable period, to
prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for
convening a convention composed of delegates to be chosen by that por-
tion of the people of said State who are loyal to the United States, and
no others, for the purpose of altering or amending the constitution thereof,
and with authority to exercise within the limits of said State all the
powers necessary and proper to enable such loyal people of the State of
Mississippi to restore said State to its constitutional relations to the Fed-
eral Government and to present such a republican form of State govern-
ment as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United States there-
for and its people to protection by the United States against invasion,
insurrection, and domestic violence: Provided, That in any election that
may be hereafter held for choosing delegates to any State convention as
aforesaid no person shall be qualified as an elector or shall be eligible
as a member of such convention unless he shall have previously taken
and subscribed the oath of amnesty as set forth in the President's proc-
lamation of May 29, A. D. 1865, and is a voter qualified as prescribed by
the constitution and laws of the State of Mississippi in force immediately
before the 9th of January, A. D. 1861, the date of the so-called ordinance
of secession; and the said convention, when convened, or the legislature
that may be thereafter assembled, will prescribe the qualification of elect-
ors and the eligibility of persons to hold office under the constitution
and laws of the State — a power the people of the several States com-
posing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of
the Government to the present time.
3i6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
And I do hereby direct —
First. That the military commander of the department and all officers
and persons in the military and naval service aid and assist the said pro-
visional governor in carrying into effect this proclamation; and they are
enjoined to abstain from in any way hindering, impeding, or discour-
aging the loyal people from the organization of a State government as
herein authorized.
Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws
of the United States the administration whereof belongs to the State
Department applicable to the geographical limits aforesaid.
Third. That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed to nominate for
appointment assessors of taxes and collectors of customs and internal
revenue and such other officers of the Treasury Department as are au-
thorized by law and put in execution the revenue laws of the United
States within the geographical limits aforesaid. In making appoint-
ments the preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing
within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed;
but if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then persons
residing in other States or districts shall be appointed.
Fourth. That the Postmaster- General proceed to establish post-offices
and post routes and put into execution the postal laws of the United
States within the said State, giving to loyal residents the preference of
appointment; but if suitable residents are not found, then to appoint
agents, etc. , from other States.
Fifth. That the district judge for the judicial district in which Missis-
sippi is included proceed to hold courts within said State in accordance
with the provisions of the act of Congress. The Attorney- General will
instruct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment, confiscation,
and sale property subject to confiscation and enforce the administration
of justice within said State in all matters within the cognizance and juris-
diction of the Federal courts.
Sixth. That the Secretary of the Navy take possession of all public
property belonging to the Navy Department within said geographical
limits and put in operation all acts of Congress in relation to naval affairs
having application to the said State.
Seventh. That the Secretary of the Interior put in force the laws
relating to the Interior Department applicable to the geographical limits
aforesaid.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 13th day of June, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^- * ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Skwarp, Secretary of State.
Andrew Johnson 317
By the Prksident of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas by my proclamation* of the 29th of April, 1865, all restric-
tions upon internal, domestic, and commercial intercourse, with certain
exceptions therein specified and set forth, were removed **in such parts
of the States of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and so much of Louisiana as lies
east of the Mississippi River as shall be embraced within the lines of
national military occupation; " and
Whereas by my proclamation of the 2 2d of May, 1865, for reasons
therein given, it was declared that certain ports of the United States
which had been previously closed against foreign commerce should, with
certain specified exceptions, be reopened to such commerce on and after
the ist day of July next, subject to the laws of the United States, and
in pursuance of such regulations as might be prescribed by the Secretary
of the Treasury; and
Whereas I am satisfactorily informed that dangerous combinations
against the laws of the United States no longer exist within the State of
Tennessee; that the insurrection heretofore existing within said State
has been suppressed; that within the boundaries thereof the authority
of the United States is undisputed, and that such ofiicers of the United
States as have been duly commissioned are in the undisturbed exercise
of their ofiicial functions:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of
the United States, do hereby declare that all restrictions upon internal,
domestic, and coastwise intercourse and trade and upon the removal of
products of States heretofore declared in insurrection, reserving and ex-
cepting only those relating to contraband of war, as hereinafter recited,
and also those which relate to the reservation of the rights of the United
States to property purchased in the territory of an enemy heretofore
imposed in the territory of the United States east of the Mississippi River,
are annulled, and I do hereby direct that they be forthwith removed;
and that on and after the ist day of July next all restrictions upon for-
eign commerce with said ports, with the exception and reservation afore-
said, be likewise removed; and that the commerce of said States shall
be conducted under the supervision of the regularly appointed ofiicers
of the customs provided by law, and such officers of the customs shall
receive any captured and abandoned property that may be turned over to
them under the law by the military or naval forces of the United States
and dispose of such property as shall be directed by the Secretary of
the Treasury. The following articles, contraband of war, are excepted
from the effect of this proclamation: Arms, ammunition, all articles from
which ammunition is made, and gray uniforms and cloth.
♦Executive order.
3i8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
And I hereby also proclaim and declare that the insurrection, so far as
it relates to and within the State of Tennessee and the inhabitants of
the said State of Tennessee as reorganized and constituted under their
recently adopted constitution and reorganization and accepted by them,
is suppressed, and therefore, also, that all the disabilities and disquali-
fications attaching to said State and the inhabitants thereof consequent
upon any proclamation issued by virtue of the fifth section of the act
entitled "An act further to provide for the collection of duties on im-
ports and for other purposes," approved the 13th day of July, 1861, are
removed.
But nothing herein contained shall be considered or construed as in
any wise changing or impairing any of the penalties and forfeitures for
treason heretofore incurred under the laws of the United States or any
of the provisions, restrictions, or disabilities set forth in my proclamation
bearing date the 29th day of May, 1865, or as impairing existing regula-
tions for the suspension of the habeas corpus and the exercise of military
law in cases where it shall be necessary for the general public safety
and welfare during the existing insurrection; nor shall this proclama-
tion affect or in any way impair any laws heretofore passed by Congress
and duly approved by the President or any proclamations or orders is-
sued by him during the aforesaid insurrection abolishing slavery or in
any way affecting the relations of slavery, whether of persons or prop-
erty; but, on the contrary, all such laws and proclamations heretofore
made or issued are expressly saved and declared to be in full force and
virtue.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 13th day of June, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
By THE) Prbsidknt of THE) Unitejd Staters of Amkrica.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of
the United States declares that the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government and shall protect
each of them against invasion and domestic violence; and
Whereas the President of the United States is by the Constitution
made Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as chief civil
Andrew Johnson 319
executive officer of the United States, and is bound by solemn oath faith-
fully to execute the office of President of the United States and to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed; and
Whereas the rebellion which has been waged by a portion of the peo-
ple of the United States against the properly constituted authorities of
the Government thereof in the most violent and revolting form, but
whose organized and armed forces have now been almost entirely over-
come, has in its revolutionary progress deprived the people of the State
of Georgia of all civil government; and
Whereas it becomes necessary and proper to carry out and enforce the
obligations of the United States to the people of Georgia in securing them
in the enjoyment of a republican form of government:
Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution of the United States and for the purpose
of enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a State government
whereby justice may be established, domestic tranquillity insured, and
loyal citizens protected in all their rights of life, liberty, and property,
I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States and Commander in
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do hereby appoint
James Johnson, of Georgia, provisional governor of the State of Georgia,
whose duty it shall be, at the earliest practicable period, to prescribe such
rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for convening a
convention composed of delegates to be chosen by that portion of the
people of said State who are loyal to the United States, and no others,
for the purpose of altering or amending the constitution thereof, and
with authority to exercise within the limits of said State all the powers
necessary and proper to enable such loyal people of the State of Georgia
to restore said State to its constitutional relations to the Federal Govern-
ment and to present such a republican form of State government as will
entitle the State to the guaranty of the United States therefor and its
people to protection by the United States against invasion, insurrection,
and domestic violence: Provided, That in any election that may be here-
after held for choosing delegates to any State convention as aforesaid no
person shall be qualified as an elector or shall be eligible as a member
of such convention unless he shall have previously taken and subscribed
the oath of amnesty as set forth in the President's proclamation of May
29, A. D. 1865, and is a voter qualified as prescribed by the constitution
and laws of the State of Georgia in force immediately before the 19th
of January, A. D. 1861, the date of the so-called ordinance of secession;
and the said convention, when convened, or the legislature that may be
thereafter assembled, will prescribe the qualification of electors and the
ehgibility of persons to hold office under the constitution and laws of
the State — a power the people of the several States composing the Fed-
eral Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of the Government
to the present time.
320 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
And I do hereby direct —
First. That the mihtary commander of the department and all officers
and persons in the military and naval service aid and assist the said pro-
visional governor in carrjdng into effect this proclamation; and they are
enjoined to abstain from in any way hindering, impeding, or discour-
aging the loyal people from the organization of a State government as
herein authorized.
Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws
of the United States the administration whereof belongs to the State
Department applicable to the geographical limits aforesaid.
Third. That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed to nominate for
appointment assessors of taxes and collectors of customs and internal
revenue and such other officers of the Treasury Department as are au-
thorized by law and put in execution the revenue laws of the United
States within the geographical limits aforesaid. In making appoint-
ments the preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing
within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed;
but if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then persons
residing in other States or districts shall be appointed.
Fourth. That the Postmaster- General proceed to establish post-offices
and post routes and put into execution the postal laws of the United
States within the said State, giving to loyal residents the preference of
appointment; but if suitable residents are not found, then to appoint
agents, etc. , from other States.
Fifth. That the district judge for the judicial district in which Georgia
is included proceed to hold courts within said State in accordance with
the provisions of the act of Congress. The Attorney- General will in-
struct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment, confiscation,
and sale property subject to confiscation and enforce the administration
of justice within said State in all matters within the cognizance and juris-
diction of the Federal courts.
Sixth. That the Secretary of the Navy take possession of all public
property belonging to the Navy Department within said geographical
limits and put in operation all acts of Congress in relation to naval affairs
having application to the said State.
Seventh. That the Secretary of the Interior put in force the laws
relating to the Interior Department applicable to the geographical limits
aforesaid.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed. . ■
P 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 17th day of June, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States the eightj^-
^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii^iviAM H. Skward, Secretary of State,
Andrew Johnson 321
By thk Presidsni' of thk Unitkd Staters of America.
A PROCIyAMATlON.
Whereas the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of
the United States declares that the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government and shall protect
each of them against invasion and domestic violence; and
Whereas the President of the United States is by the Constitution
made Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as chief civil
executive officer of the United States, and is bound by solemn oath faith-
fully to execute the office of President of the United States and to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed; and
Whereas the rebellion which has been waged by a portion of the peo-
ple of the United States against the properly constituted authorities of
the Government thereof in the most violent and revolting form, but
whose organized and armed forces have now been almost entirely over-
come, has in its revolutionary progress deprived the people of the State
of Texas of all civil government; and
Whereas it becomes necessary and proper to carry out and enforce the
obligations of the United States to the people of the State of Texas in
securing them in the enjoyment of a republican form of government:
Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution of the United States and for the purpose of
enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a State government
whereby justice may be established, domestic tranquillity insured, and
loyal citizens protected in all their rights of life, liberty, and property,
I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States and Commander in
Chief of the Army and Navy of tjie United States, do hereby appoint
Andrew J. Hamilton, of Texas, provisional governor of the State of
Texas, whose duty it shall be, at the earliest practicable period, to pre-
scribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for
convening a convention composed of delegates to be chosen by that por-
tion of the people of said State who are loyal to the United States, and
no others, for the purpose of altering or amending the constitution
thereof, and with authority to exercise within the limits of said State
all the powers necessary and proper to enable such loyal people of the
State of Texas to restore said State to its constitutional relations to
the Federal Government and to present such a republican form of State
government as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United
States therefor and its people to protection by the United States against
invasion, insurrection, and domestic violence: Provided, That in any elec-
tion that may be hereafter held for choosing delegates to any State con-
vention as aforesaid no person shall be qualified as an elector or shall
be ehgible as a member of such convention unless he shall have pre-
viously taken and subscribed the oath of amnesty as set forth in the
M P— vol, VI— 21
322 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
k
President's proclamation of May 29, A. D. 1865, and is a voter qualified
as prescribed by the constitution and laws of the State of Texas in force
immediately before the ist day of February, A. D. 1861, the date of the
so-called ordinance of secession; and the said convention, when con-
vened, or the legislature that may be thereafter assembled, will prescribe
the qualification of electors and the eligibility of persons to hold office
under the constitution and laws of the State — a power the people of the
several States composing the Federal Union have rightfully exercised
from the origin of the Government to the present time.
And I do hereby direct —
First. That the military commander of the department and all officers
and persons in the military and naval service aid and assist the said pro-
visional governor in carrying into effect this proclamation; and they are
enjoined to abstain from in any way hindering, impeding, or discour-
aging the loyal people from the organization of a State government as
herein authorized.
Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws
of the United States the administration whereof belongs to the State
Department applicable to the geographical limits aforesaid.
Third. That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed to nominate for
appointment assessors of taxes and collectors of customs and internal
revenue and such other officers of the Treasury Department as are au-
thorized by law and put in execution the revenue laws of the United
States within the geographical limits aforesaid. In making appoint-
ments the preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing
within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed;
but if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then persons
residing in other States or districts shall be appointed.
Fourth. That the Postmaster-General proceed to establish post-offices
and post routes and put into execution the postal laws of the United
States within the said State, giving to loyal residents the preference of
appointment; but if suitable residents are not found, then to appoint
agents, etc, , from other States.
Fifth. That the district judge for the judicial district in which Texas
is included proceed to hold courts within said State in accordance with
the provisions of the act of Congress. The Attorney- General will in-
struct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment, confiscation,
and sale ^y^operty subject to confiscation and enforce the administration
of justice within said State in all matters within the cognizance and
jurisdiction of the Federal courts.
Sixth. That the Secretary of the Navy take possession of all public
property belonging to the Navy Department within said geographical
limits and put in operation all acts of Congress in relation to naval affairs
having application to the said State.
Seventh. That the Secretary of the Interior put in force the laws
Andrew Johnson 323
relating to the Interior Department applicable to the geographical limits
aforesaid.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
J- -| Done at the city of Washington, this 17th day of June, A. D.
'- 1865, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Sbward, Secretary of State.
By thk President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of
the United States declares that the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government and shall protect
each of them against invasion and domestic violence; and
Whereas the President of the United States is by the Constitution
made Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as chief civil
executive officer of the United States, and is bound by solemn oath faith-
fully to execute the office of President of the United States and to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed; and
Whereas the rebellion which has been waged by a portion of the peo-
ple of the United States against the properly constituted authorities of
the Government thereof in the most violent and revolting form, but
whose organized and armed forces have now been almost entirely over-
come, has in its revolutionary progress deprived the people of the State
of Alabama of all civil government; and
Whereas it becomes necessary and proper to carry out and enforce the
obligations of the United States to the people of Alabama iri securing
them in the enjoyment of a republican form of government:
Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution of the United States and for the purpose
of enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a State government
whereby justice may be established, domestic tranquillity insured, and
loyal citizens protected in all their rights of life, liberty, and property, I,
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States and Commander in Chief
of the Army and Navy of the United States, do hereby appoint I^ewis
E. Parsons, of Alabama, provisional governor of the State of Alabama,
whose duty it shall be, at the earliest practicable period, to prescribe
such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for convening
a convention composed of delegates to be chosen by that portion of the
people of said State who are loyal to the United States, and no others, for
the purpose of altering or amending the constitution thereof, and with
authority to exercise within the limits of said State all the powers neces-
sary and proper to enable such loyal people of the State of Alabama to
324 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
restore said State to its constitutional relations to the Federal Government
and to present such a republican form of State government as will entitle
the State to the guaranty of the United States therefor and its people to
protection by the United States against invasion, insurrection, and do-
mestic violence: Provided, That in any election that may be hereafter
held for choosing delegates to any State convention as aforesaid no per-
son shall be qualified as an elector or shall be eligible as a member of such
convention unless he shall have previously taken and subscribed the oath
of amnesty as set forth in the President's proclamation of May 29, A. D.
1865, and is a voter qualified as prescribed by the constitution and laws of
the State of Alabama in force immediately before the nth day of January,
A. D. 1 86 1, the date of the so-called ordinance of secession; and the said
convention, when convened, or the legislature that may be thereafter as-
sembled, will prescribe the qualification of electors and the eligibility of
persons to hold office under the constitution and laws of the State, a power
the people of the several States composing the Federal Union have right-
fully exercised from the origin of the Government to the present time.
And I do hereby direct —
First. That the military commander of the department and all officers
and persons in the military and naval service aid and assist the said pro-
visional governor in carrying into effect this proclamation; and they are
enjoined to abstain from in any way hindering, impeding, or discour-
aging the loyal people from the organization of a State government as
herein authorized.
Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws
of the United States the administration whereof belongs to the State
Department applicable to the geographical limits aforesaid.
Third. That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed to nominate for
appointment assessors of taxes and collectors of customs and internal
revenue and such other officers of the Treasury Department as are au-
thorized by law and put in execution the revenue laws of the United
States within the geographical limits aforesaid. In making appoint-
ments the preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing
within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed;
but if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then persons
residing in other States or districts shall be appointed.
Fourth. That the Postmaster- General proceed to establish post-offices
and post routes and put into execution the postal laws of the United
States within the said State, giving to loyal residents the preference of
appointment; but if suitable residents are not found, then to appoint
agents, etc. , from other States.
Fifth. That the district judge for the judicial district in which Ala-
bama is included proceed to hold courts within said State in accordance
with the provisions of the act of Congress. The Attorney- General will
instruct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment, confiscation,
Andrew Johnson 325
and sale property subject to confiscation and enforce the administration
of justice within said State in all matters within the cognizance and juris-
diction of the Federal courts.
Sixth. That the Secretary of the Navy take possession of all public
property belonging to the Navy Department within said geographical
limits and put in operation all acts of Congress in relation to naval affairs
having application to the said State.
Seventh. That the Secretary of the Interior put in force the laws
relating to the Interior Department applicable to the geographical limits
aforesaid.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 21st day of June, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^- ■ ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
WiiyiviAM H. Seward, Secretary of State,
By the President op the United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas by the proclamations of the President of the 19th and 27th
of April, 1 86 1, a blockade of certain ports of the United States was set
on foot; but
Whereas the reasons for that measure have ceased to exist:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do hereby declare and proclaim the blockade aforesaid to
be rescinded as to all the ports aforesaid, including that of Galveston and
other ports west of the Mississippi River, which ports will be open to
foreign commerce on the ist of July next on the terms and conditions
set forth in my proclamation of the 2 2d of May last.
It is to be understood, however, that the blockade thus rescinded was
an international measure for the purpose of protecting the sovereign
rights of the United States. The greater or less subversion of civil
authority in the region to which it applied and the impracticability of
at once restoring that in due efficiency may for a season make it advis-
able to employ the Army and Navy of the United States toward carrying
the laws into effect wherever such employment may be necessary.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
fsEAL 1 I^oiie at the city of Washington, this 23d day of June, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. Hunter, Acting Secretary of State.
326 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
By thk Prksidknt of thk United States.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas it has been the desire of the General Government of the United
States to restore unrestricted commercial intercourse between and in the
several States as soon as the same could be safely done in view of resist-
ance to the authority of the United States by combinations of armed
insurgents; and
Whereas that desire has been shown in my proclamations of the 29th
of April, 1865, the 13th of June, 1865, and the 23d of June, 1865; and
Whereas it now seems expedient and proper to remove restrictions upon
internal, domestic, and coastwise trade and commercial intercourse between
and within the States and Territories west of the Mississippi River:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do hereby declare that all restrictions upon internal, do-
mestic, and coastwise intercourse and trade and upon the purchase and
removal of products of States and parts of States and Tenitories hereto-
fore declared in insurrection, lying west of the Mississippi River (except-
ing only those relating to property heretofore purchased by the agents
or captured by or surrendered to the forces of the United States and to
the transportation thereto or therein on private account of arms, ammu-
nition, all articles from which ammunition is made, gray uniforms, and
gray cloth) , are annulled; and I do hereby direct that they be forthwith re-
moved, and also that the commerce of such States and parts of States shall
be conducted under the supervision of the regularly appointed officers of
the customs, [who] shall receive any captured and abandoned property
that may be turned over to them under the law by the military or naval
forces of the United States and dispose of the same in accordance with
instructions on the subject issued by the Secretary of the Treasury.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 24th day of June, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the eighty-ninth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. HuNTKR, Acting Secretary of State.
By thk Prbsidknt of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of
the United States declares that the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government and shall protect
each of them against invasion and domestic violence; and
Whereas the President of the United States is by the Constitution
made Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as chief civil
Andrew Johtison 327
executive officer of the United States, and is bound by solemn oath faith-
fully to execute the office of President of the United States and to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed; and
Whereas the rebellion which has been waged by a portion of the peo-
ple of the United States against the properly constituted authorities of
the Government thereof in the most violent and revolting form, but
whose organized and armed forces have now been almost entirely over-
come, has in its revolutionary progress deprived the people of the State
of South Carolina of all civil government; and
Whereas it becomes necessary and proper- to carry out and enforce the
obligations of the United States to the people of South Carolina in secur-
ing them in the enjoyment of a republican form of government:
Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution of the United States and for the purpose
of enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a State government
whereby justice may be established, domestic tranquillity insured, and
loyal citizens protected in all their rights of life, liberty, and property,
I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States and Commander in
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do hereby appoint
Benjamin F. Perry, of South Carolina, provisional governor of the State
of South Carolina, whose duty it shall be, at the earliest practicable
period, to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary and
proper for convening a convention composed of delegates to be chosen
by that portion of the people of said State who are loyal to the United
States, and no others, for the purpose of altering or amending the con-
stitution thereof, and with authority to exercise within the limits of
said State all the powers necessary and proper to enable such loyal peo-
ple of the State of South Carolina to restore said State to its constitu-
tional relations to the Federal Governmenf and to present such a repub-
lican form of State government as will entitle the State to the guaranty
of the United States therefor and its people to protection by the United
States against invasion, insurrection, and domestic violence: Provided,
That in any election that may be hereafter held for choosing delegates
to any State convention as aforesaid no person shall be qualified as an
elector or shall be eligible as a member of such convention unless he shall
have previously taken and subscribed the oath of amnesty as set forth in
the President's proclamation of May 29, A. D. 1865, and is a voter quali-
fied as prescribed by the constitution and laws of the State of South Caro-
lina in force immediately before the 17th day of November, A. D. i860,
the date of the so-called ordinance of secession; and the said convention,
when convened, or the legislature that may be thereafter assembled, will
prescribe the qualification of electors and the eligibility of persons to
hold office under the constitution and laws of the State — a power the
people of the several States composing the Federal Union have rightfully
exercised from the origin of the Government to the present time.
328 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
And I do hereby direct —
First. That the military commander of the department and all officers
and persons in the military and naval service aid and assist the said pro-
visional governor in carrying into effect this proclamation; and they are
enjoined to abstain from in any way hindering, impeding, or discour-
aging the loyal people from the organization of a State government as
herein authorized.
Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws
of the United States the administration whereof belongs to the State
Department applicable to the geographical limits aforesaid.
Third. That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed to nominate for
appointment assessors of taxes and collectors of customs and internal
revenue and such other officers of the Treasury Department as are au-
thorized by law and put in execution the revenue laws of the United
States within the geographical limits aforesaid. In making appoint-
ments the preference shall be given to qualified loyal persons residing
within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed;
but if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then persons
residing in other States or districts shall be appointed.
Fourth. That the Postmaster- General proceed to establish post-offices
and post routes and put into execution the postal laws of the United
States within the said State, giving to loyal residents the preference of
appointment; but if suitable residents are not found, then to appoint
agents, etc., from other States.
Fifth. That the district judge for the judicial district in which South
Carolina is included proceed to hold courts within said State in accord-
ance with the provisions of the act of Congress. The Attorney- General
will instruct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment, confisca-
tion, and sale property subject to confiscation and enforce the adminis-
tration of justice within said State in all matters within the cognizance
and jurisdiction of the Federal courts.
Sixth. That the Secretary of the Navy take possession of all public
property belonging to the Navy Department within said geographical
limits and put in operation all acts of Congress in relation to naval affairs
having application to the said State.
Seventh. That the Secretary of the Interior put in force the laws
relating to the Interior Department applicable to the geographical limits
aforesaid.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -J Done at the city of Washington, this 30th day of June, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-
^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Seaward, Secretary of State.
Andrew Johnson 329
By thk President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution of
the United States declares that the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government and shall protect
each of them against invasion and domestic violence; and
Whereas the President of the United States is by the Constitution
made Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as well as chief civil
executive officer of the United States, and is bound by solemn oath faith-
fully to execute the office of President of the United States and to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed; and
Whereas the rebellion which has been waged by a portion of the peo-
ple of the United States against the properly constituted authorities of
the Government thereof in the most violent and revolting form, but
whose organized and armed forces have now been almost entirely over-
come, has in its revolutionary progress deprived the people of the State
of Florida of all civil government; and
Whereas it becomes necessary and proper to carry out and enforce the
obhgations of the United States to the people of Florida in securing them
in the enjoyment of a republican form of government:
Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solemn duties imposed
upon me by the Constitution of the United States and for the purpose
of enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a State government
whereby justice may be established, domestic tranquillity insured, and
loyal citizens protected in all their rights of life, liberty, and property,
I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States and Commander in
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do hereby appoint
William Marvin provisional governor of the State of Florida, whose
duty it shall be, at the earhest practicable period, to prescribe such rules
and regulations as may be necessary and proper for convening a conven-
tion composed of delegates to be chosen by that portion of the people of
said State who are loyal to the United States, and no others, for the pur-
pose of altering or amending the constitution thereof, and with authority
to exercise within the limits of said State all the powers necessary and
proper to enable such loyal people of the State of Florida to restore said
State to its constitutional relations to the Federal Government and to
present such a republican form of State government as will entitle the
State to the guaranty of the United States therefor and its people to
protection by the United States against invasion, insurrection, and do-
mestic violence: Provided, That in any election that may be hereafter
held for choosing delegates to any State convention as aforesaid no per-
son shall be qualified as an elector or shall be eligible as a member of
such convention unless he shall have previously taken and subscribed
330 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the oath of amnesty as set forth in the President's proclamation of May
29, A. D. 1865, and is a voter quahfied as prescribed by the constitution
and laws of the State of Florida in force immediately before the loth
day of January, A. D. 1861, the date of the so-called ordinance of seces-
sion; and the said convention, when convened, or the legislature that
may be thereafter assembled, will prescribe the qualification of electors
and the eligibility of persons to hold ofl&ce under the constitution and
laws of the State — a power the people of the several States composing
the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of the Gov-
ernment to the present time.
And I do hereby direct —
First. That the military commander of the department and all officers
and persons in the military and naval service aid and assist the said pro-
visional governor in carrying into effect this proclamation; and they are
enjoined to abstain from in any way hindering, impeding, or discour-
aging the loyal people from the organization of a State government as
herein authorized.
Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws
of the United States the administration whereof belongs to the State
Department applicable to the geographical limits aforesaid.
Third. That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed to nominate for
appointment assessors of taxes and collectors of customs and internal
revenue and such other officers of the Treasury Department as are au-
thorized, by law and put in execution the revenue laws of the United
States within the geographical limits aforesaid. In making appoint-
ments the preference shall be given to qualified lo5^al persons residing
within the districts where their respective duties are to be performed;
but if suitable residents of the districts shall not be found, then persons
residing in other States or districts shall be appointed.
Fourth. That the Postmaster- General proceed to establish post-offices
and post routes and put into execution the postal laws of the United
States within the said State, giving to loyal residents the preference of
appointment; but if suitable residents are not found', then to appoint
agents, etc. , from other States.
Fifth. That the district judge for the judicial district in which Florida
is included proceed to hold courts within said State in accordance with
the provisions of the act of Congress. The Attorney -General will in-
struct the proper officers to libel and bring to judgment, confiscation,
and sale property subject to confiscation and enforce the administration
of justice within said vState in all matters within the cognizance and
jurisdiction of the Federal courts.
Sixth. That the Secretary of the Navy take possession of all public
property belonging to the Navj^ Department within said geographical
limits and put in operation all acts of Congress in relation to naval affairs
having application to the said State.
Andrew Johnson 331
Seventh. That the Secretary of the Interior put in force the laws
relating to the Interior Department applicable to the geographical limits
aforesaid.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P -| Done at the city of Washington, this 13th day of July, A. D.
1865, and of the Independence of the United States the nine-
*^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
WlLIylAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidknt of thk Unitkd Statics of Amkrica.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas by my proclamations of the 13th and 24th of June, 1865,
removing restrictions, in part, upon internal, domestic, and coastwise
intercourse and trade with those States recently declared in insurrection,
certain articles were excepted from the effect of said proclamations as
contraband of war; and
Whereas the necessity for restricting trade in said articles has now
in a great measure ceased:
It is hereby ordered that on and after the ist day of September, 1865,
all restrictions aforesaid be removed, so that the articles declared by the
said proclamations to be contraband of war may be imported into and
sold in said States, subject only to such regulations as the Secretary of
the Treasury may prescribe.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the 'United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 29th day of August,
A. D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninetieth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
William H. Skward,
Secretary of State,
By the Prksidknt of thk United States of America.
a proclamation.
Whereas by a proclamation of the 5th day of July, 1864, the Presi-
dent of the United States, when the civil war was flagrant and when
combinations were in progress in Kentucky for the purpose of inciting
insurgent raids into that State, directed that the proclamation suspending
the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus should be made effectual in
332 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Kentucky and that martial law should be established there and continue
until said proclamation should be revoked or modified; and
Whereas since then the danger from insurgent raids into Kentucky
has substantially passed away:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitu-
tion, do hereby declare that the said proclamation of the 5th day of July,
1864, shall be, and is hereby, modified in so far that martial law shall be
no longer in force in Kentucky from and after the date hereof.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be afiixed.
p 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 12th day of October,
A. D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninetieth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. HuNTKR, Acting Secretary of State.
By thb Presidknt of thb United States of America,
a proci^amation.
Whereas it has pleased Almighty God during the year which is now
coming to an end to relieve our beloved country from the fearful scourge
of civil war and to permit us to secure the blessings of peace, unity, and
harmony, with a great enlargement of civil liberty; and
Whereas our Heavenly Father has also during the year graciously
averted from us the calamities of foreign war, pestilence, and famine,
while our granaries are full of the fruits of an abundant season; and
Whereas righteousness exalteth a nation, while sin is a reproach to
any people:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of
the United States, do hereby recommend to the people thereof that they
do set apart and observe the first Thursday of December next as a day
of national thanksgiving to the Creator of the Universe for these great
deliverances and blessings.
And I do further recommend that on that occasion the whole people
make confession of our national sins against His infinite goodness, and
with one heart and one mind implore the divine guidance in the ways
of national virtue and holiness.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be afiixed.
|- T Done at the city of Washington, this 28th day of October,
A. D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninetieth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii^iyiAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
t
Andrew Johnson 333
By the Prksidknt of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas by the proclamation of the President of the United States
of the 15th day of September, 1863, the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus was, in certain cases therein set forth, suspended throughout the
United States; and
Whereas the reasons for that suspension may be regarded as having
ceased in some of the States and Territories:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do hereby proclaim and declare that the suspension afore-
said and all other proclamations and orders suspending the privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus in the States and Territories of the United
States are revoked and annulled, excepting as to the States of Virginia,
Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,
Alabama, Mississippi, I^ouisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, the District of
Columbia, and the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
P -, Done at the city of Washington, this ist day of December,
A. D. 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninetieth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
Executive Chamber,
Washington, April 2g, 186^.
Being desirous to relieve all loyal citizens and well-disposed persons
residing in insurrectionary States from unnecessary commercial restric-
tions and to encourage them to return to peaceful pursuits —
It is hereby ordered, I. That all restrictions upon internal, domestic, and
coastwise commercial intercourse be discontinued in such parts of the
States of Tennessee, Virginia, North CaroHna, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and so much of Louisiana as lies east of
the Mississippi River as shall be embraced within the lines of national
military occupation, excepting only such restrictions as are imposed by
acts of Congress and regulations in pursuance thereof prescribed by the
Secretary of the Treasury and approved by the President, and excepting
334 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
also from the effect of this order the following articles contraband of
war, to wit: Arms, ammunition, all articles from which ammunition is
n;ianufactured, gray uniforms and cloth, locomotives, cars, railroad iron,
and machinery for operating railroads, telegraph wires, insulators, and
instruments for operating telegraphic lines.
II. That all existing military and naval orders in any manner restrict-
ing internal, domestic, and coastwise commercial intercourse and trade
with or in the localities above named be, and the same are hereby, re-
voked, and that no military or naval officer in any manner interrupt or
interfere with the same, or with any boats or other vessels engaged therein
under proper authority, pursuant to the regulations of the Secretary of
the Treasury. ANDREW JOHNSON.
War Dkpartmknt,
Washington City, April 2g, i86^.
The Executive order of January 20, 1865, prohibiting the exportation
of hay, is rescinded from and after the ist day of May, 1865.
By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
ExE^cuTivK Chamber,
Washington City, May y, 1865.
Whereas the Attorney- General of the United States hath given his
opinion that the persons implicated in the murder of the late President,
Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of the Hon. William
H. Seward, Secretary of State, and in an alleged conspiracy to assassinate
other officers of the Federal Government at Washington City, and their
aiders and abettors, are subject to the jurisdiction of and lawfully triable
before a military commission —
// is ordered:
First. That the assistant adjutant-general detail nine competent mili-
tary officers to serve as a commission for the trial of said parties, and that
the Judge- Advocate- General proceed to prefer charges against said parties
for their alleged offenses and bring them to trial before said military com-
mission; that said trial or trials be conducted by the said Judge- Advocate-
General, and as recorder thereof, in person, aided by such assistant or
special judge-advocate as he may designate, and that said trials be con-
ducted with all diligence consistent with the ends of justice; the said
commission to sit without regard to hours.
Second. That Brevet Major- General Hartranft be assigned to duty as
special provost-marshal-general for the purpose of said trial, and attend-
ance upon said commission, and the execution of its mandates.
Andrew Johnson 335
Third. That the said commission establish such order or rules of pro-
ceeding as may avoid unnecessary delay and conduce to the ends of public
j^^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Official copy: ^ ^ NICHOI.S,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
War Dkpartmknt,
Washington, D. C, May j, 186^.
Order Rescinding Rkgula'Tions Prohibiting the Exportation
OF Arms, Ammunition, Horses, Mules, and I^ive Stock.
The Executive order of November 21, 1862, prohibiting the exporta-
tion of arms and ammunition from the United States, and the Executive
order of May 13, 1863,* prohibiting the exportation of horses, mules, and
live stock, being no longer required by public necessities, the aforesaid
orders are hereby rescinded and annulled.
By order of the President of the United States:
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War,
• Executive Mansion,
Washington, May ^, 186^.
This being the day of the funeral of the late President, Abraham
Lincoln, at Springfield, 111., the Executive Office and the various Depart-
ments will be closed at 12 m. to-day.
ANDREW JOHNSON,
President of the United States.
Speciai, Orders, No. 211.
War Department,
Adjutant-General's Office,
Washington, May 6, 186^.
H: :{: ifi * * * *
4. A military commission is hereby appointed to meet at Washington,
D. C, on Monday, the 8th day of May, 1865, at 9 o'clock a. m., or as soon
thereafter as practicable, for the trial of David E. Herold, George A.
Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Michael O'Laughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel
Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, Samuel A. Mudd, and such other prisoners as
may be brought before it, implicated in the murder of the late President,
Abraham Lincoln, and the attempted assassination of the Hon. William
* Order of Secretary of War.
336 Messages and Papers of the Presidents '
H. Seward, Secretary of State, and in an alleged conspiracy to assassinate
other ofiicers of the Federal Government at Washington City, and their
aiders and abettors.
Detail for the court.
Major- General David Hunter, United States Volunteers.
Major- General I^ewis Wallace, United States Volunteers.
Brevet Major- General August V. Kautz, United States Volunteers.
Brigadier- General Albion P. Howe, United States Volunteers.
Brigadier- General Robert S. Foster, United States Volunteers.
Brevet Brigadier- General Cyrus B. Comstock,* United States Volun-
teers.
Brigadier- General T. M. Harris, United States Volunteers.
Brevet Colonel Horace Porter, f aid-de-camp.
Lieutenant-Colonel David R. Clendenin, Eighth Illinois Cavalry.
Brigadier- General Joseph Holt, Judge- Advocate-General, United States
Army, is appointed the judge-advocate and recorder of the commission, to
be aided by such assistant or special judge-advocate as he may designate.
The commission will sit without regard to hours.
By order of the President of the United States:
K. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General,
War DkparTmknT, Washington City, May 7, 1865.
Brigadier- General Holt, Judge-Advocate-General, having designated
the Hon. John A. Bingham as a special judge-advocate, whose aid he
requires in the prosecution of Herold and others before th^ military
commission of which Major- General Hunter is presiding officer:
It is ordered, That the said John A. Bingham be, and he is hereby,
appointed special judge-advocate for the purpose aforesaid, to aid the
Judge- Advocate-General, pursuant to the order of the President in respect
to said military commission.
By order of the President: EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Spkciai. Orders, No. 216.
War Department,
Adjutant- Generai^'s Office,
Washington, May p, 186^.
91. Brevet Brigadier- General Cyrus B. Comstock, United States Volun-
teers, and Brevet Colonel Horace Porter, aid-de-camp, are hereby relieved
* Brevet Brigadier-General James A. Kkin substituted; see Special Orders, No. 216.
t Brevet Colonel C. H. Tompkins substituted; see Special Orders, No. 216.
Andrew Johnson 337
from duty as members of the military commission appointed in Special
Orders, No. 211, paragraph 4, dated "War Department, Adjutant-Gen-
eral's Office, Washington, May 6, 1865," and Brevet Brigadier- General
James A. Kkin, United States Volunteers, and Brevet Colonel C. H. Tomp-
kins, United States Army, are detailed in their places, respectively.
The commission will be composed as follows:
Major- General David Hunter, United States Volunteers.
Major- General I^ewis Wallace, United States Volunteers.
Brevet Major- General August V. Kautz, United States Volunteers.
Brigadier- General Albion P. Howe, United States Volunteers.
Brigadier- General Robert S. Foster, United States Volunteers.
Brevet Brigadier- General James A. Ekin, United States Volunteers.
Brigadier- General T. M. Harris, United States Volunteers.
Brevet Colonel C. H. Tompkins, United States Army.
Lieutenant- Colonel David R. Clendenin, Eighth Illinois Cavalry.
Brigadier- General Joseph Holt, judge-advocate and recorder.
By order of the President of the United States:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
ExKCuTivK Chamber,
Washington City, May p, 186^.
ExKCUTivE Ordkr to Rkkstabi^ish thk Authority of the United
States and Execute the Laws within the Geographicai,
Limits Known as the State of Virginia.
Ordered, first. That all acts and proceedings of the political, military,
and civil organizations which have been in a state of insurrection and
rebellion within the State of Virginia against the authority and laws of
the United States, and of which Jefferson Davis, John Letcher, and Wil-
liam Smith were late the respective chiefs, are declared null and void.
All persons who shall exercise, claim, pretend, or attempt to exercise
any political, military, or civil power, authority, jurisdiction, or right by,
through, or under Jefferson Davis, late of the city of Richmond, and his
confederates, or under John Letcher or William Smith and their confed-
erates, or under any pretended political, military, or civil commission or
authority issued by them or either of them since the 1 7th day of April,
1861 , shall be deemed and taken as in rebellion against the United States,
and shall be dealt with accordingly.
Second. That the Secretary of State proceed to put in force all laws
of the United States the administration whereof belongs to the Depart-
ment of State applicable to the geographical limits aforesaid.
Third. That the Secretary of the Treasury proceed without delay to
M P— vol, VI — 22
338 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
I
nominate for appointment assessors of taxes and collectors of customs
and internal revenue and such other officers of the Treasury Depart-
ment as are authorized by law, and shall put in execution the revenue
laws of the United States within the geographical limits aforesaid. In
making appointments the preference shall be given to qualified loyal
persons residing within the districts where their rCvSpective duties are to
be performed; but if vsuitable persons shall not be found residents of
the districts, then persons residing in other States or districts shall be
appointed.
Fourth. That the Postmaster- General shall proceed to establish post-
offices and post routes and put into execution the postal laws of the
United States within the said State, giving to loyal residents the pref-
erence of appointment; but if suitable persons are not found, then to
appoint agents, etc. , from other States.
Fifth. That the district judge of said district proceed to hold courts
within said State in accordance with the provisions of the act of Con-
gress. The Attorney- General will instruct the proper officers to libel
and bring to judgment, confiscation, and sale property subject to confis-
cation, and enforce the administration of justice within said State in all
matters, civil and criminal, within the cognizance and jurisdiction of the
Federal courts.
Sixth. That the Secretary of War assign such assistant provost-mar-
shal-general and such provost-marshals in each district of said State as
he may deem necessary.
Seventh. The Secretary of the Navy will take possession of all public
property belonging to the Navy Department within said geographical
limits and put in operation all acts of Congress in relation to naval affairs
having application to the said State.
Eighth. The Secretary of the Interior will also put in force the laws
relating to the Department of the Interior.
Ninth. That to carry into effect the guaranty by the Federal Consti-
tution of a republican form of State government and afford the advantage
and security of domestic laws, as well as to complete the reestablishment
of the authority and laws of the United States and the full and complete
restoration of peace within the limits aforesaid, Francis H. Peirpoint, gov-
ernor of the State of Virginia, will be aided by the Federal Government
so far as may be necessary in the lawful measures which he may take
for the extension and administration of the State government throughout
the geographical limits of said State.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
[seal.] ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W. Hunter, ,
Acting Secretary of State.
Andrew Johnson 339
War Department,
Washington City, May ^7, 186^.
Ordered, That in all cases of sentences by military tribunals of impris-
onment during the war the sentence be remitted and that the prisoners be
discharged. The Adjutant- General will issue immediately the necessary
instructions to carry this order into effect.
By order of the President of the United States:
EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War.
BxBcuTivB Office,
Washington, D. C, May jz, 186^.
To-morrow, the ist of June, being the day appointed for special humilia-
tion and prayer in consequence of the assassination of Abraham lyincoln,
late President of the United States, the Executive Office and the various
Departments will be closed during the day.
ANDREW JOHNSON,
President of the United States,
Generai, Orders, No. 107.
War Department,
Adjutant- Generai^'s Office,
Washington, June 2, 186^.
Ordered, That all military restrictions upon trade in any of the States
or Territories of the United States, except in articles contraband of war —
to wit, arms, ammunition, gray cloth, and all articles from which ammu-
nition is manufactured; locomotives, cars, railroad iron, and machinery
for operating railroads; telegraph wires, insulators, and instruments for
operating telegraphic lines — shall cease from and after the present date.
By order of the President of the United States:
E. D. TOWNSEND, Assista7it Adjutant- General.
Department of State,
Washington, fune 2, 186^.
Whereas, pursuant to the order of the President and as a means re-
quired by the public safety, directions were issued from this Department,
under date of the 17th of December, 1864, requiring passports from all
travelers entering the United States, except immigrant passengers directly
entering an American port from a foreign country; and
Whereas the necessities which required the adoption of that measure
are believed no longer to exist:
Now, therefore, the President directs that from and after this date the
order above referred to shall be, and the same is hereby, rescinded.
Nothing in this regulation, however, will be construed to relieve from
340 Messages aftd Papers of the Presidents
due accountability any enemies of the United States or offenders against
their peace and dignity who may hereafter "seek to enter the country or
at any time be found within its lawful jurisdiction.
WII.I.IAM H. SEWARD.
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C.June p, i86^.
Whereas by an act of Congress approved March 3, 1865, there was
established in the War Department a Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned lyands, and to which, in accordance with the said act of Con-
gress, is committed the supervision and management of all abandoned
lands and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen
from rebel States, or from any district of country within the territory
embraced in the operations of the Army, under such rules and regula-
tions as may be prescribed by the head of the Bureau and approved by
the President; and
Whereas it appears that the management of abandoned lands and sub-
jects relating to refugees and freedmen, as aforesaid, have been and still
are, by orders based on military exigencies or legislation based on pre-
vious statutes, partly in the hands of military officers disconnected with
said Bureau and partly in charge of officers of the Treasury Department:
It is therefore
Ordered, That all officers of the Treasury Department, all military
officers, and all others in the service of the United States turn over to
the authorized officers of said Bureau all abandoned lands and property
contemplated in said act of Congress approved March 3, 1865, establish-
ing the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, that may
now be under or within their control. They will also turn over to such
officers all funds collected by tax or otherwise for the benefit of refugees
or freedmen or accruing from abandoned lands or property set apart for
their use, and will transfer to them all official records connected with the
administration of affairs which pertain to said Bureau.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
General Orders, No. 109.
War Department,
Adjutant-General's Office,
Washington, June 6, 1865.
Order for the Discharge of Certain Prisoners of War.
The prisoners of war at the several depots in the North will be dis-
charged under the following regulations and restrictions:
I. All enlisted men of the rebel army and petty officers and seamen of
the rebel navy will be discharged upon taking the oath of allegiance.
Andrew Johnson 341
II. Officers of the rebel army not above the grade of captain and of the
rebel navy not above the grade of lieutenant, except such as have gradu-
ated at the United States Military or Naval academies and such as held a
commission in either the United States Army or Navy at the beginning
of the rebellion, may be discharged upon taking the oath of allegiance.
III. When the discharges hereby ordered are completed, regulations
will be issued in respect to the discharge of officers having higher rank
than captain in the army or lieutenant in the navy.
IV. The several commanders of prison stations will discharge each day
as many of the prisoners hereby authorized to be discharged as proper
rolls can be prepared for, beginning with those who have been longest in
prison and from the most remote points of the country; and certified rolls
will be forwarded daily to the Commissary- General of Prisoners of those
so discharged. The oath of allegiance only will be administered, but
notice will be given that all who desire will be permitted to take the oath
of amnesty after their release, in accordance with the regulations of the
Department of State respecting the amnesty.
V. The Quartermaster's Department will furnish transportation to all
released prisoners to the nearest accessible point to their homes, by rail
or by steamboat.
By order of the President of the United States:
E. D. TOWNSKND,
A ssistant A djutant- General.
ExKcuTivK Mansion,
Washington, June <5, 1865.
Whereas circumstances of recent occurrence have made it no longer
necessary to continue the prohibition of the departure for her destination
of the gunboat Fusyama, built at New York for the Japanese Govern-
ment, it is consequently ordered that that prohibition be removed. The
Secretary of the Treasury will therefore cause a clearance to be issued to
the Fusyama^ and the Secretary of the Navy will not allow any obstacle
^^^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, June 13, 1865.]
circui.ar.
A'TTornby-Gknkrai.'s Office),
Washington, June 7, 1865.
By direction of the President, all persons belonging to the excepted
classes enumerated in the President's amnesty proclamation of May 29,
1865, who may make special applications to the President for pardon are
hereby notified that before their respective applications will be considered
it must be shown that they have respectively taken and subscribed the
342 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
oath (or affirmation) in said proclamation prescribed. Kverj^ such person
desiring a special pardon should make personal application in writing
therefor, and should transmit with such application the original oath
(or affirmation) as taken and subscribed before an officer authorized
under the rules and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of State
to administer the amnesty oath prescribed in the said proclamation of
the President. ^^^^ S?mSi,
A ttorney- General.
BxKCUTivB Offick,
Washington, D. C.,June p, i86^.
It is represented to me in a communication from the Secretary of the
Interior that Indians in New Mexico have been seized and reduced into
slavery, and it is recommended that the authority of the executive branch
of the Government should be exercised for the effectual suppression of a
practice which is alike in violation of the rights of the Indians and of the
provisions of the organic law of the said Territory.
Concurring in this recommendation, I do hereby order that the heads
of the several Executive Departments do enjoin upon the subordinates,
agents, and employees under their respective orders or supervision in that
Territory to discountenance the practice aforesaid and to take all lawful
means to suppress the same. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Gi^NKRAi, Court- Marti Ai, Orders, No. 356.
War Dkpartmknt,
Adjutant-Gknkral's Office,
Washington, July 5, 1865,
I. Before a military commission which convened at Washington, D. C. ,
May 9, 1865, pursuant to paragraph 4 of Special Orders, No. 211, dated
May 6, 1865, and paragraph 91 of Special Orders, No. 216, dated May 9,
1865, War Department, Adjutant- General's Office, Washington, and of
which Major-General David Hunter, United States Volunteers, is presi-
dent, were arraigned and tried David E. Herold, G. A. Atzerodt, I^ewis
Payne, Mary E. Surratt, Michael O'Eaughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel
Arnold, and Samuel A. Mudd.
Charge I.
For maliciously, unlawfully, and traitorously, and in aid of the existing armed
rebellion against the United States of America, on or before the 6th day of March,
A. D. 1865, and on divers other days between that day and the 15th day of April, A. D.
1865, combining, confederating, and conspiring together with one John H. Surratt,
John Wilkes Booth, Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverley Tucker, Jacob
Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and
I
A7tdreiv Johnson 343
others unknown to kill and murder, within the Military Department of Washing-
ton, and within the fortified and intrenched lines thereof, Abraham Lincoln, late,
and at the time of said combining, confederating, and conspiring. President of the
United States of America and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof;
Andrew Johnson, now Vice-President of the United States aforesaid; William H.
Seward,Secretary of State of the United States aforesaid; and Ulysses S. Grant, Ivieu-
tenant-General of the Army of the United States aforesaid, then in command of the
armies of the United States, under the direction of the said Abraham Lincoln; and
in pursuance of and in prosecuting said malicious, unlawful, and traitorous conspiracy
aforesaid, and in aid of said rebellion, afterwards, to wit, on the 14th day of April,
A. D. 1865, within the Military Department of Washington aforesaid, and within the
fortified and intrenched lines of said military department, together with said John
Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt, maliciously, unlawfully, and traitorously murder-
ing the said Abraham Lincoln, then President of the United States and Commander
in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States as aforesaid; and maliciously,
unlawfully, and traitorously assaulting, with intent to kill and murder, the said Wil-
liam H. Seward, then Secretary of State of the United States as aforesaid; and lying
in wait, with intent maliciously, unlawfully, and traitorously to kill and murder the
said Andrew Johnson, then being Vice-President of the LTnited States, and the said
Ulysses S. Grant, then being Lieutenant-General and in command of the armies of
the United States as aforesaid.
SPECIFICATION FIRST.
In this, that they, the said David E. Herold, Edward Spangler, Lewis Payne, Michael
O'Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, George A. Atzerodt, and Samuel A.
Mudd, together with the said John H. Surratt and John Wilkes Booth, incited and
encouraged thereunto by Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders , Beverley Tucker, Jacob
Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and
others unknown, citizens of the United States aforesaid, and who were then engaged
in armed rebellion against the United States of America, within the limits thereof,
did, in aid of said armed rebellion, on or before the 6th day of March, A. D. 1865, and
on divers other days and times between that day and the 15th day of April, A. D.
1865, combine, confederate, and conspire together at Washington City, within the
Military Department of Washington, and within the intrenched fortifications and
military lines of the said United States there being, unlawfully, maliciously, and trai-
torously to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, then President of the United States
aforesaid and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof; and unlawfully,
maliciously, and traitorously to kill and murder Andrew Johnson, now Vice-Presi-
dent of the said United States, upon whom, on the death of said Abraham Lincoln,
after the 4th day of March, A. D. 1865, the office of President of the said United States
and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof would devolve; and to
unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously kill and murder Ulysses S. Grant, then
Lieutenant-General, and, under the direction of the said Abraham Lincoln, in com-
mand of the armies of the United States aforesaid; and unlawfully, maliciously, and
traitorously to kill and murder William H. Seward, then Secretary of State of the
United States aforesaid, whose duty it was by law, upon the death of said President
and Vice-President of the United States aforesaid, to cause an election to be held for
electors of President of the United States — the conspirators aforesaid designing and
intending by the killing and murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson,
Ulysses S. Grant, and William H. Seward, as aforesaid, to deprive the Army and Navy
of the said United States of a constitutional Commander in Chief, and to deprive the
armies of the United States of their lawful commander, and to prevent a lawful elec-
tion of President and Vice-President of the United States aforesaid, and by the means
aforesaid to aid and comfort the insurgents engaged in armed rebellion against the
344 Messages and Papers of the Preside^tts
said United States as aforesaid, and thereby to aid in the subversion and overthrow
of the Constitution and laws of the said United States.
' And being so combined, confederated, and conspiring together in the prosecution
of said unlawful and traitorous conspiracy, on the night of the 14th day of April, A.D,
1865, at the hour of about 10 o'clock and 15 minutes p. m. , at Ford's Theater, on Tenth
street, in the city of Washington, and within the military department and military
lines aforesaid, John Wilkes Booth, one of the conspirators aforesaid, in pursuance of
said unlawful and traitorous conspiracy, did then and there unlawfully, maliciously,
and traitorously, and with intent to kill and murder the said Abraham Lincoln, dis-
charge a pistol then held in the hands of him, the said Booth, the same being then
loaded with powder and a leaden ball, against and upon the left and posterior side of
the head of the said Abraham Lincoln, and did thereby then and there inflict upon
him, the said Abraham Lincoln, then President of the said United States and Com-
mander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, a mortal wound, whereof afterwards,
to wit, on the 15th day of April, A. D. 1865, at Washington City aforesaid, the said
Abraham Lincoln died; and thereby then and there, and in pursuance of said con-
spiracy, the said defendants and the said John Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt did
unlawfully, traitorously, and maliciously, and with the intent to aid the rebellion as
aforesaid, kill and murder the said Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
as aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of the unlawful and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid and
of the murderous and traitorous intent of said conspiracy, the said Edward Spangler,
on said 14th day of April, A. D. 1865, at about the same hour of that day as afore-
said, within said military department and the military lines aforesaid, did aid and
assist the said John Wilkes Booth to obtain entrance to the box in said theater in
which said Abraham Lincoln was sitting at the time he was assaulted and shot, as
aforesaid, by John Wilkes Booth; and also did then and there aid said Booth in bar-
ring and obstructing the door of the box of said theater, so as to hinder and prevent
any assistance to or rescue of the said Abraham Lincoln against the murderous assault
of the said John Wilkes Booth, and did aid and abfet him in making his escape after
the said Abraham Lincoln had been murdered in manner aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of said unlawful, murderous, and traitorous conspiracy,
and in pursuance thereof, and with the intent as aforesaid, the said David B. Herold
did, on the night of the 14th of April, A. D. 1865, within the military department and
military lines aforesaid, aid, abet, and assist the said John Wilkes Booth in the kill-
ing and murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, and did then and there aid and abet
and assist him, the said John Wilkes Booth, in attempting to escape through the
military lines aforesaid, and did accompany and assist the said John Wilkes Booth in
attempting to conceal himself and escape from justice after killing and murdering
said Abraham Lincoln, as aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of said unlawful and traitorous conspiracy and of the
intent thereof as aforesaid, the said Lewis Payne did, on the same night of the 14th
day of April, A. D. 1865, about the same hour of 10 o'clock and 15 minutes p. m., at
the city of Washington, and within the military department and the military lines
aforesaid, unlawfully and maliciously make an assault upon the said William H.
Seward, Secretary of State, as aforesaid, in the dwelling house and bedchamber of
him, the said William H. Seward, and the said Payne did then and there, with a large
knife held in his hand, unlawfully, traitorously, and in pursuance of said conspiracy,
strike, stab, cut, and attempt to kill and murder the said William H. Seward, and did
thereby then and there, and with the intent aforesaid, with said knife, inflict upon
the face and throat of the said William H. Seward divers grievous wounds; and the
said Lewis Payne, in further prosecution of said conspiracy, at the same time and
place last aforesaid, did attempt, with the knife aforesaid and a pistol held in his
hand, to kill and murder Frederick W. Seward, Augustus H. Seward, Bmrick W.
Andrezv Johnson 345
Hansell, and George F. Robinson, who were then striving to protect and rescue the
said William H. Seward from murder by the said I.ewis Payne, and did then and
there, with said knife and pistol held in his hands, inflict upon the head of said
Frederick W. Seward and upon the persons of said Augustus H. Seward, Bmrick W.
Hansell, and George F. Robinson divers grievous and dangerous wounds, with in-
tent then and there to kill and murder the said Frederick W. Seward, Augustus H.
Seward, Bmrick W. Hansell, and George F. Robinson.
And in further prosecution of said conspiracy and its traitorous and murderous
designs, the said George A. Atzerodt did, on the night of the 14th of April, A, D. 1865,
and about the same hour of the night aforesaid, within the military department and
the military lines aforesaid, lie in wait for Andrew Johnson, then Vice-President of
the United States aforesaid, with the intent unlawfully and maliciously to kill and
murder him, the said Andrew Johnson,
And in the further prosecution of the conspiracy aforesaid and of its murderous
and treasonable purposes aforesaid, on the nights of the 13th and 14th of April, A. D.
1865, at Washington City, and within the military department and military lines
aforesaid, the said Michael O'L/aughlin did then and there lie in wait for Ulysses S.
Grant, then lyieutenant-General and commander of the armies of the United States
as aforesaid, with intent then and there to kill and murder the said Ulysses S. Grant.
And in further prosecution of said conspiracy, the said Samuel Arnold did, within
the military department and military lines aforesaid, on or before the 6th day of
March, A. D. 1865, and on divers other days and times between that day and the
15th day of April, A. D. 1865, combine, conspire with, and aid, counsel, abet, comfort,
and support the said John Wilkes Booth, lycwis Payne, George A. Atzerodt, Michael
O'Laughlin, and their confederates in said unlawful, murderous, and traitorous con-
spiracy and in the execution thereof, as aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of the said conspiracy, Mary E. Surratt did, at Washing-
ton City, and within the military department and military lines aforesaid, on or before
the 6th day of March, A. D. 1865, and on divers other days and times between that day
and the 20th day of April, A. D. 1865, receive, entertain, harbor and conceal, aid and
assist, the said John Wilkes Booth, David B. Herold, Lewis Payne, John H. Surratt,
Michael O'lyaughlin, George A, Atzerodt, Samuel Arnold, and their confederates, with
knowledge of the murderous and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and with intent to
aid, abet, and assist them in the execution thereof and in escaping from justice after
the murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, as aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of said conspiracy, the said Samuel A, Mudd did, at
Washington City, and within the military department and military lines aforesaid,
on or before the 6th day of March, A. D. 1865, and on divers other days and times
between that day and the 20th day of April, A, D. 1865, advise, encourage, receive,
entertain, harbor and conceal, aid and assist, the said John Wilkes Booth, David B.
Herold, Lewis Payne, John H, Surratt, Michael O'Laughlin, George A. Atzerodt,
Mary B. Surratt, and Samuel Arnold, and their confederates, with knowledge of the
murderous and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and with intent to aid, abet, and assist
them in the execution thereof and in escaping from justice after the murder of the
said Abraham Lincoln, in pursuance of said conspiracy, in manner aforesaid.
To which charge and specification the accused, David B. Herold, G. A. Atzerodt,
Lewis Payne, Mary B, Surratt, Michael O'Laughlin, Bdward Spangler, Samuel
Arnold, and Samuel A, Mudd, pleaded "not guilty."
Findings and Skntencks.
I. In the case of David B. Herold, the commission, having maturely considered
the evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:
Of the specification, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring
with Bdward Spangler; as to which part thereof, not guilty."
346 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Of the charge, "Guilty, except the words of the charge that he combined, confed-
erated, and conspired with Edward Spangler; as to which part of said charge, not
guilty."
And the commission does therefore sentence him, the said David B. Herold, "To
be hanged by the neck until he be dead, at such time and place as the President of
the United States shall direct; two-thirds of the members of the commission concur-
ring therein."
2. In the case of George A. Atzerodt, the commission, having maturely considered
the evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:
Of the specification, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring
with Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
Of the charge, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring with
Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
And the commission does therefore sentence him, the said George A. Atzerodt, "To
be hung by the neck until he be dead, at such time and place as the President of the
United States shall direct; two-thirds of the members of the commission concurring
therein."
3. In the case of Lewis Payne, the commission, having maturely considered the
evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:
Of the specification, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring
with Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
Of the charge, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring with
Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
And the commission does therefore sentence him, the said Lewis Payne, "To be
hung by the neck until he be dead, at such time and place as the President of the
United States shall direct; two-thirds of the members of the commission concurring
therein."
4. In the case of Mary E. Surratt, the commission, having maturely considered the
evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:
Of the specification, " Guilty, except as to receiving, entertaining, harboring, and
concealing Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlin, and except as to combining,
confederating, and conspiring with Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
Of the charge, "Guilty, except as to combining, confederating, and conspiring
with Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
And the commission does therefore sentence her, the said Mary E. Surratt, " To be
hung by the neck until she be dead, at such time and place as the President of the
United States shall direct; two-thirds of the members of the commission concurring
therein."
5. In the case of Michael O'Laughlin, the commission, having maturely considered
the evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:
Of the specification, "Guilty, except the words thereof as follows: 'And in the
further prosecution of the conspiracy aforesaid and of its murderous and treasonable
purposes aforesaid, on the nights of the 13th and 14th of April, A. D. 1865, at Wash-
ington City, and within the military department and military lines aforesaid, the
said Michael O'Laughlin did then and there lie in wait for Ulysses S. Grant, then
Lieutenant-General and commander of the armies of the United States, with intent
then and there to kill and murder the said Ulysses S. Grant; ' of said words, not
guilty; and except combining, confederating, and conspiring with Edward Spangler;
of this, not guilty."
Of the charge, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring with
Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
And the commission does therefore sentence him, the said Michael O'Laughlin^
" To be imprisoned at hard labor for life at such penitentiary as the President of the
United States shall designate." '
Andrew Johnson 347
6. In the case of Edward Spaiigler, the commission, having maturely considered
the evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:
Of the specification, "Not guilty, except as to the words, 'The said Edward Span-
gler, on said 14th day of April, A. D. 1865, at about the same hour of that day as afore-
said, within said military department and the military lines aforesaid, did aid and
abet him (meaning John Wilkes Booth) in making his escape after the said Abraham
Lincoln had been murdered in manner aforesaid;' and of these words, guilty."
Of the charge, "Not guilty, but guilty of having feloniously and traitorously aided
and abetted John Wilkes Booth in making his escape after having killed and nmr-
dered Abraham lyincoln, President of the United States, he the said Edward Span-
gler, at the time of aiding and abetting as aforesaid, well knowing that the said
Abraham Lincoln, President as aforesaid, had been murdered by the said John Wilkes
Booth, as aforesaid."
And the commission does therefore sentence him, the said Edward Spangler, "To
be confined at hard lal^or for the period of six years at such penitentiary as the
President of the United States shall designate. ' '
7. In the case of Samuel Arnold, the commission, having maturely considered the
evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:
Of the specification, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring
with Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty. "
Of the charge, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring with
Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
And the commission does therefore sentence him, the said Samuel Arnold, "To be
imprisoned at hard labor for life at such penitentiary as the President of the United
States shall designate. ' '
8. In the case of Samuel A. Mudd, the commission, having maturely considered
the evidence adduced, finds the accused as follows:
Of the specification, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring with
Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty; and except receiving, entertaining, harbor-
ing, and concealing Lewis Payne, John H. Surratt, Michael O'Laughlin, George A.
Atzerodt, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel Arnold; of this, not guilty."
Of the charge, "Guilty, except combining, confederating, and conspiring with
Edward Spangler; of this, not guilty."
And the commission does therefore sentence him, the said Samuel A. Mudd, "To
be imprisoned at hard labor for life at such penitentiary as the President of the
United States shall designate. ' '
II. The proceedings, findings, and sentences in the foregoing cases hav-
ing been submitted to the President of the United States, the following
are his orders:
Executive Mansion, July 5, 1865.
The foregoing sentences in the cases of David E. Herold, George A.
Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Michael O'lyaughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel
Arnold, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel A. Mudd are hereby approved, and
it is ordered that the sentences in the cases of David E. Herold, G. A.
Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, and Mary E. Surratt be carried into execution
by the proper military authority, under the direction of the Secretary of
War, on the 7th day of July, 1865, between the hours of 10 o'clock a. m.
and 2 o'clock p. m. of that day. It is further ordered that the prison-
ers Samuel Arnold, Samuel A. Mudd, Edward Spangler, and Michael
348 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
O'Laughlin be confined at hard labor in the penitentiary at Albany, N. Y. ,
during the period designated in their respective sentences.
ANDREW JOHNSON, President.
III. Major-General W. S. Hancock, United States Volunteers, com-
manding Middle Military Division, is commanded to cause the foregoing
sentences in the cases of David K. Herold, G. A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne,
and Mary E. Surratt to be duly executed in accordance with the Presi-
dent's order.
ExKCuTiv^ Mansion, July 75, 1865.
IV. The Executive order dated July 5, 1865, approving the sentences
in the cases of Samuel Arnold, Samuel A. Mudd, Edward Spangler, and
Michael O'lyaughlin, is hereby modified so as to direct that the said
Arnold, Mudd, Spangler, and O'Laughlin be confined at hard labor in
the military prison at Dry Tortugas, Florida, during the period desig-
nated in their respective sentences.
The Adjutant- General of the Army is directed to issue orders for the
said prisoners to be transported to the Dry Tortugas, and to be confined
there accordingly. ANDREW JOHNSON, President.
V. Major-General W. S. Hancock, United States Volunteers, com-
manding Middle Military Division, is commanded to send the prison-
ers Samuel Arnold, Samuel A. Mudd, Edward Spangler, and Michael
O'Laughlin, under charge of a commissioned officer, with a sufficient
guard, to the Dry Tortugas, Florida, where they will be delivered to
the commanding officer of the post, who is hereby ordered to confine the
said Arnold, Mudd, Spangler, and O'Laughlin at hard labor during the
periods designated in their respective sentences.
VI. The military commission of which Major-General David Hunter
is president is hereby dissolved.
By command of the President of the United States:
E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-General.
Washington, August 7, 1865.
An impression seems to prevail that the interests of persons having
business with the executive government require that they should have
personal interviews with the President or heads of Departments. As
this impression is believed to be entirely unfounded, it is expected that
applications relating to such business will hereafter be made in writing
to the head of that Department to which the business may have been
assigned by law. Those applications will in their order be considered
and disposed of by heads of Departments, subject to the approval of the
President. This order is made necessary by the unusual numbers of
Andrew Johnson 349
persons visiting the seat of Government. It is impracticable to grant
personal interviews to all of them, and desirable that there should be no
invidious distinction in this respect. Similar business of persons who
can not conveniently leave their homes must be neglected if the time
of the executive officers here is engrossed by personal interviews with
^^^^^^* ANDREW JOHNSON.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, August 26, 1865.]
DEPARTMENT OP State,
Washington, August 25, 186^,
Paroled prisoners asking passports as citizens of the United States, and
against whom no special charges may be pending, will be furnished with
passports upon application therefor to the Department of State in the
usual form. Such passports will, however, be issued upon the condition
that the applicants do not return to the United States without leave of
the President. Other persons implicated in the rebellion who may wish
to go abroad will apply to the Department of State for passports, and the
applications will be disposed of according to the merits of the several
cases.
By the President of the United States:
WIIvIylAM H. SEWARD.
Executive Office, September 7, 186^.
It is hereby ordered. That so much of the Executive order bearing date
the 7th [2d] day of June, 1865, as made it the duty of all officers of the
Treasury Department, military officers, and all others in the service of
the United States to turn over to the authorized officers of the Bureau
of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands all funds collected by tax
or otherwise for the benefit of refugees or freedmen, or accruing from
abandoned lands or property set apart for their use, be, and the same is
hereby, suspended. ANDREW JOHNSON,
President,
Generai. Orders, No. 138.
War Department,
Adjutant-Generai^'s Office,
Washington, September 16, 1865.
To provide for the transportation required by the Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands —
// is ordered, That upon the requisition of the Commissioner or the
assistant commissioners of the Bureau transportation be furnished such
destitute refugees and freedmen as are dependent upon the Government
for support to points where they can procure employment and subsistence
350 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
\
and support themselves, and thus reheve the Government, provided such
transportation be confined by assistant commissioners within the Hmits
of their jurisdiction.
Second. Free transportation on Government transports and United
States military railroads will be furnished to such teachers only of refu-
gees and freedmen, and persons laboring voluntarily in behalf of refugees
and freedmen, as may be duly accredited by the Commissioner or assist-
ant commissioners of the Bureau.
All stores and schoolbooks necessary to the subsistence, comfort, and
instruction of dependent refugees and freedmen may be transported at
Government expense, when such stores and books shall be turned over
to the officers of the Quartermaster's Department, with the approval
of the assistant commissioners, Commissioner, or department commander,
the same to be transported as public stores, consigned to the quartermas-
ter of the post to which they are destined, who, after inspection, will turn
them over to the assistant commissioners or Bureau agent for whom they
are intended for distribution.
All army officers traveling on public duty, under the orders of the
commissioners, within the limits of their respective jurisdictions, will be
entitled to mileage or actual cost of transportation, according to the
revised Army Regulations, when transportation has not been furnished
them by the Quartermaster's Department.
By order of the President of the United States:
K. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant Adjutant-Getieral.
Sp:eciAi. Orders, No. 503.
War Dkpartmejnt,
• Adjutant-Genbral's Office,
Washington, September ig, 1865.
:f: Hi Hi * * * *
It has been represented to the Department that commanders of mili-
tary posts and districts in Georgia, and particularly Brevet Brigadier- Gen-
eral C. H. Grosvenor, provost-marshal-general, and Brevet Major-General
King, commanding in the district of Augusta, have assumed to decide
questions of contracts and conflicting claims of property between indi-
viduals, and to order the delivery, surrender, or transfer of property and
documents of title as between private persons, in which the Government
is not concerned.
All such acts and proceedings on the part of military authorities in
said State are declared by the President to be without authority and null
and void.
All military commanders and authorities within said State are strictly
ordered to abstain from any such acts, and not in any way to interfere
Andrew Johnson 351
with or assume to adjudicate any right, title, or claim of property between
private individuals, and to suspend all action upon any orders heretofore
made in respect to the ownership or delivery of property and the validity
of contracts between private persons.
They are also forbidden from being directly or indirectly interested in
any sales or contracts for cotton or other products of said State, and from
using or suffering to be used any Government transportation for the
transporting of cotton or other products of said State for or in behalf of
private persons on any pretense whatever.
Military officers have no authority to interfere in any way in questions
of sale or contracts of any kind between individuals or to decide any
question of property between them without special instructions from this
Department authorizing their action, and the usurpation of such power
will be treated as a grave military offense.
Major- General Steedman, commanding the Department of Georgia, is
specially charged with the enforcement of this order, and directed to
make report as to any acts, proceedings, or orders of Brevet Major-Gen-
eral King and Brevet Brigadier- General Grosvenor, provost-marshal-
general, in regard to contracts or conflicting claims of individuals in
relation to cotton or other products, and to suspend all action upon any
such orders until further instructions.
By order of the President of the United States.
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
Gknkrai. Orders, No. 145.
War Dkpartmknt,
Adjutant- Gknkraiv's Offick,
Washington, October p, 186^.
Whereas certain tracts of land, situated on the coast of South Carolina,
Georgia, and Florida, at the time for the most part vacant, were set apart
by Major- General W. T. Sherman's special field order No. 15 for the
benefit of refugees and freedmen that had been congregated by the oper-
ations of war or had been left to take care of themselves by their former
owners; and
Whereas an expectation was thereby created that they would be able
to retain possession of said lands; and
Whereas a large number of the former owners are earnestly soliciting
the restoration of the same and promising to absorb the labor and care
for the freedmen:
It is ordered, That Major- General Howard, Commissioner of the Bureau
of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, proceed to the several
above-named States and endeavor to effect an arrangement mutually
satisfactory to the freedmen and the landowners, and make report. And
352 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
in case a mutually satisfactory arrangement can be effected, he is duly
empowered and directed to issue such orders as may become necessary,
after a full and careful investigation of the interests of the parties con-
cerned.
By order of the President of the United States:
B. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General,
ExKCUTivK Office, October ii, 1865.
Whereas the following-named persons, to wit, John A. Campbell, of
Alabama; John H. Reagan, of Texas; Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia;
George A. Trenholm, of South Carolina, and Charles Clark, of Missis-
sippi, lately engaged in rebellion against the United States Government,
who are now in close custody, have made their submission to the author-
ity of the United States and applied to the President for pardon under his
proclamation; and
Whereas the authority of the Federal Government is sufficiently re-
stored in the aforesaid States to admit of the enlargement of said persons
from close custody:
It is ordered, That they be released on giving their respective paroles to
appear at such time and place as the President may designate to answer
any charge that he may direct to be preferred against them, and also that
they will respectively abide until further orders in the places herein des-
ignated, and not depart therefrom, to wit:
John A. Campbell, in the State of Alabama; John H. Reagan, in the
State of Texas; Alexander H. Stephens, in the State of Georgia; George
A. Trenholm, in the State of South Carolina; and Charles Clark, in the
State of Mississippi. And if the President should grant his pardon to
any of said persons, such person's parole will be thereby discharged.
ANDREW JOHNSON,
President.
ExKCuTivK Office,
Washington City, November 11, 186^.
Ordered, That the civil and military agents of the Government trans-
fer to the assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen,
and Abandoned I^ands for Alabama the use and custody of all real estate,
buildings, or other property, except cotton, seized or held by them in
that State as belonging to the late rebel government, together with all
such funds as may arise or have arisen from the rent, sale, or disposition
of such property which have not been finally paid into the Treasury of
the United States. ANDREW JOHNSON,
President.
Andrew Johnson 353
Gen^rai, Ordkrs, No. 164.
War Dkpartmb)nt,
Adjutant-GknkraIv's Office),
Washington^ November 24., 1865.
Ordered, That—
I. All persons claiming reward for the apprehension of John Wilkes
Booth, Lewis Payne, G. A. Atzerodt, and David B. Herold, and Jefferson
Davis, or either of them, are notified to file their claims and their proofs
with the Adjutant- General for final adjudication by the special commis-
sion appointed to award and determine upon the validity of such claims
before the ist day of January next, after which time no claims will be
received.
II. The rewards offered for the arrest of Jacob Thompson, Beverley
Tucker, George N. Sanders, William G. Cleary, and John H. Surratt are
revoked.
By order of the President of the United States:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
FIRST ANNUAL MESSAGE.
Washington, December ^, 1865.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
To express gratitude to God in the name of the people for the preser-
vation of the United States is my first duty in addressing you. Our
thoughts next revert to the death of the late President by an act of par-
ricidal treason. The grief of the nation is still fresh. It finds some
solace in the consideration that he lived to enjoy the highest proof of its
confidence by entering on the renewed term of the Chief Magistracy to
which he had been elected; that he brought the civil war substantially
to a close; that his loss was deplored in all parts of the Union, and that
foreign nations have rendered justice to his memory. His removal cast
upon me a heavier weight of cares than ever devolved upon any one of
his predecessors. To fulfill my trust I need the support and confidence
of all who are associated with me in the various departments of Govern-
ment and the support and confidence of the people. There is but one
way in which I can hope to gain their necessary aid. It is to state with
frankness the principles which guide my conduct, and their application to
the present state of affairs, well aware that the efficiency of my labors
will in a great meastire depend on your and their undivided approbation.
The Union of the United States of America was intended by its authors
M P— vol, VI -23
354 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
to last as long as the States themselves shall last. ''The Union shall be
perpetual" are the words of the Confederation. "To form a more per-
fect Union," by an ordinance of the people of the United States, is the
declared purpose of the Constitution. The hand of Divine Providence
was never more plainly visible in the affairs of men than in the framing
and the adopting of that instrument. It is beyond comparison the great-
est event in American history, and, indeed, is it not of all events in mod-
ern times the most pregnant with consequences for every people of the
earth? The members of the Convention which prepared it brought to
their work the experience of the Confederation, of their several States,
and of other republican governments, old and new; but they needed
and they obtained a wisdom superior to experience. And when for its
validity it required the approval of a people that occupied a large part of
a continent and acted separately in many distinct conventions, what is
more wonderful than that, after earnest contention and long discussion,
all feelings and all opinions were ultimately drawn in one way to its sup-
port? The Constitution to which life was thus imparted contains within
itself ample resources for its own preservation. It has power to enforce
the laws, punish treason, and insure domestic tranquillity. In case of
the usurpation of the government of a State by one man or an oligarchy,
it becomes a duty of the United States to make good the guaranty to
that State of a republican form of government, and so to maintain the
homogeneousness of all. Does the lapse of time reveal defects? A sim-
ple mode of amendment is provided in the Constitution itself, so that its
conditions can always be made to conform to the requirements of advan-
cing civilization. No room is allowed even for the thought of a possi-
bility of its coming to an end. And these powers of self-preservation
have always been asserted in their complete integrity by every patriotic
Chief Magistrate — by Jefferson and Jackson not less than by Washington
and Madison. The parting advice of the Father of his Country, while
yet President, to the people of the United States was that the free Consti-
tution, which was the work of their hands, might be sacredly maintained;
and the inaugural words of President Jefferson held up ' * the preserva-
tion of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor as the
sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad. ' ' The Constitution
is the work of "the people of the United States," and it should be as
indestructible as the people.
It is not strange that the framers of the Constitution, which had no
model in the past, should not have fully comprehended the excellence of
their own work. Fresh from a struggle against arbitrary power, many
patriots suffered from harassing fears of an absorption of the State gov-
ernments by the General Government, and many from a dread that the
States would break away from their orbits. But the very greatness of our
country should allay the apprehension of encroachments by the General
Government. The subjects that come unquestionably within its juris-
Andrew Johnson 355
diction are so numerous that it must ever naturally refuse to be embar-
rassed by questions that lie beyond it. Were it otherwise the Executive
would sink beneath the burden, the channels of justice would be choked,
legislation would be obstructed by excess, so that there is a greater tempta-
tion to exercise some of the functions of the General Government through
the States than to trespass on their rightful sphere. The "absolute
acquiescence in the decisions of the majority" was at the beginning of
the century enforced by Jefferson as "the vital principle of republics; "
and the events of the last foiu: years have established, we will hope for-
ever, that there lies no appeal to force.
The maintenance of the Union brings with it * ' the support of the State
governments in all their rights, ' ' but it is not one of the rights of any
State government to renounce its own place in the Union or to nullify
the laws of the Union. The largest liberty is to be maintained in the
discussion of the acts of the Federal Government, but there is no appeal
from its laws except to the various branches of that Government itself,
or to the people, who grant to the members of the legislative and of the
executive departments no tenure but a limited one, and in that manner
always retain the powers of redress.
* ' The sovereignty of the States ' ' is the language of the Confederacy,
and not the language of the Constitution. The latter contains the em-
phatic words —
This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pur-
suance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of
the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State
shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the con-
trary notwithstanding.
Certainly the Government of the United States is a limited govern-
ment, and so is every State government a limited government. With us
this idea of limitation spreads through every form of administration —
general, State, and municipal — and rests on the great distinguishing
principle of the recognition of the rights of man. The ancient repub-
lics absorbed the individual in the state — ^prescribed his religion and con-
trolled his activity. The American system rests on the assertion of the
equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
to freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all his faculties.
As a consequence the State government is limited — as to the General
Government in the interest of union, as to the individual citizen in the
interest of freedom.
States, with proper limitations of power, are essential to the existence
of the Constitution of the United States. At the very commencement,
when we assumed a place among the powers of the earth, the Declara-
tion of Independence was adopted by States; so also were the Articles
of Confederation; and when "the people of the United States" ordained
and estabhshed the Constitution it was the assent of the States, one by
356 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
one, which gave it vitahty. In the event, too, of any amendment to the
Constitution, the proposition of Congress needs the confirmation of States.
Without States one great branch of the legislative government would be
wanting. And if we look beyond the letter of the Constitution to the
character of our country, its capacity for comprehending within its juris-
diction a vast continental empire is due to the system of States. The
best security for the perpetual existence of the States is the * * supreme
authority" of the Constitution of the United States. The perpetuity of
the Constitution brings with it the perpetuity of the States; their mutual
relation makes us what we are, and in our political system their connec-
tion is indissoluble. The whole can not exist without the parts, nor
the parts without the whole. So long as the Constitution of the United
States endures, the States will endure. The destruction of the one is the
destruction of the other; the preservation of the one is the preservation
of the other.
I have thus explained my views of the mutual relations of the Con-
stitution and the States, because they unfold the principles on which I
have sought to solve the momentous questions and overcome the appall-
ing difficulties that met me at the very commencement of my Adminis-
tration. It has been my steadfast object to escape from the sway of
momentary passions and to derive a healing policy from the fundamental
and unchanging principles of the Constitution.
I found the States suffering from the effects of a civil war. Resist-
ance to the General Government appeared to have exhausted itself. • The
United States had recovered possession of their forts and arsenals, and
their armies were in the occupation of every State which had attempted to
secede. Whether the territory within the limits of those States should
be held as conquered territory, under military authority emanating from
the President as the head of the Army, was the first question that pre-
sented itself for decision.
Now military governments, established for an indefinite period, would
have offered no security for the early suppression of discontent, would
have divided the people into the vanquishers and the vanquished, and
would have envenomed hatred rather than have restored affection. Once
established, no precise limit to their continuance was conceivable. They
would have occasioned an incalculable and exhausting expense. Peace-
ful emigration to and from that portion of the country is one of the best
means that can be thought of for the restoration of harmony, and that
emigration would have been prevented; for what emigrant from abroad,
what industrious citizen at home, would place himself willingly under
military rule? The chief persons who would have followed in the train
of the Army would have been dependents on the General Government or
men who expected profit from the miseries of their erring fellow-citizens.
The powers of patronage and rule which would have been exercised,
under the President, over a vast and populous and naturally wealthy
Andrew Johnson 357
region are greater than, unless under extreme necessity, I should be will-
ing to intrust to any one man. They are such as, for myself, I could
never, unless on occasions of great emergency, consent to exercise. The
willful use of such powers, if continued through a period of years, would
have endangered the purity of the general administration and the liber-
ties of the States which remained loyal.
Besides, the policy of military rule over a conquered territory would
have implied that the States whose inhabitants may have taken part in
the rebellion had by the act of those inhabitants ceased to exist. But
the true theory is that all pretended acts of secession were from the
beginning null and void. The States can not commit treason nor screen
the individual citizens who may have committed treason any more than
they can make valid treaties or engage in lawful commerce with any
foreign power. The States attempting to secede placed themselves in a
condition where their vitality was impaired, but not extinguished; their
functions suspended, but not destroyed.
But if any State neglects or refuses to perform its offices there is the
more need that the General Government should maintain all its author-
ity and as soon as practicable resume the exercise of all its functions.
On this principle I have acted, and have gradually and quietly, and by
almost imperceptible steps, sought to restore the rightful energy of the
General Government and of the States. To that end provisional gov-
ernors have been appointed for the States, conventions called, governors
elected, legislatures aSvSembled, and Senators and Representatives chosen
to the Congress of the United States. At the same time the courts of
the United States, as far as could be done, have been reopened, so that
the laws of the United States may be enforced through their agency.
The blockade has been removed and the custom-houses reestablished in
ports of entry, so that the revenue of the United States maybe collected.
The Post-Office Department renews its ceaseless activity, and the Gen-
eral Government is thereby enabled to communicate promptly with its
officers and agents. The courts bring security to persons and prop-
erty; the opening of the ports invites the restoration of industry and com-
merce; the post-office renews the facilities of social intercourse and of
business. And is it not happy for us all that the restoration of each one
of these functions of the General Government brings with it a blessing
to the States over which they are extended ? Is it not a sure promise of
harmony and renewed attachment to the Union that after all that has
happened the return of the General Government is known only as a
beneficence?
I know very well that this policy is attended with some risk; that for
its success it requires at least the acquiescence of the States which it con-
cerns; that it implies an invitation to those States, by renewing their
allegiance to the United States, to resume their functions as States of the
Union. But it is a risk that must be taken. In the choice of difficulties
358 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
it is the smallest risk; and to diminisli and if possible to remove all dan-
ger, I have felt it incumbent on me to assert one other power of the
General Government — the power of pardon. As no State can throw a
defense over the crime of treason, the power of pardon is exclusively
vested in the executive government of the United States. In exercising
that power I have taken every precaution to connect it with the clearest
recognition of the binding force of the laws of the United States and an
unqualified acknowledgment of the great social change of condition in
regard to slavery which has grown out of the war.
The next step which I have taken to restore the constitutional rela-
tions of the States has been an invitation to them to participate in the
high office of amending the Constitution. Every patriot must wish for
a general amnesty at the earliest epoch consistent with public safety.
For this great end there is need of a concurrence of all opinions and
the spirit of mutual conciliation. All parties in the late terrible conflict
must work together in harmony. It is not too much to ask, in the name
of the whole people, that on the one side the plan of restoration shall
proceed in conformity with a willingness to cast the disorders of the past
into oblivion, and that on the other the evidence of sincerity in the
future maintenance of the Union shall be put beyond any doubt by the
ratification of the proposed amendment to the Constitution, which pro-
vides for the abolition of slavery forever within the limits of our coun-
try. So long as the adoption of this amendment is delayed, so long will
doubt and jealousy and uncertainty prevail. This is the measure which
will efface the sad memory of the past; this is the measure which will
most certainly call population and capital and security to those parts of
the Union that need them most. Indeed, it is not too much to ask of the
States which are now resuming their places in the family of the Union
to give this pledge of perpetual loyalty and peace. Until it is done the
past, however much we may desire it, will not be forgotten. The adop-
tion of the amendment reunites us beyond all power of disruption; it
heals the wound that is still imperfectly closed; it removes slavery, the
element which has so long perplexed and divided the country; it makes
of us once more a united people, renewed and strengthened, bound more
than ever to mutual affection and support.
The amendment to the Constitution being adopted, it would remain
for the States whose powers have been so long in abeyance to resume
their places in the two branches of the National Legislature, and thereby
complete the work of restoration. Here it is for you, fellow-citizens of
the Senate, and for you, fellow-citizens of the House of Representatives,
to judge, each of you for yourselves, of the elections, returns, and quali-
fications of your own members.
The full assertion of the powers of the General Government requires
the holding of circuit courts of the United States within the districts
where their authority has been interrupted. In the present posture of our
»
Andrew Johnson 359
public affairs strong objections have been urged to holding those courts
in any of the States where the rebellion has existed; and it was ascer-
tained by inquiry that the circuit court of the United States would not be
held within the district of Virginia during the autumn or early winter,
nor until Congress should have ' ' an opportunity to consider and act on
the whole subject. ' ' To your deliberations the restoration of this branch
of the civil authority of the United States is therefore necessarily referred,
with the hope that early provision will be made for the resumption of all
its functions. It is manifest that treason, most flagrant in character, has
been committed. Persons who are charged with its commission should
have fair and impartial trials in the highest civil tribunals of the coun-
try, in order that the Constitution and the laws may be fully vindicated,
the truth clearly established and affirmed that treason is a crime, that
traitors should be punished and the offense made infamous, and, at the
same time, that the question may be judicially settled, finally and forever,
that no State of its own will has the right to renounce its place in the
Union.
The relations of the General Government toward the 4,000,000 in-
habitants whom the war has called into freedom have engaged my most
serious consideration. On the propriety of attempting to make the f reed-
men electors by the proclamation of the Executive I took for my coun-
sel the Constitution itself, the interpretations of that instrument by its
authors and their contemporaries, and recent legislation by Congress.
When, at the first movement toward independence, the Congress of the
United States instructed the several States to institute governments of
their own, they left each State to decide for itself the conditions for the
enjoyment of the elective franchise. During the period of the Confed-
eracy there continued to exist a very great diversity in the qualifications
of electors in the several States, and even within a State a distinction of
qualifications prevailed with regard to the officers who were to be chosen.
The Constitution of the United States recognizes these diversities when
it enjoins that in the choice of members of the House of Representatives
of the United States ' ' the electors in each State shall have the qualifi-
cations requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State
legislature." After the formation of the Constitution it remained, as be-
fore, the uniform usage for each State to enlarge the body of its electors
according to its own judgment, and under this system one State after
another has proceeded to increase the number of its electors, until now
universal suffrage, or something very near it, is the general rule. So fixed
was this reservation of power in the habits of the people and so unquCvS-
tioned has been the interpretation of the Constitution that during the
civil war the late President never harbored the purpose — certainly never
avowed the purpose — of disregarding it; and in the acts of Congress dur-
ing that period nothing can be found which, during the continuance of hos-
tilities, much less after their close, would have sanctioned any departure
360 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
by the Executive from a policy which has so uniformly obtained. More-
over, a concession of the elective franchise to the freedmen by act of the
President of the United States must have been extended to all colored
men, wherever found, and so must have established a change of suffrage
in the Northern, Middle, and Western States, not less than in the South-
ern and Southwestern. Such an act would have created a new class of
voters, and would have been an assumption of power by the President
which nothing in the Constitution or laws of the United States would
have warranted.
On the other hand, every danger of conflict is avoided when the settle-
ment of the question is referred to the several States. They can, each
for itself, decide on the measure, and whether it is to be adopted at once
and absolutely or introduced gradually and with conditions. In my
judgment the freedmen, if they show patience and manly virtues, will
sooner obtain a participation in the elective franchise through the States
than through the General Government, even if it had power to inter-
vene. When the tumult of emotions that have been raised by the sud-
denness of the social change shall have subsided, it may prove that they
will receive the kindest usage from some of those on whom they have
heretofore most closely depended.
But while I have no doubt that now, after the close of the war, it is not
competent for the General Government to extend the elective franchise
in the several States, it is equally clear that good faith requires the secu-
rity of the freedmen in their liberty and their property, their right to
labor, and their right to claim the just return of their labor. I can not
too strongly urge a dispassionate treatment of this subject, which should
be carefully kept aloof from all party strife. We must equally avoid
hasty assumptions of any natural impossibility for the two races to live
side by side in a state of mutual benefit and good will. The experiment
involves us in no inconsistency; let us, then, go on and make that experi-
ment in good faith, and not be too easily disheartened. The country is
in need of labor, and the freedmen are in need of employment, culture,
and protection. While their right of voluntary migration and expatria-
tion is not to be questioned, I would not advise their forced removal and
colonization. I^et us rather encourage them to honorable and useful
industry, where it may be beneficial to themselves and to the country;
and, instead of hasty anticipations of the certainty of failure, let there be
nothing wanting to the fair trial of the experiment. The change in their
condition is the substitution of labor by contract for the status of slavery.
The freedman can not fairly be accused of unwillingness to work so long
as a doubt remains about his freedom of choice in his pursuits and the
certainty of his recovering his stipulated wages. In this the interests of
the employer and the employed coincide. The employer desires in his
workmen spirit and alacrity, and these can be permanently secured in no
other way. And if the one ought to be able to enforce the contract, so
Andrezv Joluison 361
ought the other. The pubhc interest will be best promoted if the several
States will provide adequate protection and remedies for the freedmen.
Until this is in some way accomplished there is no chance for the advan-
tageous use of their labor, and the blame of ill success will not rest on
them.
I know that sincere philanthropy is earnest for the immediate realiza-
tion of its remotest aims; but time is always an element in reform. It is
one of the greatest acts on record to have brought 4,000,000 people into
freedom. The career of free industry must be fairly opened to them, and
then their future prosperity and condition must, after all, rest mainly on
themselves. If they fail, and so perish away, let us be careful that the
failure shall not be attributable to any denial of justice. In all that
relates to the destiny of the freedmen we need not be too anxious to read
the future; many incidents which, from a speculative point of view, might
raise alarm will quietly settle themselves. Now that slavery is at an end,
or near its end, the greatness of its evil in the point of view of public
economy becomes more and more apparent. Slavery was essentially a
monopoly of labor, and as such locked the States where it prevailed against
the incoming of free industry. Where labor was the property of the capi-
talist, the white man was excluded from employment, or had but the
second best chance of finding it; and the foreign emigrant turned away
from the region where his condition would be so precarious. With the
destruction of the monopoly free labor will hasten from all parts of the
civilized world to assist in developing various and immeasurable resources
which have hitherto lain dormant. The eight or nine States nearest the
Gulf of Mexico have a soil of exuberant fertility, a climate friendly to
long life, and can sustain a denser population than is found as yet in any
part of our country. And the future influx of population to them will
be mainly from the North or from the most cultivated nations in Europe.
From the sufferings that have attended them during our late struggle
let us look away to the future, which is sure to be laden for them with
greater prosperity than has ever before been known. The removal of
the monopoly of slave labor is a pledge that those regions will be peopled
by a numerous and enterprising population, which will vie with any in
the Union in compactness, inventive genius, wealth, and industry.
Our Government springs from and was made for the people — not the
people for the Government. To them it owes allegiance; from them it
must derive its courage, strength, and wisdom. But while the Govern-
ment is thus bound to defer to the people, from whom it derives its exist-
ence, it should, from the very consideration of its origin, be strong in its
power of resistance to the establishment of inequalities. Monopolies, per-
petuities, and class legislation are contrary to the genius of free govern-
ment, and ought not to be allowed. Here there is no room for favored
classes or monopolies; the principle of our Government is that of equal
laws and freedom of industry. Wherever monopoly attains a foothold, it
362 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
is sure to be a source of danger, discord, and trouble. We shall but ful-
fill our duties as legislators by according *' equal and exact justice to all
men," special privileges to none. The Government is subordinate to
the people; but, as the agent and representative of the people, it must
be held superior to monopolies, which in themselves ought never to be
granted, and which, where they exist, must be subordinate and yield to
the Government.
The Constitution confers on Congress the right to regulate commerce
among the several States. It is of the first necessity, for the mainte-
nance of the Union, that that commerce should be free and unobstructed.
No State can be justified in any device to tax the transit of travel and
commerce between States. The position of many States is such that if
they were allowed to take advantage of it for purposes of local revenue
the commerce between States might be injuriously burdened, or even vir-
tually prohibited. It is best, while the country is still young and while
the tendency to dangerous monopolies of this kind is still feeble, to use
the power of Congress so as to prevent any selfish impediment to the free
circulation of men and merchandise. A tax on travel and merchandise
in their transit constitutes one of the worst forms of monopoly, and the evil
is increased if coupled with a denial of the choice of route. When the vast
extent of our country is considered, it is plain that every obstacle to the free
circulation of commerce between the States ought to be sternly guarded
against by appropriate legislation within the limits of the Constitution.
The report of the Secretary of the Interior explains the condition of
the public lands, the transactions of the Patent Office and the Pension
Bureau, the management of our Indian affairs, the progress made in the
construction of the Pacific Railroad, and furnishes information in refer-
ence to matters of local interest in the District of Columbia. It also pre-
sents evidence of the successful operation of the homestead act, under the
provisions of which i, 160,533 acres of the public lands were entered dur-
ing the last fiscal year — more than one- fourth of the whole number of acres
sold or otherwise disposed of during that period. It is estimated that
the receipts derived from this source are sufficient to cover the expenses
incident to the survey and disposal of the lands entered under this act,
and that payments in cash to the extent of from 40 to 50 per cent will
be made by settlers who may thus at any time acquire title before the expi-
ration of the period at which it would otherwise vest. The homestead
policy was established only after long and earnest resistance; experience
proves its wisdom. The lands in the hands of industrious settlers, whose
labor creates wealth and contributes to the public resources, are worth
more to the United States than if they had been reserved as a solitude
for future purchasers.
The lamentable events of the last four years and the sacrifices made
by the gallant men of our Army and Navy have swelled the records of the
Pension Bureau to an unprecedented extent. On the 30th day of June
Andrew Johnson 363
last the total number of pensioners was 85,986, requiring for their annual
pay, exclusive of expenses, the sum of $8,023,445. '^^'^ number of appli-
cations that have been allowed since that date will require a large increase
of this amount for the next fiscal year. The means for the payment of
the stipends due under existing laws to our disabled soldiers and sailors
and to the families of such as have perished in the service of the country
will no doubt be cheerfully and promptly granted. A grateful people
will not hesitate to sanction any measures having for their object the
relief of soldiers mutilated and families made fatherless in the efforts to
preserve our national existence.
The report of the Postmaster- General presents an encouraging exhibit
of the operations of the Post-Office Department during the year. The
revenues of the past year, from the loyal States alone, exceeded the max-
imum annual receipts from all the States previous to the rebellion in the
sum of $6,038,091 ; and the annual average increase of revenue during the
last four years, compared with the revenues of the four years immediately
preceding the rebellion, was $3,533,845. The revenues of the last fis-
cal year amounted to $14,556,158 and the expenditures to $13,694,728,
leaving a surplus of receipts over expenditures of $861,430. Progress
has been made in restoring the postal service in the Southern States.
The views presented by the Postmaster- General against the policy of
granting subsidies to the otean mail steamship lines upon established
routes and in favor of continuing the present system, which limits the
compensation for ocean service to the postage earnings, are recommended
to the careful consideration of Congress.
It appears from the report of the Secretary of the Navy that while at
the commencement of the present year there were in commission 530
vessels of all classes and descriptions, armed with 3,000 guns and
manned by 51,000 men, the number of vessels at present in commission
is 117, with 830 guns and 12,128 men. By this prompt reduction of the
naval forces the expenses of the Government have been largely dimin-
ished, and a number of vessels purchased for naval purposes from the
merchant marine have been returned to the peaceful pursuits of com-
merce. Since the suppression of active hostilities our foreign squadrons
have been reestablished, and consist of vessels much more efficient than
those employed on similar service previous to the rebellion. The sug-
gestion for the enlargement of the navy-yards, and especially for the
establishment of one in fresh water for ironclad vessels, is deserving of
consideration, as is also the recommendation for a different location and
more ample grounds for the Naval Academy.
In the report of the Secretary of War a general summary is given of
the military campaigns of 1864 and 1865, ending in the suppression
of armed resistance to the national authority in the insurgent States.
The operations of the general administrative bureaus of the War Depart-
ment during the past year are detailed and an estimate made of the
364 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
appropriations that will be required for military purposes in the fiscal
year commencing the ist day of July, 1866. The national military force
on the ist of May, 1865, numbered 1,000,516 men. It is proposed to
reduce the military establishment to a peace footing, comprehending
50,000 troops of all arms, organized so as to admit of an enlargement by
filling up the ranks to 82,600 if the circumstances of the country should
require an augmentation of the Army. The volunteer force has already
been reduced by the discharge from service of over 800,000 troops, and
the Department is proceeding rapidly in the work of further reduction.
The war estimates are reduced from $516,240,131 to $33,814,461, which
amount, in the opinion of the Department, is adequate for a peace estab-
lishment. The measures of retrenchment in each bureau and branch of
the service exhibit a diligent economy worthy of commendation. Refer-
ence is also made in the report to the necessity of providing for a uni-
form militia system and to the propriety of making suitable provision
for wounded and disabled officers and soldiers.
The revenue system of the country is a subject of vital interest to its
honor and prosperity, and should command the earnest consideration of
Congress. The Secretary of the Treasury will lay before you a full and
detailed report of the receipts and disbursements of the last fiscal year, of
the first quarter of the present fiscal year, of the probable receipts and
expenditures for the other three quarters, and the estimates for the year
following the 30th of June, 1866. I might content myself with a refer-
ence to that report, in which you will find all the information required
for your deliberations and decision, but the paramount importance of
the subject so presses itself on my own mind that I can not but lay
before 3^ou my views of the measures which are required for the good
character, and I might almost say for the existence, of this people.
The life of a republic lies certainly in the energy, virtue, and intelli-
gence of its citizens; but it is equally true that a good revenue system
is the life of an organized government. I meet you at a time when
the nation has voluntarily burdened itself with a debt unprecedented
in our annals. Vast as is its amount, it fades away into nothing when
compared with the countless blessings that will be conferred upon our
country and upon man by the preservation of the nation's life. Now,
on the first occasion of the meeting of Congress since the return of peace,
it is of the utmost importance to inaugurate a just policy, which shall at
once be put in motion, and which shall commend itself to those who come
after us for its continuance. We must aim at nothing less than the com-
plete effacement of the financial evils that necessarily followed a state o£
civil war. We must endeavor to apply the earliest remedy to the deranged
state of the currency, and not shrink from devising a policy which, with-
out being oppressive to the people, shall immediately begin to effect a
reduction of the debt, and, if persisted in, discharge it fully within a defi-
nitely fixed number of years.
Andrew Johnson 365
It is our first duty to prepare in earnest for our recovery from the ever-
increasing evils of an irredeemable currency without a sudden revulsion,
and yet without untimely procrastination. For .that end we must each,
in our respective positions, prepare the way. I hold it the duty of the
Executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditures, and a sparing
economy is itself a great national resource. Of the banks to which
authority has been given to issue notes secured by bonds of the United
States we may require the greatest moderation and prudence, and the
law must be rigidly enforced when its limits are exceeded. We may
each one of us counsel our active and enterprising countrymen to be con-
'stantly on their guard, to liquidate debts contracted in a paper currency,
and by conducting business as nearly as possible on a system of cash
payments or short credits to hold themselves prepared to return to the
standard of gold and silver. To aid our fellow-citizens in the prudent
management of their monetary affairs, the duty devolves on us to dimin-
ish by law the amount of paper money now in circulation. Five years
ago the bank-note circulation of the country amounted to not much more
than two hundred millions; now the circulation, bank and national, exceeds
seven hundred millions. The simple statement of the fact recommends
more strongly than any words of mine could do the necessity of our
restraining this expansion. The gradual reduction of the currency is
the only measure that can save the business of the country from disas-
trous calamities, and this can be almost imperceptibly accomplished by
gradually funding the national circulation in securities that may be made
redeemable at the pleasure of the Government.
Our debt is doubly secure — first in the actual wealth and still greater
undeveloped resources of the country, and next in the character of our
institutions. The most intelligent observers among political economists
have not failed to remark that the public debt of a country is safe in pro-
portion as its people are free; that the debt of a republic is the safest of
all. Our history confirms and establishes the theory, and is, I firmly
believe, destined to give it a still more signal illustration. The secret
of this superiority springs not merely from the fact that in a republic
the national obligations are distributed more widely through countless
numbers in all classes of society; it has its root in the character of our
laws. Here all men contribute to the public welfare and bear their
fair share of the public burdens. During the war, under the impulses
of patriotism, the men of the great body of the people, without regard
to their own comparative want of wealth, thronged to our armies and
filled our fleets of w^ar, and held themselves ready to offer their lives for
the public good. Now, in their turn, the property and income of the
country should bear their just proportion of the burden of taxation,
while in our impost system, through means of which increased vitality
is incidentally imparted to all the industrial interests of the nation, the
duties should be so adjusted as to fall most heavily on articles of luxury.
366 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
leaving the necessaries of life as free from taxation as the absolute wants
of the Government economically administered will justify. No favored
' class should demand freedom from assessment, and the taxes should be
so distributed as not to fall unduly on the poor, but rather on the accu-
mulated wealth of the country. We should look at the national debt
just as it is — not as a national blessing, but as a heavy burden on the
industry of the country, to be discharged without unnecessary delay.
It is estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury that the expenditures
for the fiscal year ending the 30th of June, 1866, will exceed the receipts
$112, 194,947. It is gratifying, however, to state that it is also estimated
that the revenue for the year ending the 30th of June, 1867, will exceed
the expenditures in the sum of $111, 68 2, 818. This amount, or so much
as may be deemed sufficient for the purpose, may be applied to the reduc-
tion of the public debt, which on the 31st day of October, 1865, was
$2,740,854,750. Every reduction will diminish the total amount of
interest to be paid, and so enlarge the means of still further reductions,
until the whole shall be liquidated; and this, as will be seen from the
estimates of the Secretary of the Treasury, may be accomplished by
annual payments even within a period not exceeding thirty years. I
have faith that we shall do all this within a reasonable time; that as we
have amazed the world by the suppression of a civil war which was
thought to be beyond the control of any government, so we shall equally
show the superiority of our institutions by the prompt and faithful dis-
charge of our national obligations.
The Department of Agriculture under its present direction is accom-
plishing much in developing and utilizing the vast agricultural capabilities
of the country, and for information respecting the details of its manage-
ment reference is made to the annual report of the Commissioner.
I have dwelt thus fully on our domestic affairs because of their tran-
scendent importance. Under any circumstances our great extent of terri-
tory and variety of climate, producing almost everything that is necessary
for the wants and even the comforts of man, make us singularly inde-
pendent of the varying policy of foreign powers and protect us against
every temptation to ' ' entangling alliances, ' ' while at the present moment
the reestablishment of harmony and the strength that comes from har-
mony will be our best security against "nations who feel power and
forget right. ' ' For myself, it has been and it will be my constant aim
to promote peace and amity with all foreign nations and powers, and I
have every reason to believe that they all, without exception, are ani-
mated by the same disposition. Our relations with the Emperor of
China, so recent in their origin, are most friendly. Our commerce with
his dominions is receiving new developments, and it is very pleasing to
find that the Government of that great Empire manifests satisfaction
with our policy and reposes just confidence in the fairness which marks
our intercourse. The unbroken harmony between the United States and
Andrew Johnson 367
the Emperor of Russia is receiving a new support from an enterprise de-
signed to carry telegraphic lines across the continent of Asia, through his
dominions, and so to connect us with all Europe by a new channel of inter-
course. Our commerce with South America is about to receive encour-
agement by a direct line of mail steamships to the rising Empire of Brazil.
The distinguished party of men of science who have recently left our
country to make a scientific exploration of the natural history and rivers
and mountain ranges of that region have received from the Emperor that
generous welcome which was to have been expected from his constant
friendship for the United States and his well-known zeal in promoting
the advancement of knowledge. A hope is entertained that our commerce
with the rich and populous countries that border the Mediterranean Sea
may be largely increased. Nothing will be wanting on the part of this
Government to extend the protection of our flag over the enterprise of
our fellow- citizens. We receive from the powers in that region assur-
ances of good will; and it is worthy of note that a special envoy has
brought us messages of condolence on the death of our late Chief Magis-
trate from the Bey of Tunis, whose rule includes the old dominions of
Carthage, on the African coast.
Our domestic contest, now happily ended, has left some traces in our
relations with one at least of the great maritime powers. The formal
accordance of belligerent rights to the insurgent States .was unprece-
dented, and has not been justified by the issue. But in the systems of
neutrality pursued by the powers which made that concession there was
a marked difference. The materials of war for the insurgent States
were furnished, in a great measure, from the workshops of Great Britain,
and British ships, manned by British subjects and prepared for receiving
British armaments, sallied from the ports of Great Britain to make war
on American commerce under the shelter of a commission from the insur-
gent States. These ships, having once escaped from British ports, ever
afterwards entered them in every part of the world to refit, and so to
renew their depredations. The consequences of this conduct were most
disastrous to the States then in rebellion, increasing their desolation and
misery by the prolongation of our civil contest. It had, moreover, the
effect, to a great extent, to drive the American flag from the sea, and to
transfer much of our shipping and our commerce to the very power whose
subjects had created the necessity for such a change. These events took
place before I was called to the administration of the Government. The
sincere desire for peace by which I am animated led me to approve the
proposal, already made, to submit the question which had thus arisen be-
tween the countries to arbitration. These questions are of such moment
that they must have commanded the attention of the great powers, and
are so interwoven with the peace and interests of every one of them as to
have insured an impartial decision. I regret to inform you that Great
Britain declined the arbitrament, but, on the other hand, invited us to the
368 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
formation or a joint commission to settle mutual claims between the two
countries, from which those for the depredations before mentioned should
be excluded. The proposition, in that very unsatisfactory form, has been
declined.
The United States did not present the subject as an impeachment of
the good faith of a power which was professing the most friendly dispo-
sitions, but as involving questions of public law of which the vSettlement
is essential to the peace of nations; and though pecuniary reparation
to their injured citizens would have followed incidentally on a decision
against Great Britain, such compensation was not their primary object.
They had a higher motive, and it was in the interests of peace and justice
to establish important principles of international law. The correspond-
ence will be placed before you. The ground on which the British minister
rests his justification is, substantially, that the municipal law of a nation
and the domestic interpretations of that law are the measure of its duty
as a neutral, and I feel bound to declare my opinion before you and before
the world that that justification can not be sustained before the tribunal
of nations. At the same time, I do not advise to any present attempt at
redress by acts of legislation. For the future, friendship between the
two countries must rest on the basis of mutual justice.
From the moment of the establishment of our free Constitution the
civilized world has been convulsed by revolutions in the interests of de-
mocracy or of monarchy, but through all those revolutions the United
States have wisely and firmly refused to become propagandists of republic-
anism. It is the only government suited to our condition; but we have
never sought to impose it on others, and we have consistently followed
the advice of Washington to recommend it only by the careful preserva-
tion and prudent use of the blessing. During all the intervening period
the policy of European powers and of the United States has, on the whole,
been harmonious. Twice, indeed, rumors of the invasion of some parts
of America in the interest of monarchy have prevailed; twice my prede-
cessors have had occasion to announce the views of this nation in respect
to such interference. On both occasions the remonstrance of the United
States was respected from a deep conviction on the part of European Gov-
ernments that the system of noninterference and mutual abstinence from
propagandism was the true rule for the two hemispheres. Since those
times we have advanced in wealth and power, but we retain the same
purpose to leave the nations of Europe to choose their own dynasties and
form their own systems of government. This consistent moderation may
justly demand a corresponding moderation. We should regard it* as a
great calamity to ourselves, to the cause of good government, and to the
peace of the world should any European power challenge the American
people, as it were, to the defense of republicanism against foreign inter-
ference. We can not foresee and are unwilling to consider what opportu-
nities might present themselves, what combinations might offer to protect
Jinarew Johnson 369
ourselves against • designs inimical to our form of government. The
United States desire to act in the future as they have ever acted hereto-
fore; they never will be driven from that course but by the aggression of
European powers, and we rely on the wisdom and justice of those powers
to respect the system of noninterference w^hich has so long been sanc-
tioned by time, and which by its good results has approved itself to both
continents.
The correspondence between the United States and France in reference
to questions which have become subjects of discussion between the two
Governments will at a proper time be laid before Congress.
When, on the organization of our Government under the Constitution,
the President of the United States delivered his inaugural address to the
two Houses of Congress, he said to them, and through them to the coun-
try and to mankind, that —
The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the repubHcan
model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, sls finally, staked on
the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people.
And the House of Representatives answered Washington by the voice
of Madison:
We adore the Invisible Hand which has led the American people, through so many
difl&culties, to cherish a conscious responsibility for the destiny of republican liberty.
More than seventy-six years have glided away since these words were
spoken; the United States have passed through severer trials than were
foreseen; and now, at this new epoch in our existence as one nation, with
our Union purified by sorrows and strengthened by conflict and estab-
lished by the virtue of the people, the greatness of the occasion invites
us once more to repeat with solemnity the pledges of our fathers to hold
ourselves answerable before our fellow-men for the success of the repub-
lican form of government. Experience has proved its sufficiency in peace
and in war; it has vindicated its authority through dangers and afflictions,
and sudden and terrible emergencies, which would have crushed any sys-
^tem that had been less firmly fixed in the hearts of the people. At the
.inauguration of Washington the foreign relations of the country were
few and its trade was repressed by hostile regulations; now all the civi-
lized nations of the globe welcome our commerce, and their governments
profess toward us amity. Then our country felt its way hesitatingly
along an untried path, with States so little bound together by rapid means
of communication as to be hardly known to one another, and with historic
traditions extending over very few years; now intercourse between the
States is swift and intimate; the experience of centuries has been crowded
into a few generations, and has created an intense, indestructible nation-
ality. Then our jurisdiction did not reach beyond the inconvenient
boundaries of the territory which had achieved independence; now,
through cessions of lands, first colonized by Spain and France^ the country
M P— vol, VI — 24
370 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
has acquired a more complex character, and has for its "natural limits the
chain of lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the east and the west the two
great oceans. Other nations were wasted by civil wars for ages before
they could establish for themselves the necessary degree of unity; the
latent conviction that our form of government is the best ever known to
the world has enabled us to emerge from civil war within four years with
a complete vindication of the constitutional authority of the General Gov-
ernment and with our local liberties and State institutions unimpaired.
The throngs of emigrants that crowd to our shores are witnesses of the
confidence of all peoples in our permanence. Here is the great land of
free labor, where industry is blessed with unexampled rewards and the
bread of the workingman is sweetened by the consciousness that the cause
of the country * ' is his own cause, his own safety, his own dignity. ' ' Here
everyone enjoys the free use of his faculties and the choice of activity as
a natural right. Here, under the combined influence of a fruitful soil,
genial climes, and happy institutions, population has increased fifteen-
fold within a century. Here, through the easy development of bound-
less resources, wealth has increased with twofold greater rapidity than
numbers, so that we have become secure against the financial vicissitudes
of other countries and, alike in business and in opinion, are self -centered
and truly independent. Here more and more care is given to provide
education for everyone born on our soil. Here religion, released from
political connection with the civil government, refuses to subserve the
craft of statesmen, and becomes in its independence the spiritual life of
the people. Here toleration is extended to every opinion, in the quiet
certainty that truth needs only a fair field to secure the victory. Here
the human mind goes forth unshackled in the pursuit of science, to col-
lect stores of knowledge and acquire an ever-increasing mastery over the
forces of nature. Here the national domain is offered and held in mil-
lions of separate freeholds, so that our fellow-citizens, beyond the occu-
pants of any other part of the earth, constitute in reality a people. Here
exists the democratic form of government; and that form of government,
by the confession of European statesmen, ** gives a power of which no
other form is capable, because it incorporates every man with the state
and arouses everything that belongs to the soul. ' '
Where in past history does a parallel exist to the public happiness
which is within the reach of the people of the United States? Where in
any part of the globe can institutions be found so suited to their habits
or so entitled to their love as their own free Constitution? Every one of
them, then, in whatever part of the land he has his home, must wish its
perpetuity. Who of them will not now acknowledge, in the words of
Washington, that "every step by which the people of the United States
have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have
been distinguished by some token of providential agency "? Who will
not join with me in the prayer that the Invisible Hand which has led
\\
k
Andrew Johnson 371
us through the clouds that gloomed around our path will so guide us
onward to a perfect restoration of fraternal affection that we of this day
may be able to transmit our great inheritance of State governments in
all their rights, of the General Government in its whole constitutional
vigor, to our posterity, and they to theirs through countless generations?
ANDREW JOHNSON.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, December it, 1865.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit a report of this date from the Secretary of State, and the
papers referred to therein, concerning the Universal Exposition to be held
at Paris in the year 1867, in which the United States have been invited
by the Government of France to take part. I commend the subject to
your early and favorable consideration.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December zj, 1863.
0 the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the nth instant, request-
ing information on the subject of a decree of the so-called Emperor of
Mexico of the 3d of October last, I transmit a report from the Secretary
of State and the documents by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December i^, 186^.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the nth
instant, requesting information relative to a so-called decree concerning
the reestablishment of slavery or peonage in the Republic of Mexico, I
transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the documents by
which it was accompanied, ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, December 18, 1863.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
In compliance with the requirements of the third section of the act
approved March 3, 1865, I transmit herewith a communication from the
Secretary of War, with the accompanying report and estimates of the Com-
missioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned I^ands.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
372 Messages a7td Papers of the Presidents
Washington, December iS, 1865,
To the Senate of the United States:
In reply to the revSolution adopted by the Senate on the 12th instant,
I have the honor to state that the rebelHon waged by a portion of the peo-
ple against the properly constituted authority of the Government of the
United States has been suppressed; that the United States are in posses-
sion of every State in which the insurrection existed, and that, as far as
it could be done, the courts of the United States have been restored, post-
offices reestablished, and steps taken to put into effective operation the
revenue laws of the country.
As the result of the measures instituted by the Executive with the view
of inducing a resumption of the functions of the States comprehended in
the inquiry of the Senate, the people of North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, I^ouisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee have
reorganized their respective State governments, and ' ' are yielding obe-
dience to the laws and Government of the United States ' ' with more
willingness and greater promptitude than under the circumstances could
reasonably have been anticipated. The proposed amendment to the Con-
stitution, providing for the abolition of slavery forever within the limits
of the country, has been ratified by each one of those States, with the
exception of Mississippi, from which no official information has been re-
ceived, and in nearly all of them measures have been adopted or are now
pending to confer upon freedmen the privileges which are essential to
their comfort, protection, and security. In Florida and Texas the people
are making commendable progress in restoring their State governments,
and no doubt is entertained that they will at an early period be in a
condition to resume all of their practical relations with the General
Government.
In ' ' that portion of the Union lately in rebellion ' ' the aspect of affairs
is more promising than, in view of all the circumstances, could well have
been expected. The people throughout the entire South evince a laud-
able desire to renew their allegiance to the Government and to repair
the devastations of war by a prompt and cheerful return to peaceful
pursuits, and abiding faith is entertained that their actions will conform
to their professions, and that in acknowledging the supremacy of the
Constitution and laws of the United States their loyalty will be unre-
servedly given to the Government, whose leniency they can not fail to
appreciate and whose fostering care will soon restore them to a condi-
tion of prosperity. It is true that in some of the States the demoralizing
effects of the war are to be seen in occasional disorders; but these are
local in character, not frequent in occurrence, and are rapidly disappear-
ing as the authority of civil law is extended and sustained. Perplexing
questions are naturally to be expected from the great and sudden change
in the relations between the two races; l)Ut systems are gradually devel-
oping themselves under which the freedman will receive the protection
Andrew Johnson 373
to which he is justly entitled, and, by means of his labor, make himself
a useful and independent member in the community in which he has a
home.
From all the information in my possession and from that which I have
recently derived frotfi the most reliable authority I am induced to cherish
the belief that sectional animosity is surely and rapidly merging itself
into a spirit of nationality, and that representation, connected with a
properly adjusted system of taxation, will result in a harmonious resto-
ration of the relation of the States to the National Union.
The report of Carl Schurz is herewith transmitted, as requested by the
Senate. No reports from the Hon. John Covode have been received by
the President. The attention of the Senate is invited to the accompany-
i. ;g report from Lieutenant- General Grant, who recently made a tour of
inspection through several of the States whose inhabitants participated
in the rebellion. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 20, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
In reply to the resolution of the Senate of the 19th instant, requesting
that the President, if not inconsistent with the public service, communi-
cate to the Senate the ' * report of General Howard of his observations of
the condition of the seceded States and the operation of the Freedmen's
Bureau therein," I have to state that the report of the Commissioner of
the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmeri, and Abandoned Lands was yesterda}^
transmitted to both Houses of Congress, as required by the third section
of the act approved March 3, 1865. ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the Senate: Washington, December 21, 1865.
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the nth instant,
respecting the occupation by the French troops of the Republic of Mex-
ico and the establishment of a monarchy there, I transmit a report from
the Secretary of State and the documents by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 5, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 19th ultimo,
requesting information in regard to any plans to induce the immigration
of dissatisfied citizens of the United States into Mexico, their organiza-
tion there with the view to create disturbances in the United States, and
especially in regard to the plans of Dr. William M. Gwin and M. F.
Maury, and to the action taken by the Government of the United States
374 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
to prevent the success of such schemes, I transmit a report from the Act-
ing Secretary of State and the papers by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 5, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have received the following preamble and resolution, adopted by the
Senate on the 21st ultimo:
Whereas the Constitution declares that * ' in all criminal prosecutions the accused
shall enjoy the right of a speedy and pubHc trial by an impartial jury of the State
or district wherein the crime shall have been committed; " and
Whereas several months have elapsed since Jefferson Davis, late president of the
so-called Confederate States, was captured and confined for acts notoriously done by
him as such, which acts, if duly proved, render him guilty of treason against the
United States and liable to the penalties thereof; and
Whereas hostilities between the Government of the United States and the insur-
gents have ceased, and not one of the latter, so far as is known to the Senate, is now
held in confinement for the part he may have acted in the rebellion except said
Jefferson Davis: Therefore,
Resolved, That the President be respectfully requested, if compatible with the pub-
lic safety, to inform the Senate upon what charges or for what reasons said Jefferson
Davis is still held in confinement, and why he has not been put upon his trial.
In reply to the resolution I transmit the accompanying reports from
the Secretary of War and the Attorney- General, and at the same time
invite the attention of the Senate to that portion of my message dated
the 4th day of December last which refers to Congress the questions
connected with the holding of circuit courts of the United States within
the districts where their authority has been interrupted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 5, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 1 8th ultimo, requesting information in regard to steps taken by the
so-called Emperor of Mexico or by any European power to obtain from
the United States a recognition of the so-called Empire of Mexico, and
what action has been taken in the premises by the Government of the
United States, I transmit a report from the Acting Secretary of State
and the papers by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fanuary id, 1866.
To the House of Representatives :
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
8th instant, asking for information in regard to the alleged kidnaping in
I
Andrew Johnson 375
Mexico of the child of an American lady, I transmit a report from the
Acting Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. Q.., January 12, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a communication addressed to me by Messrs. John
Evans and J. B. Chaffee as "United States Senators elect from the State
of Colorado," together with the accompanying documents.
Under authority of the act of Congress approved the 21st day of March,
1864, the people of Colorado, through a convention, formed a constitu-
tion making provision for a State government, which, when submitted to
the qualified voters of the Territory, was rejected.
In the summer of 1865 a second convention was called by the executive
committees of the several political parties in the Territory, which assem-
bled at Denver on the 8th of August, 1865. On the 12th of that month
this convention adopted a State constitution, which was submitted to the
people on the 5th of September, 1865, and ratified by a majority of 155
of the qualified voters. The proceedings in the second instance for the
formation of a State government having differed in time and mode from
those specified in the act of March 21, 1864, 1 have declined to issue the
proclamation for which provision is made in the fifth section of the law,
and therefore submit the question for the consideration and further action
of Congress.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExBCUTivK Office), January 20, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action
thereon, the several treaties* with the Indians of the Southwest referred to
in the accompanying communication from the Secretary of the Interior.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCuTiVK Offick, January 20, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action
thereon, the several treaties with bands of the Sioux Nation of Indians
which are referred to in the accompanying communication from the Sec-
retary of the Interior.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
* With the confederated tribes of the Arapahoe and Cheyenne Indians, concluded October 14, 1865;
with the Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe tribes, respectively, concluded October 17, 1865; with the
several bands of the Comanche tribe, concluded October 18, 1865.
376 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
KxKCuTivK Mansion, January 20, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action
thereon, the treaties with the Omaha and Winnebago Indians referred to
in the accompanying communication from the Secretary of the Interior.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 26, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the nth instant,
requesting information in regard to a negotiation for the transit of
United States troops in 1861 through Mexican territory, I transmit a
report from the Acting Secretary of State and the papers by which it was
accompanied. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 26, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention between the United States and the Empire of Japan
for the reduction of import duties, which was signed at Yedo the 28th
of January, 1864. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<27^^^«r)/ 26, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention between the Empire of Japan and the Governments of
the United States, Great Britain, France, and Holland, providing for the
payment to said Governments of the sum of $3,000,000 for indemnities
and expenses, which was signed by the respective parties at Yokohama
on the 22d of October, 1864. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 26 ^ 1866,
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 17th instant, request-
ing the President '*to communicate to the Senate, if in his opinion not
inconsistent with the public interest, any letters from Major- General
Sheridan, commanding the Military Division of the Gulf, or from any
other officer of the Department of Texas, in regard to the present condi-
tion of affairs on the southeastern frontier of the United States, and espe-
cially in regard to any violation of neutrality on the part of the army
now occupying the right bank of the Rio Grande," I transmit herewith
a report from the Secretary of War, bearing date the 24th instant.
I
Andrew Johnson 377
Concurring in his opinion that the publication of the correspondence
at this time is not consistent with the pubHc interest, the papers referred
to in the accompanying report are for the present withheld.
ANDRKW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<a!;^^^«r^ 26, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 2 2d instant, requesting the communication of any correspondence or
other information in regard to a demonstration by the Congress of the
United States of Colombia, or any other country, in honor of President
Juarez, of the Republic of Mexico, I transmit herewith a report from the
Acting Secretary of State, with the papers by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<2;^««rj/ 26, 1866,
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 8th
instant, asking for information in regard to the reported surrender of the
rebel pirate vessel called the Shenandoah, I transmit a report from the
Acting Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.
■ ANDREW JOHNSON.
I
Washington, Ja7iuary jo, 1866.
ly the Senate and House of Representatives:
Believing that the commercial interests of our country would be pro-
moted by a formal recognition of the independence of the Dominican
Republic, while such a recognition would be in entire conformity with
the settled policy of the United States, I have with that view nominated
to the Senate an officer of the same grade with the one now accredited to
the Republic of Hayti; and I recommend that an appropriation be made
by Congress toward providing for his compensation.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February i, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the loth ultimo, requesting information in regard to the organization
in the city of New York of the "Imperial Mexican Express Company"
under a grant from the so-called Emperor of Mexico, I transmit a report
from the Secretary of State and the papers by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
2,J^ Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, February 2, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
, The accompanying correspondence is transmitted to the Senate in com-
pHance with its resolution of the i6th ultimo, requesting the President,
*4f not inconsistent with the public interest, to communicate to the
Senate any correspondence which may have taken place between himself
and any of the judges of the Supreme Court touching the holding of the
civil courts of the United States in the insurrectionary States for the trial
of crimes against the United States."
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 2, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 30th ultimo, request-
ing the President, "if not incompatible with the public interests, to
communicate to the Senate a copy of the late report of Majors General
Sherman upon the condition of the States in his department, in which he
has lately made a tour of inspection, ' ' I transmit herewith a copy of a
communication, dated December 22, 1865, addressed to the Headquarters
of the Army by Major- General Sherman, commanding the Military Divi-
sion of the Mississippi ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February p, 1866,
To the House of Representatives:
In reply to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the loth
ultimo, requesting the President of the United States, ' ' if not incompati-
ble with the pubhc interest, to communicate to the House any report or
reports made by the Judge- Advocate- General or any other officer of the
Government as to the grounds, facts, or accusations upon which Jefferson
Davis, Clement C. Clay, jr., Stephen R. Mallory, and David ly. Yulee, or
either of them, are held in confinement," I transmit herewith reports
from the Secretary of War and the Attorney- General, and concur in the
opinion therein expressed that the publication of the papers called for
by the resolution is not at the present time compatible with the public
interest. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 10, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit, for the consideration of Congress, a correspondence between
the Secretary of State and the minister of France accredited to this Gov-
ernment, and also other papers, relative to a proposed international con-
ference at Constantinople upon the subject of cholera.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 379
V/ashingTon, March 5, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit the accompanying report from the Secretary of War, in
answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 27th
ultimo, requesting information in regard to the distribution of the re-
wards offered by the Government for the arrest of the assassins of the
late President Lincoln. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 5, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 27th ultimo, I
transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of War, together
with the reports of the assistant commissioners of the Freedmen's Bureau
made since December i , 1865. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 6, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolutions of the Senate of the 5th of January and
27th of February last, requesting information in regard to provisional
governors of States, I transmit reports from the Secretary of State and
the Secretary of War, to whom the resolutions were referred.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, March <5, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
with the Utah, Yampah-Ute, Pah-Vant, San-Pete-Ute, Tim-p-nogs, and
Cum-um-bah bands of the Utah Indians, referred to in the accompanying
papers from the Secretary of the Interior.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 6, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1 2th
of January last, requesting information in regard to provisional govern-
ments of certain States, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State,
•to whom the resolution was referred. ANDREW JOHNSON
Washington, March 6, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 27 th
! ultimo, requesting certain information in relation to President Benito
Juarez, of Mexico, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON,
380 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, March S, 1866.
To the Se7iate of the U7iited States:
,1 transmit, for the consideration of the Senate, a copy of a letter of the
2 1 St ultimo from the governor of the Territory of Colorado to the Secre-
tary of State, with the memorial to which it refers, relative to the location
of the Pacific Railroad. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 12, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit, for your consideration, a copy of two communications from
the minister of the United States at Paris, in regard to a proposed exhibi-
tion of fishery and water culture, to be held at Arcachon, near Bordeaux,
in France, in July next. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 75, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 5th instant, upon the
subject of the supposed kidnaping of colored persons in the Southern
States for the purpose of selling them as slaves in Cuba, I transmit a
report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, March ig, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives dated Janu-
ary 5, 1866, requesting information as to the number of men and officers in
the regular and volunteer service of the United States, I transmit a report
from the Secretary of War, wit^ the papers by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 20, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the nth of December last, requesting information upon the present con-
dition of affairs in the Republic of Mexico, I transmit a report from the
Secretary of State and the papers by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 21, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
made with the Great and Little Osage Indians on the 29th September,
J 8 65, together with the accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 381
Washington, March 21, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty
made with the WoU-pah-pe tribe of Snake Indians on the 12th of August,
1865, together with the accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, March 26, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate a memorial of the legislature of Alabama, ask-
ing an extension of time for the completion of certain railroads in said
^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March jo, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty
negotiated with the Shawnee Indians, dated March i, 1866, with supple-
mental article, dated March 14, 1866, with accompanying communica-
tions from the honorable Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner of
Indian Affairs. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April j, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report by the Secretary of War, in compliance
with the Senate resolution of the 7th March, 1866, respecting the im-
provement of the Washington City Canal, to promote the health of the
"'^*''°P°"'- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, April 3, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, dated
the 22d ultimo, together with a letter addressed to him by the gov-
ernor of Alabama, asking that the State of Alabama may be allowed to
assume and pay in State bonds the direct tax now due from that State
to the United States, or that delay of payment may. l^e authorized until
the State can by the sale of its bonds or by taxation make provision
for the liquidation of the indebtedness.
I concur in the opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury ' ' that it is
desirable that the State of Alabama and the other Southern States should
be allowed to assume and pay their proportion of the direct taxes now
due, ' ' and therefore recommend the necessary legislation by Congress.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
382 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, April ^, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a report from the Secretary of State, with the
accompanying papers, relative to the claim on this Government of the
owners of the British vessel Magicienne, and recommend an appropriation
for the satisfaction of the claim, pursuant to the award of the arbitrators.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April 5, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I herewith transmit communications from the Secretary of the Treas-
ury and the Postmaster- General, suggesting a modification of the oath
of office prescribed by the act of Congress approved July 2, 1862. I fully
concur in their recommendation, and as the subject pertains to the efii-
cient administration of the revenue and postal laws in the Southern
States I earnestly commend it to the early consideration of Congress.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April 6, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a supplemental
article to the Pottawatomie treaty of November 15, 1 861, concluded on
the 29th ultimo, together with the accompanying communications from
the Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, April 7, 1866.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit a communication from the Secretary of the Interior, with
the accompanying papers, in reference to grants of land made by acts of
Congress passed in the years 1850, 1853, and 1856 to the States of Mis-
sissippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and lyouisiana, to aid in the con-
struction of certain railroads. As these acts will expire by limitation on
the nth day of August, 1866, leaving the roads for whose benefit they
were conferred in an unfinished condition, it is recommended that the
time within which they may be completed be extended for a period of
five years. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April u, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 27th ultimo, in
relation to the seizure and detention at New York of the steamship
Andrezv Johnson 383
Meteor, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and the
papers by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April zj, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty
concluded with the Bois Forte band of Chippewa Indians on the 7th
instant, together with the accompanying communications from the Secre-
tary of the Interior and Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April zj, 1S66.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
loth instant, requesting information in regard to the rights and interests
of American citizens in the fishing grounds adjacent to the British Prov-
inces, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the reso-
lution was referred. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April 20, 1866,
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the Senate's resolution of the 8th January, 1866, I
transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of War of the 19th
instant, covering copies of the correspondence respecting General Orders,
No. 17,* issued by the commander of the Department of California, and
also the Attorney -General's opinion as to the question whether the order
involves a breach of neutrality toward Mexico.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, April 20, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In reply to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 2d
instant, requesting information respecting the collection of the remains
of officers and soldiers killed and buried on the various battlefields about
Atlanta, I transmit herewith a report on the subject from the Secretary
^^ ^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Instructing commanders on the southern frontiers within the Department of California "to
take the necessary measures to preserve the neutrality of the United States with respect to the
parties engaged in the existing war in Mexico, and to suffer no armed parties to pass the frontier
from the United States, nor suffer any arms or munitions of war to be sent over the frontier to
either belligerent," etc.
384 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, April 21, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a communication of this date from the Secretary
of War, covering a copy of the proceedings of a board of officers in rela-
tion to brevet appointments in the Regular Army, requested in the Sen-
ate's resolution of the i8th April, 1866.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April 23, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention which was signed at Tangier on the 31st of May last
between the United States and other powers on the one part and the
Sultan of Morocco on the other part, concerning the administration and
maintenance of a light-house on Cape Spartel.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April 23, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
1 6th instant, requesting information relative to the proposed evacuation
of Mexico by French military forces, I transmit a report from the Secre-
tary of State and the documents by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCuTivB Mansion,
Washington, D. C, April 2^, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I submit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, the accompany-
ing communication from the Secretary of the Interior, in relation to the
Union Pacific Railroad Company, eastern division.
It appears that the company were required to complete 100 miles of
their road within three years after their acceptance of the conditions
of the original act of Congress. This period expired December 22, 1865.
Sixty- two miles had been previously accepted by the Government. Since
that date an additional section of 23 miles has been completed. Commis-
sioners appointed for that purpose have examined and reported upon it,
and an application has been made for its acceptance.
The failure to complete 100 miles of road within the period prescribed
renders it questionable whether the executive officers of the Government
are authorized to issue the bonds and patents to which the company would
be eutitled_ if this as well as the other requirements of the act had been
faithfully observed.
Andrew Johnson 385
This failure may to some extent be ascribed to the financial condition
of the country incident to the recent civil war. As the company appear
to be engaged in the energetic prosecution of their work and manifest a
disposition to comply with the conditions of the grant, I recommend that
the time for the completion of this part of the road be extended and that
authority be given for the issue of bonds and patents on account of the
section now offered for acceptance notwithstanding such failure, should
the company in other respects be thereunto entitled.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, April 28, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty
this day concluded with the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations of Indians.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April jo, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
25th instant, requesting information in regard to the rebel debt known
as the cotton loan, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to
whom the resolution was referred. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May 2, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In reply to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 23d
ultimo, I transmit a report from the Secretary of War, from which it will
be perceived that it is not deemed compatible with the public interests to
communicate to the House the report made by General Smith and the
Hon. James T. Brady of their investigations at New Orleans, I^a.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May ^, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
5th of March, 1866, requesting the names of persons worth more than
$20,000 to whom special pardons have been issued, and a statement of
the amount of property which has been seized as belonging to the ene-
mies of the Government, or as abandoned property, and returned to those
who claimed to be the original owners, I transmit herewith reports from
the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of
M P— voi, VI— 25
386 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
War, and the Attorney- General, together with a copy of the amnesty
proclamation of the 29th of May, 1865, and a copy of the warrants issued
in cases in which special pardons are granted. The second, third, and
fourth conditions of the warrant prescribe the terms, so far as property is
concerned, upon which all such pardons are granted and accepted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May ^, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
Referring to my message of the 1 2th of March last, communicating
information in regard to a proposed exposition of fishery and water cul-
ture at Arcachon, in France, I communicate a copy of another dispatch
from the minister of the United States in Paris to the Secretary of State,
and again invite the attention of Congress to the subject.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May 7, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 19th ultimo, I
transmit herewith a report from Benjamin C. Truman, relative to the
condition of the Southern people and the States in which the rebellion
^^^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May p, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a correspondence between the Secretary
of State and the acting charge d'affaires of the United States at Guaya-
quil, in the Republic of Ecuador, from which it appears that the Govern-
ment of that Republic has failed to pay the first installment of the award
of the commissioners under the convention between the United States
and Ecuador of the 25th November, 1862, which installment was due on
the 17th of February last.
As debts of this character from one government to another are justly
regarded as of a peculiarly sacred character, and as further diplomatic
measures are not in this instance likely to be successful, the expediency
of authorizing other proceedings in case they should ultimately prove to
be indispensable is submitted to your consideration.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May 10, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, in
answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 3d instant,
Andrew Johnson 387
requesting information concerning discriminations made by the so-called
Maximilian Government of Mexico against American commerce, or against
commerce from particular American ports.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May 11, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to that part
of the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 7th instant
which calls for information in regard to the clerks employed in the De-
partment of State. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May 16, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of the correspondence between the Sec-
retary of State and Cornelius Vanderbilt, of New York, relative to the
joint resolution of the 28th of January, 1864, upon the subject of the gift
of the steamer Vanderbilt to the United States.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Ex:bcutivb; Mansion,
Hon. SCHUYI.BR C01.FAX, Washington, May 17, 1866.
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Sir: I have the honor to submit herewith a communication of the Sec-
retary of War, inclosing one from the Lieutenant- General, relative to the
necessity for legislation upon the subject of the Army.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May z/, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In further response to the resolution of the House of Representatives
of the 7th instant, calling for information in regard to clerks employed
in the several Executive Departments, I transmit herewith reports from
the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of the Interior and the Post-
master-General. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May 22, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, made
in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
7th instant, calling for information in respect to clerks employed in the
several Executive Departments of the Government.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
388 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, D. C, May 22, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 27th
ultimo, requesting a collation of the provisions in reference to freedmen
contained in the amended constitutions of the Southern States and in the
laws of those States passed since the suppression of the rebellion, I trans-
mit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was
referred. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May 24., 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Postmaster- General, made in
answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 14th
instant, calling for information relative to the proposed mail steamship
service between the United States and Brazil.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May ^5, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 2 1 St instant, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War,
with the accompanying papers, in reference to the operations of the
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned I^ands.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May 30, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
With sincere regret I announce to Congress that Winfield Scott, late
I^ieutenant- General in the Army of the United States, departed this life
at West Point, in the State of New York, on the 29th day of May instant,
at II o'clock in the forenoon. I feel well assured that Congress will share
in the grief of the nation which must result from its bereavement of a
citizen whose high fame is identified with the military history of the
Republic. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May jo, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a communication from the Secretary of War, covering a sup-
plemental report to that already made to the House of Representatives,
in answer to its resolution of the 21st instant, requesting the reports of
General Steedman and others in reference to the operations of the Bureau
of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 389
Washington, June 5, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention between the United States and the Republic of Vene-
zuela on the subject of the claims of citizens of the United States upon
the Government of that Republic, which convention was signed by the
plenipotentiaries of the parties at the city of Caracas on the 25th of April
^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, June p, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Acting Secretary of the Interior,
communicating the information requested by a resolution of the House
of Representatives of the 21st ultimo, in relation to the removal of the
Sioux Indians of Minnesota and the provisions made for their accom-
modation in the Territory of Nebraska.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /z^w^ P, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with a call of the Senate, as expressed in a resolution
adopted on the 6th instant, I transmit a copy of the report of the Board
of Visitors to the United States Naval Academy for the year 1866.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /2^;e^ 11, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
loth ultimo, calling for information relative to the claims of citizens of
the United States against the Republic of Venezuela, I transmit a report
from the Secretary of State. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, June 11, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
It is proper that I should inform Congress that a copy of an act of the
legislature of Georgia of the loth of March last has been ofiicially com-
municated to me, by which that State accepts the donation of lands for
the benefit of colleges for agriculture and the mechanic arts, which dona-
tion was provided for by the acts of Congress of the 2d of July, 1862, and
14th of April, 1864. ANDREW JOHNSON.
390 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, /z^;?^ ii, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I communicate and invite the attention of Congress to a copy of joint
resolutions of the senate and house of representatives of the State of
Georgia, requesting a suspension of the collection 'of the internal-revenue
tax due from that State pursuant to the act of Congress of the 5th of
August, 1 86 1. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fune 13, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the i ith
instant, requesting information concerning the provisions of the laws and
ordinances of the late insurgent States on the subject of the rebel debt,
so called, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the docu-
ment by which it was accompanied. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fune 14., 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 28th
of May, requesting information as to what progress has been made in com-
pleting the maps connected with the boundary survey under the treaty of
Washington, with copies of any correspondence on this subject not here-
tofore printed, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the
documents which accompanied^ it. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fune 75, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 13th instant, call-
ing for information in regard to the departure of troops from Austria to
Mexico, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the docu-
ments by which it was accompanied. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /«w^ 16, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I communicate herewith a report from the Acting Secretary of the Inte-
rior, furnishing, as requested by a resolution of the Senate of the 25th
ultimo, information touching the transactions of the executive branch of
the Government respecting the transportation, settlement, and coloniza-
tion of persons of the African race. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrezv Johnson 391
Washington, June 18, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In reply to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the nth
instant, requesting information in regard to the dispatch of military forces
from Austria for servdce in Mexico, I transmit a report from the Secre-
tary of State on the subject. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.June 20, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 2 1 St ultimo, requesting information as to the collection of the direct
tax in the States whose inhabitants participated in the rebellion, I trans-
mit a communication from the Secretary of the Treasury, accompanied
by a report from the Deputy Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , June 22, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I submit to Congress a report of the Secretary of State, to whom was
referred the concurrent resolution of the i8th instant, respecting a sub-
mission to the legislatures of the States of an additional article to the Con-
stitution of the United States. It will be seen from this report that the
Secretary of State had, on the i6tli instant, transmitted to the governors
of the several States certified copies of the joint resolution passed on the
13th instant, proposing an amendment to the Constitution.
Even in ordinary times any question of amending the Constitution
must be justly regarded as of paramount importance. This importance
is at the present time enhanced by the fact that the joint resolution was
not submitted by the two Houses for the approval of the President and
that of the thirty-six States which constitute the Union eleven are ex-
cluded from representation in either House of Congress, although, with the
single exception of Texas, they have been entirely restored to all their
functions as States in conformity with the organic law of the land, and
have appeared at the national capital by Senators and Representatives, who
have applied for and have been refused admission to the vacant seats.
Nor have the sovereign people of the nation been afforded an opportunity
of expressing their views upon the important questions which the amend-
ment involves. Grave doubts, therefore, may naturally and justly arise
as to whether the action of Congress is in harmony with the sentiments
of the people, and whether State legislatures, elected without reference to
such an issue, should be called upon by Congress to decide respecting the
ratification of the proposed amendment.
392 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Waiving the question as to the constitutional validity of the proceed-
ings of Congress upon the joint resolution proposing the amendment or
as to the merits of the article which it submits through the executive de-
partment to the legislatures of the States, I deem it proper to observe that
the steps taken by the Secretary of State, as detailed in the accompany-
ing report, are to be considered as purely ministerial, and in no sense
whatever committing the Executive to an approval or a recommendation
of the amendment to the State legislatures or to the people. On the con-
trary, a proper appreciation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, as
well as of the interests of national order, harmony, and union, and a due
deference for an enlightened public judgment may at this time well sug-
gest a doubt whether any amendment to the Constitution ought to be
proposed by Congress and pressed upon the legislatures of the several
States for final decision until after the admission of such loyal Senators
and Representatives of the now unrepresented States as have been or as
may hereafter be chosen in conformity with the Constitution and laws of
the United States. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, June 22, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
In further answer to recent resolutions of the Senate and House of
Representatives, requesting information in regard to the employment of
European troops in Mexico, I transmit to Congress a copy of a dispatch
of the 4th of this month addressed to the Secretary of State by the
minister of the United States at Paris.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, June 22, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the i8th
instant, calling for information in regard to the arrest and imprisonment
in Ireland of American citizens, I transmit herewith a report from the
Secretary of State on the subject. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington CvtY,June 2j, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Interior, com-
municating in part the information requested by a resolution of the House
of Representatives of the 23d of April last, in relation to appropriations
and expenditures connected with the Indian service.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnsoit 393
Washington, D. C.,/une 28, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit a cpmmunication from the Secretary of the Navy and the
accompanying copy of a report and maps prepared by a board of exam-
iners appointed under authority of the joint resolution approved June i,
1866, ''to examine a site for a fresh-water basin for ironclad vessels of
the United States Navy. ' ' ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , June 28, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith reports from the heads of the several Executive
Departments, made in answer to the resolution of the House of Repre-
sentatives of the 4th instant, requesting information as to whether any
of the civil or military employees of the Government have assisted in the
rendition of public honors to the rebel living or dead.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, July 7, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
The accompanying report of the Secretary of the Treasury is trans-
mitted to the Senate in compliance with its resolution of the 20th ultimo,
calling for a statement of the expenditures of the United States for the
various public works of the Government in each State and Territory of
the Union and in the District of Columbia from the year i860 to the
close of the year 1865. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C,July 7, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty
concluded with the Seminole Nation of Indians on the 21st day of March,
1866, together with the accompanying communications from the Secretary
of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.July 7, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty
concluded with the Creek Nation of Indians on the 14th day of June,
1866, together with the accompanying communications from the Secre-
tary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
394 ^ Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, /?//)/ z/, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of yester-
day, requesting information relative to proposed international movements
in connection with the Paris Universal Exposition for the reform of sys-
tems of coinage, weights, and measures, I transmit a report from the Sec-
retary of State and the documents by which it was accompanied.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fuly ly, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I herewith transmit to Congress a report, dated 12th instant, with the
accompanying papers, received from the Secretary of State, in compliance
with the requirements of the eighteenth section of the act entitled "An
act to regulate the diplomatic and consular systems of the United States, ' '
approved August i8, 1856. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /z^/r 20, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for the constitutional action of the Senate, certain articles
of agreement made at the Delaware Agency, Kans., on the 4th instant
between the United States and the Delaware Indians.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the Senate: Washington, fuly 20, 1866.
I herewith submit, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty
negotiated at the city of Washington, D. C, on the 19th instant, between
the United States, represented by Dennis N. Cooley, Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, and Elijah Sells, superintendent of Indian affairs for the
southern superintendency, and the Cherokee Nation of Indians, repre-
sented by its delegates, James McDaniel, Smith Christie, White Catcher,
L. H. Benge, J. B. Jones, and Daniel H. Ross.
The distracted condition of the Cherokee Nation and the peculiar rela-
tion of many of its members to this Government during the rebellion
presented almost insuperable difficulties to treating with them. The
treaty now submitted is a result of protracted negotiations. Its stipula-
tions are, it is believed, as satisfactory to the contracting parties and
furnish as just provisions for the welfare of the Indians and as strong
guaranties for the maintenance of peaceful relations with them as under
the circumstances could be expected.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 3^5
Washington, D. C, July 2^, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I hereby transmit, for the constitutional action of the Senate, a treaty
concluded on the 15th of November, 1865, between the United States and
^he confederate tribes and bands of Indians of middle Oregon, the same
being amendatory and supplemental to the treaty with said Indians of the
25th of June, 1855. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C,July 24, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
The following "Joint resolution, restoring Tennessee to her relations
in the Union," was last evening presented for my approval:
Whereas in the year 1861 the government of the State of Tennessee was seized
upon and taken possession of by persons in hostility to the United States, and the
inhabitants of said State, in pursuance of an act of Congress, were declared to be in
a state of insurrection against the United States; and
Whereas said State government can only be restored to its former poHtical relations
in the Union by the consent of the lawmaking power of the United States; and
Whereas the people of said State did, on the 22d day of February, 1865, by a large
popular vote, adopt and ratify a constitution of government whereby slavery was
abolished and all ordinances and laws of secession and debts contracted under the
same were declared void; and
Whereas a State government has been organized under said constitution which has
ratified the amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolishing slavery,
also the amendment proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and has done other acts
proclaiming and denoting loyalty: Therefore,
Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the U^iited States in
Congress assembled, That the State of Tennessee is hereby restored to her former
proper practical relations to the Union, and is again entitled to be represefited by
Senators and Representatives in Congress.
The preamble simply consists of statements, some of which are as-
sumed, while the resolution is merely a declaration of opinion. It com-
prises no legislation, nor does it confer any power which is binding upon
the respective Houses, the Executive, or the States. It does not admit to
their seats in Congress the Senators and Representatives from the State
of Tennessee, for, notwithstanding the passage of the resolution, each
House, in the exercise of the constitutional right to judge for itself of the
elections, returns, and qualifications of its members, may, at its discretion,
admit them or continue to exclude them. If a joint resolution of this
kind were necessary and binding as a condition precedent to the admission
of members of Congress, it would happen, in the event of a veto by the
Executive, that Senators and Representatives could only be admitted to
the halls of legislation by a two-thirds vote of each of the Houses.
Among other reasons recited in the preamble for the declaration con-
tained in the resolution is the ratification by the State government of
Tennessee of ' ' the amendment to the Constitution of the United States
396 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
abolishing slavery, also the amendment propOvSed by the Thirty-ninth
Congress." If, as is also declared in the preamble, "said State govern-
ment can only be restored to its former political relations in the Union by
the consent of the lawmaking power of the United States," it would
really seem to follow that the joint resolution which at this late day has
received the sanction of Congress should have been passed, approved, and
placed on the statute books before any amendment to the Constitution
was submitted to the legislature of Tennessee for ratification. Otherwise
the inference is plainly deducible that while, in the opinion of Congress,
the people of a State may be too strongly disloyal to be entitled to repre-
sentation, they may nevertheless, during the suspension of their * ' former
proper practical relations to the Union," have an equally potent voice
with other and loyal States in propositions to amend the Constitution,
upon which so essentially depend the stability, prosperity, and very
existence of the nation.
A brief reference to my annual message of the 4th of December last
will show the steps taken by the Executive for the restoration to their
constitutional relations to the Union of the States that had been aifected
by the rebellion. Upon the cessation of active hostilities provisional
governors were appointed, conventions called, governors elected by the
people, legislatures assembled, and Senators and Representatives chosen
to the Congress of the United States. At the same time the courts of
the United States were reopened, the blockade removed, the custom-houses
reestablished, and postal operations resumed. The amendment to the
Constitution abolishing slavery forever within the limits of the country
was also submitted to the States, and they were thus invited to and did
participate in its ratification, thus exercising the highest functions per-
taining to a State. In addition nearly all of these States, through their
conventions and legislatures, had adopted and ratified constitutions * ' of
government whereby slavery was abolished and all ordinances and laws
of secession and debts contracted under the same were declared void."
So far, then, the political existence of the States and their relations to
the Federal Government had been fully and completely recognized and
acknowledged by the executive department of the Government; and the
completion of the work of restoration, which had progressed so favorably,
was submitted to Congress, upon which devolved all questions pertaining
to the admission to their seats of the Senators and Representatives chosen
from the States whose people had engaged in the rebellion.
All these steps had been taken when, on the 4th day of December,
1865, the Thirty-ninth Congress assembled. Nearly eight months have
elapsed since that time; and no other plan of restoration having been pro-
posed by Congress for the measures instituted by the Executive, it is now
declared, in the joint resolution submitted for my approval, "that the
State of Tennessee is hereby restored to her former proper practical rela-
tions to the Union, and is again entitled to be represented by Senators
Andrew Johnson 397
and Representatives in Congress. ' ' Thus, after the lapse of nearly eight
months, Congress proposes to pave the way to the admission to repre-
sentation of one of the eleven States whose people arrayed themselves in
rebellion against the constitutional authority of the Federal Government.
Earnestly desiring to remove every cause of further delay, whether real
or imaginary, on the part of Congress to the admission to seats of loyal
Senators and Representatives from the State of Tennessee, I have, not-
withstanding the anomalous character of this proceeding, affixed my sig-
nature to the resolution. M.y approval, however, is not to be construed
as an acknowledgment of the right of Congress to pass laws preliminary
to the admission of duly qualified Representatives from any of the States.
Neither is it to be considered as committing me to all the statements
made in the preamble, some of which are, in my opinion, without foun-
dation in fact, especially the assertion that the State of Tennessee has
ratified the amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed
by the Thirty-ninth Congress. No official notice of such ratification has
been received by the Executive or filed in the Department of State; on the
contrary, unofficial information from the most reliable sources induces
the belief that the amendment has not yet been constitutionally sanctioned
by the legislature of Tennessee. The right of each House under the
Constitution to judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its
own members is undoubted, and my approval or disapproval of the reso-
lution could not in the slightest degree increase or diminish the authority
in this respect conferred upon the two branches of Congress.
In conclusion I can not too earnestly repeat my recommendation for
the admission of Tennessee, and all other States, to a fair and equal par-
ticipation in national legislation when they present themselves in the
persons of loyal Senators and Representatives who can comply with
all the requirements of the Constitution and the laws. By this means
harmony and reconciliation will be effected, the practical relations of all
the States to the Federal Government reestablished, and the work of
restoration, inaugurated upon the termination of the war, successfully
completed. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, July 25, 1866.
To the Senate ojthe United States:
I nominate Lieutenant- General Ulysses S. Grant to be General of the
Army of the United States. ANDREW JOHNSON,
Washington, /«/r 26, 1866.
^0 the House of Representatives:
In answer to two resolutions of the House of Representatives of the
{3d instant, in the following words, respectively —
Resolved, That the House of Representatives respectfully request the President of
398 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the United States to urge upon the Canadian authorities, and also the British Gov-
ernment, the release of the Fenian prisoners recently captured in Canada;
Resolved^ That this House respectfully request the President to cause the prose-
cutions instituted in the United States courts against the Fenians to be discontinued,
if compatible with the public interest —
I transmit a report on the subject from the Secretary of State, together
with the documents which accompany it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
VETO MESSAGES.
Washington, February 19, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have examined with care the bill, which originated in the Senate and
has been passed by the two Houses of Congress, to amend an act entitled
* 'An act to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees, ' ' and
for other purposes. Having with much regret come to the conclusion that
it would not be consistent with the public welfare to give my approval
to the measure, I return the bill to the Senate with my objections to its
becoming a law.
I might call to mind in advance of these objections that there is no imme-
diate necessity for the proposed measure. The act to establish a bureau for
the relief of freedmen and refugees, which was approved in the month of
March last, has not yet expired. It was thought stringent and extensive
enough for the purpose in view in time of war. Before it ceases to have
effect further experience may assist to guide us to a wise conclusion as to
the policy to be adopted in time of peace.
I share with Congress the strongest desire to secure to the freedmen the
full enjoyment of their freedom and property and their entire independence
and equality in making contracts for their labor, but the bill before me con-
tains provisions which in my opinion are not warranted by the Constitution
and are not well suited to accomplish the end in view.
The bill proposes to establish by authority of Congress military jurisdic-
tion over all parts of the United States containing refugees and freedmen.
It would by its very nature apply with most force to those parts of the
United States in which the freedmen most abound, and it expressly extends
the existing temporary jurisdiction of the Freedmen 's Bureau, with greatly
enlarged powers, over those States ' * in which the ordinary course of judi-
cial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion. ' ' The source from
which this military jurisdiction is to emanate is none other than the Pres-
ident of the United States, acting through the War Department and the
Commissioner of the Freedmen 's Bureau. The agents to carry out this
military jurisdiction are to be selected either from the Army or from civil
Andrew Johnson 399
life; the country is to be divided into districts and subdistricts, and the
number of salaried agents to be employed may be equal to the number of
counties or parishes in all the United States where freedmen and refugees
are to be found.
The subjects over which this military jurisdiction is to extend in every
part of the United States include protection to ' * all employees, agents,
and officers of this bureau in the exercise of the duties imposed ' ' upon
them by the bill. In eleven States it is further to extend over all cases
affecting freedmen and refugees discriminated against ' ' by local law, cus-
tom, or prejudice." In those eleven States the bill subjects any white
person who may be charged with depriving a freedman of * ' any civil rights
or immunities belonging to white persons ' ' to imprisonment or fine, or
both, without, however, defining the "civil rights and immunities"
which are thus to be secured to the freedmen by military law. This mil-
itary jurisdiction also extends to all questions that may arise respecting
contracts. The agent who is thus to exercise the office of a military
judge may be a stranger, entirely ignorant of the laws of the place, and
exposed to the errors of judgment to which all men are liable. The exer-
cise of power over which there is no legal supervision by so vast a num-
ber of agents as is contemplated by the bill must, by the very nature of
man, be attended by acts of caprice, injustice, and passion.
The trials having their origin under this bill are to take place with-
out the intervention of a jury and without any fixed rules of law or
evidence. The rules on which offenses are to be " heard and determined' '
by the numerous agents are such rules and regulations as the Presi-
dent, through the War Department, shall prescribe. No previous present-
ment is required nor any indictment charging the commission of a crime
against the laws; but the trial must proceed on charges and specifica-
tions. The punishment will be, not what the law declares, but such as
La court-martial may think proper; and from these arbitrary tribunals
there lies no appeal, no writ of error to any of the courts in which the
Constitution of the United States vests exclusively the judicial power of
the country.
While the territory and the classes of actions and offenses that are
made subject to this measure are so extensive, the bill itself, should it
become a law, will have no limitation in point of time, but will form a
part of the permanent legislation of the country. I can not reconcile
a system of military jurisdiction of this kind with the words of the Con-
stitution which declare that * ' no person shall be held to answer for a
capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indict-
ment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces,
or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger, ' '
and that "in all criminal prOvSecutions the accused shall enjoy the right
to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State and dis-
trict wherein the crime shall have been committed." The safeguards
400 Messages and Papers of the Presidents m
which the experience and wisdom of ages taught our fathers to establish
as securities for the protection of the innocent, the punishment of the
guilty, and the equal administration of justice are to be set aside, and
for the sake of a more vigorous interposition in behalf of justice we are
to take the risks of the many acts of injustice that would necessarily
follow from an almost countless number of agents established in every
parish or county in nearly a third of the States of the Union, over whose
decisions. there is to be no supervision or control by the Federal courts.
The power that would be thus placed in the hands of the President is
such as in time of peace certainly ought never to be intrusted to any
one man.
If it be asked whether the creation of such a tribunal within a State is
warranted as a measure of war, the question immediately presents itself
whether we are still engaged in war. Let us not unnecessarily disturb
the commerce and credit and industry of the country by declaring to the
American people and to the world that the United States are still in a
condition of civil war. At present there is no part of our country in
which the authority of the United States is disputed. Offenses that may
be committed by individuals should not work a forfeiture of the rights of
whole communities. The country has returned, or is returning, to a
state of peace and industry, and the rebellion is in fact at an end. The
measure, therefore, seems to be as inconsistent with the actual condition
of the country as it is at variance with the Constitution of the United
States.
If, passing from general considerations, we examine the bill in detail,
it is open to weighty objections.
In time of war it was eminently proper that we should provide for those
who were passing suddenly from a condition of bondage to a state of free-
dom. But this bill proposes to make the Freedmen's Bureau, established
by the act of 1865 as one of many great and extraordinary military meas-
ures to suppress a formidable rebellion, a permanent branch of the public
administration, with its powers greatly enlarged. I have no reason to
suppose, and I do not understand it to be alleged, that the act of March,
1865 , has proved deficient for the purpose for which it was passed, although
at that time and for a considerable period thereafter the Government of
the United States remained unacknowledged in most of the States whose
inhabitants had been involved in the rebellion. The institution of slavery,
for the military destruction of which the Freedmen's Bureau was called
into existence as an auxiliary, has been already effectually and finally
abrogated throughout the whole country by an amendment of the Consti-
tution of the United States, and practically its eradication has received
the assent and concurrence of most of those States in which it at any time
had an existence. I am not, therefore, able to discern in the condition of
the country anything to justify an apprehension that the powers and agen-
cies of the Freedmen's Bureau, which were effective for the protection of
Andrew Johnson 401
freedmen and refugees during the actual continuance of hostilities and
of African servitude, will now, in a time of peace and after the abolition of
slavery, prove inadequate to the same proper ends. If I am correct in
these views, there can be no necessity for the enlargement of the powers
of the Bureau, for which provision is made in the bill.
The third section of the bill authorizes a general and unlimited grant
of support to the destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen, their
wives and children. Succeeding sections make provision for the rent or
purchase of landed estates for freedmen, and for the erection for their
benefit of suitable buildings for asylums and schools, the expenses to be
defrayed from the Treasury of the whole people. The Congress of the
United States has never heretofore thought itself empowered to establish
asylums beyond the limits of the District of Columbia, except for the
benefit of our disabled soldiers and sailors. It has never founded schools
for any class of our own people, not even for the orphans of those who
have fallen in the defense of the Union, but has left the care of educa-
tion to the much more competent and efficient control of the States, of
communities, of private associations, and of individuals. It has never
deemed itself authorized to expend the public money for the rent or pur-
chase of homes for the thousands, not to say millions, of the white race
who are honestly toiling from day to day for their subsistence. A system
for the support of indigent persons in the United States was never con-
templated by the authors of the Constitution; nor can any good reason
be advanced why, as a permanent establishment, it should be founded for
one class or color of our people more than another. Pending the war
many refugees and freedmen received support from the Government, but
it was never intended that they should thenceforth be fed, clothed, edu-
cated, and sheltered by the United States. The idea on which the slaves
were assisted to freedom was that on becoming free they would be a self-
sustaining population. Any legislation that shall imply that they are
not expected to attain a self-sustaining condition must have a tendency
injurious alike to their character and their prospects.
The appointment of an agent for every county and parish will create
an immense patronage, and the expense of the numerous officers and
their clerks, to be appointed by the President, will be great in the begin-
ning, with a tendency steadily to increase. The appropriations asked
by the Freedmen' s Bureau as now established, for the year 1866, amount
to $11,745,000. It may be safely estimated that the cost to be incurred
under the pending bill will require double that amount — more than the
entire sum expended in any one year under the Administration of the sec-
ond Adams. If the presence of agents in every parish and county is to
be considered as a war measure, opposition, or even resistance, might be
provoked; so that to give effect to their jurisdiction troops would have to
be stationed within reach of every one of them, and thus a large stand-
ing force be rendered necessary. I^arge appropriations would therefore
M P— vol, VI— 26
402 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
be required to sustain and enforce military jurisdiction in every county or
parish from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The condition of our fiscal
affairs is encouraging, but in order to sustain the present measure of
public confidence it is necessary that we practice not merely customary
economy, but, as far as possible, severe retrenchment.
In addition to the objections already stated, the fifth section of the bill
proposes to take away land from its former owners without any legal
proceedings being first had, contrary to that provision of the Constitu-
tion which declares that no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law." It does not appear that a part
of the lands to which this section refers may not be owned by minors or
persons of unsound mind, or by those who have been faithful to all their
obligations as citizens of the United States. If any portion of the land
is held by such persons, it is not competent for any authority to deprive
them of it. If, on the other hand, it be found that the property is liable
to confiscation, even then it can not be appropriated to public purposes
until by due process of law it shall have been declared forfeited to the
Government.
There is still further objection to the bill, on grounds seriously affect-
ing the class of persons to whom it is designed to bring relief. It will
tend to keep the mind of the freedman in a state of uncertain expectation
and restlessness, while to those among whom he lives it will be a source
of constant and vague apprehension.
Undoubtedly the freedman should be protected, but he should be pro-
tected by the civil authorities, especially by the exercise of all the consti-
tutional powers of the courts of the United States and of the States.
His condition is not so exposed as may at first be imagined. He is in a
portion of the country where his labor can not well be spared. Compe-
tition for his services from planters, from those who are constructing or
repairing railroads, and from capitalists in his vicinage or from other
States will enable him to command almost his own terms. He also
possesses a perfect right to change his place of abode, and if, therefore,
he does not find in one community or State a mode of life suited to his
desires or proper remuneration for his labor, he can move to another
where that labor is more esteemed and better rewarded. In truth, how-
ever, each State, induced by its own wants and interests, will do what is
necessary and proper to retain within its borders all the labor that
is needed for the development of its resources. The laws that regulate
supply and demand will maintain their force, and the wages of the
laborer will be regulated thereby. There is no danger that the exceed-
ingly great demand for labor will not operate in favor of the laborer.
Neither is sufiicient consideration given to the ability of the freedmen
to protect and take care of themselves. It is no more than justice to
them to believe that as they have received their freedom with moderation
and forbearance, so they will distinguish themselves by their industry
Andrew Johnson 403
and thrift, and soon show the world that in a condition of freedom they
are self-sustaining, capable of selecting their own employment and their
own places of abode, of insisting for themselves on a proper remunera-
tion, and of establishing and maintaining their own asylums and schools.
It is earnestly hoped that instead of wasting away they will by their
own efforts establish for themselves a condition of respectability and
prosperity. It is certain that they can attain to that condition only
through their own merits and exertions.
In this connection the query presents itself whether the system pro-
posed by the bill will not, when put into complete operation, practically
transfer the entire care, support, and control of 4,000,000 emancipated
slaves to agents, overseers, or taskmasters, who, appointed at Washing-
ton, are to be located in every county and parish throughout the United
States containing freedmen and refugees. Such a system would inevi-
tably tend to a concentration of power in the Executive which would
enable him, if so disposed, to control the action of this numerous class
and use them for the attainment of his own political ends.
I can not but add another very grave objection to this bill. The Con-
stitution imperatively declares, in connection with taxation, that each
State shall have at least one Representative, and fixes the rule for the
number to which, in future times, each State shall be entitled. It also
provides that the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two
Senators from each State, and adds with peculiar force ''that no State,
without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. ' '
The original act was necessarily passed in the absence of the States
chiefly to be affected, because their people were then contumaciously en-
gaged in the rebellion. Now the case is changed, and some, at least, of
those States are attending Congress by loyal representatives, soliciting
the allowance of the constitutional right for representation. At the
time, however, of the consideration and the passing of this bill there was
no Senator or Representative in Congress from the eleven States which
are to be mainly affected by its provisions. The very fact that reports
were and are made against the good disposition of the people of that por-
tion of the country is an additional reason why they need and should
have representatives of their own in Congress to explain their condition,
reply to accusations, and assist by their local knowledge in the perfect-
ing of measures immediately affecting themselves. While the liberty of
deliberation would then be free and Congress would have full power to
decide according to its judgment, there could be no objection urged that
the States most interested had not been permitted to be heard. The
principle is firmly fixed in the minds of the American people that there
should be no taxation without representation. Great burdens have now
to be borne by all the country, and we may best demand that they shall be
borne without murmur when they are voted by a majority of the represent-
atives of all the people. 1 would not interfere with the unquestionable
404 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
right of Congress to judge, each House for itself, "of the elections, re-
turns, and qualifications of its own members;" but that authority can
not be construed as including the right to shut out in time of peace any
State from the representation to which it is entitled by the Constitution.
At present all the people of eleven States are excluded — those who were
most faithful during the war not less than others. The State of Tennes-
see, for instance, whose authorities engaged in rebellion, was restored to
all her constitutional relations to the Union by the patriotism and energy
of her injured and betrayed people. Before the war was brought to a
termination they had placed themselves in relations with the General
Government, had established a State government of their own, and, as
they were not included in the emancipation proclamation, they by their
own act had amended their constitution so as to abolish slavery within
the limits of their State. I know no reason why the State of Tennessee,
for example, should not fully enjoy "all her constitutional relations to
the United States."
The President of the United States stands toward the country in al
somewhat different attitude from that of any member of Congress. Bach
member of Congress is chosen from a single district or State; the Presi-j
dent is chosen by the people of all the States. As eleven States are not]
at this time represented in either branch of Congress, it would seem to]
be his duty on all proper occasions to present their just claims to Con-
gress. There always will be differences of opinion in the community,
and individuals may be guilty of transgressions of the law, but these doi
not constitute valid objections against the right of a State to representa-
tion. I would in no wise interfere with the discretion of Congress withj
regard to the qualifications of members; but I hold it my duty to recom-
mend to you, in the interests of peace and the interests of union, the]
admission of every State to its share in public legislation when, however
insubordinate, insurgent, or rebellious its people maj^ have been, it pre-
sents itself, not only in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, but in the
persons of representatives whose loyalty can not be questioned under any
existing constitutional or legal test. It is plain that an indefinite or
permanent exclusion of any part of the country from representation must j
be attended by a spirit of disquiet and complaint. It is unwise and dan-
gerous to pursue a course of measures which will unite a very large sec-
tion of the country against another section of the country, however much]
the latter may preponderate. The course of emigration, the develop-
ment of industry and business, and natural causes will raise up at thej
South men as devoted to the Union as those of any other part of the land;
but if they are all excluded from Congress, if in a permanent statute
they are declared not to be in full constitutional relations to the country,]
they may think they have cause to become a unit in feeling and senti-
ment against the Government. Under the political education of the
American people the idea is inherent and ineradicable that the consent]
Andrew Johnson 405
of the majority of the whole people is necessary to secure a willing acqui-
escence in legislation.
The bill under consideration refers to certain of the States as though
they had not ' ' been fully restored in all their constitutional relations to
the United States. ' ' If they have not, let us at once act together to secure
that desirable end at the earliest possible moment. It is hardly neces-
sary for me to inform Congress that in my own judgment most of those
States, so far, at least, as depends upon their own action, have already
been fully restored, and are to be deemed as entitled to enjoy their con-
stitutional rights as members of the Union. Reasoning from the Consti-
tution itself and from the actual situation of the country, I feel not only
entitled but bound to assume that with the Federal courts restored and
those of the several States in the full exercise of their functions the rights
and interests of all classes of people will, with the aid of the military in
cases of resistance to the laws, be essentially protected against unconsti-
tutional infringement or violation. Should this expectation unhappily
fail, which I do not anticipate, then the Executive is already fully armed
with the powers conferred by the act of March, 1865, establishing the
Freedmen's Bureau, and hereafter, as heretofore, he can employ the land
and naval forces of the country to suppress insurrection or to overcome
obstructions to the laws.
In accordance with the Constitution, I return the bill to the Senate, in
the earnest hope that a measure involving questions and interests so
important to the country will not become a law, unless upon deliberate
consideration by the people it shall receive the sanction of an enlightened
public judgment. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, March ^7, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
I regret that the bill, which has passed both Houses of Congress, en-
titled "An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil
rights and furnish the means of their vindication, ' ' contains provisions
which I can not approve consistently with my sense of duty to the whole
people and my obligations to the Constitution of the United States. I
am therefore constrained to return it to the Senate, the House in which
it originated, with my objections to its becoming a law.
By the first section of the bill all persons born in the United States
and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are
declared to be citizens of the United States. This provision comprehends
the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people
called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of
color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood. Every individual
of these races born in the United States is by the bill made a citizen of the
United States. It does not purport to declare or confer any other right
4o6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of citizenship than Federal citizenship. It does not purport to give these
classes of persons any status as citizens of States, except that which may
result from their status as citizens of the United States. The power to
confer the right of State citizenship is just as exclusively with the several
States as the power to confer the right of Federal citizenship is with
Congress.
The right of Federal citizenship thus to be conferred on the several
excepted races before mentioned is now for the first time proposed to be
given by law. If, as is claimed by many, all persons who are native
born already are, by virtue of the Constitution, citizens of the United
States, the passage of the pending bill can not be necessary to make
them such. If, on the other hand, such persons are not citizens, as may
be assumed from the proposed legislation to make them such, the grave
question presents itself whether, when eleven of the thirty-six States
are unrepresented in Congress at the present time, it is sound policy to
make our entire colored population and all other excepted classes citi-
zens of the United States. Four millions of them have just emerged
from slavery into freedom. Can it be reasonably supposed that they
possess the requisite qualifications to entitle them to all the privileges
and immunities of citizens of the United States? Have the people of
the several States expressed such a conviction? It may also be asked
whether it is necessary that they should be declared citizens in order
that they may be secured in the enjoyment of the civil rights proposed
to be conferred by the bill. Those rights are, by Federal as w^ell as
State laws, secured to all domiciled aliens and foreigners, even before
the completion of the process of naturalization; and it may safely be
assumed that the same enactments are sufficient to give like protection
and benefits to those for whom this bill provides special legislation.
Besides, the policy of the Government from its origin to the present
time seems to have been that persons who are strangers to and unfa-
miliar with our institutions and our laws should pass through a certain
probation, at the end of which, before attaining the coveted prize, they
must give evidence of their fitness to receive and to exercise the rights
of citizens as contemplated by the Constitution of the United States.
The bill in effect proposes a discrimination against large numbers of
intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners, and in favor of the negro,
to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and in-
telligence have just now been suddenly opened. He must of necessity,
from his previous unfortunate condition of servitude, be less informed
as to the nature and character of our institutions than he who, coming
from abroad, has, to some extent at least, familiarized himself with the
principles of a Government to which he voluntarily intrusts "life, lib-
erty, and the pursuit of happiness." Yet it is now proposed, by a single
legislative enactment, to confer the rights of citizens upon all persons
of African descent born within the extended limits of the United States,
Andrew Johnson 407
while persons of foreign birth who make our land their home must un-
dergo a probation of five years, and can only then become citizens upon
proof that they are ' ' of good moral character, attached to the principles
of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good
order and happiness of the same."
The first section of the bill also contains an enumeration of the rights
to be enjoyed by these classes so made citizens "in every State and
Territory in the United States," These rights are "to make and
enforce contracts; to sue, be parties, and give evidence; to inherit, pur-
chase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property," and to
have ' ' full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security
of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens." So, too, they
are made subject to the same punishment, pains, and penalties in com-
mon with white citizens, and to none other. Thus a perfect equality of
the white and colored races is attempted to be fixed by Federal law in
every State of the Union over the vast field of State jurisdiction covered
by these enumerated rights. In no one of these can any State ever exer-
cise any power of discrimination between the different races. In the
exercise of State policy over matters exclusively affecting the people of
each State it has frequently been thought expedient to discriminate
between the two races. By the statutes of some of the States, Northern
as well as Southern, it is enacted, for instance, that no white person shall
intermarry with a negro or mulatto. Chancellor Kent says, speaking of
the blacks, that —
Marriages between them and the whites are forbidden in some of the States where
slavery does not exist, and they are prohibited in all the slaveholding States; and
when not absolutely contrary to law, they are revolting, and regarded as an offense
against public decorum.
I do not say that this bill repeals State laws on the subject of marriage
between the two races, for as the whites are forbidden to intermarry
with the blacks, the blacks can only make such contracts as the whites
themselves are allowed to make, and therefore can not under this bill
enter into the marriage contract with the whites. I cite this discrimina-
tion, however, as an instance of the State policy as to discrimination, and
to inquire whether if Congress can abrogate all State laws of discrimina-
tion between the two races in the matter of real estate, of suits, and of
contracts generally Congress may not also repeal the State laws as to
the contract of marriage between the two races. Hitherto every subject
embraced in the enumeration of rights contained in this bill has been
considered as exclusively belonging to the States. They all relate to the
internal police and economy of the respective States. They are matters
which in each State concern the domestic condition of its people, varying
in each according to its own peculiar circumstances and the safety and
well-being of its own citizens. I do not mean to say that upon all these
subj ects there are not Federal restraints — as, for instance, in the State power
4o8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of legislation over contracts there is a Federal limitation that no State shall
pass a law impairing the obligations of contracts; and, as to crimes, that
ijo State shall pass an ex post facto law; and, as to money, that no State
shall make anything but gold and silver a legal tender; but where can
we find a Federal prohibition against the power of any State to discrimi-
nate, as do most of them, between aliens and citizens, between artificial
persons, called corporations, and natural persons, in the right to hold real •
estate? If it be granted that Congress can repeal all State laws discrimi-
nating between whites and blacks in the subjects covered by this bill,
why, it may be asked, may not Congress repeal in the same wa}^ all State
laws discriminating between the two races on the subjects of suffrage
and office? If Congress can declare by law who shall hold lands, who
shall testify, who shall have capacity to make a contract in a State, then
Congress can by law also declare who, without regard to color or race,
shall have the right to sit as a juror or as a judge, to hold any ofl5ce,
and, finally, to vote *4n every State and Territory of the United States."
As respects the Territories, they come within the power of Congress, for
as to them the lawmaking power is the Federal power; but as to the
States no similar provision exists vesting in Congress the power ' ' to
make rules and regulations ' ' for them.
The object of the second section of the bill is to afford discriminating
protection to colored persons in the full enjoyment of all the rights secured
to them by the preceding section. It declares —
That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or cus-
tom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory
to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punish-
ment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time been held in
a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race,
than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be punished by fine not exceeding |i,ooo, or
imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court.
This section seems to be designed to apply to some existing or future
law of a State or Territory which may conflict with the provisions of the
bill now under consideration. It provides for counteracting such for-
bidden legislation by imposing fine and imprisonment upon the legislators
who may pass such conflicting laws, or upon the officers or agents who
shall put or attempt to put them into execution. It means an official
offense, not a common crime committed against law upon the persons or
property of the black race. Such an act may deprive the black man of
his property, but not of the right to hold property. It means a depriva-
tion of the right itself, either by the State judiciary or the State legisla-
ture It is therefore assumed that under this section members of State
legislatures who should vote for laws conflicting with the provisions of
the bill, that judges of the State courts who should render judgments in
antagonism with its terms, and that marshals and sheriffs who should, as
Andrew Johnson 409
ministerial officers, execute processes sanctioned by State laws and issued
by State judges in execution of their judgments could be brought before
other tribunals and there subjected to fine and imprisonment for the per-
formance of the duties which such State laws might impose. The legis-
lation thus proposed invades the judicial power of the State, It says to
every State court or judge, If you decide that this act is unconstitutional;
if you refuse, under the prohibition of a State law, to allow a negro to
testify; if you hold that over such a subject-matter the State law is para-
mount, and * ' under color " of a State law refuse the exercise of the right
to the negro, your error of judgment, however conscientious, shall sub-
ject you to fine and imprisonment. I do not apprehend that the conflict-
ing legislatipn which the bill seems to contemplate is so likely to occur
as to render it necessary at this time to adopt a measure of such doubtful
constitutionality.
In the next place, this provision of the bill seems to be unnecessary, as
adequate judicial remedies could be adopted to secure the desired end
without invading the immunities of legislators, always important to be
preserved in the interest of public liberty; without assailing the inde-
pendence of the judiciary, always essential to the preservation of indi-
vidual rights; and without impairing the efficiency of ministerial officers,
always necessary for the maintenance of public peace and order. The
remedy proposed by this section seems to be in this respect not only
anomalous, but unconstitutional; for the Constitution guarantees nothing
with certainty if it does not insure to the several States the right of mak-
ing and executing laws in regard to all matters arising within their juris-
diction, subject only to the restriction that in cases of conflict with the
Constitution and constitutional laws of the United States the latter should
be held to be the supreme law of the land.
The third section gives the district courts of the United States exclu-
sive ''cognizance of all crimes and offenses committed against the pro-
visions of this act," and concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts
of the United States of all civil and criminal cases ' * affecting persons
who are denied or can not enforce in the courts or judicial tribunals of
the State or locality where they may be any of the rights secured to
them by the first section. ' ' The construction which I have given to the
second section is strengthened by this third section, for it makes clear
what kind of denial or deprivation of the rights secured by the first sec-
tion was in contemplation. It is a denial or deprivation of such rights
"in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State." It stands, therefore,
clear of doubt that the offense and the penalties provided in the second
section are intended for the State judge who, in the clear exercise of his
functions as a judge, not acting ministerially but judicially, shall decide
contrary to this Federal law. In other words, when a State judge, act-
ing upon a question involving a conflict between a State law and a Fed-
eral law, and bound, according to his own judgment and responsibility.
4IO Messages and Papers of the Presidents
to give an impartial decision between the two, comes to the conclusion
that the State law is valid and the Federal law is invalid, he must not
follow the dictates of his own judgment, at the peril of fine and imprison-
ment. The legislative department of the Government of the United
States thus takes from the judicial department of the States the sacred
and exclusive duty of judicial decision, and converts the State judge into
a mere ministerial officer, bound to decide according to the will of Congress.
It is clear that in States which deny to persons whose rights are secured
by the first section of the bill any one of those rights all criminal and
civil cases affecting them will, by the provisions of the third section, come
under the exclusive cognizance of the Federal tribunals. It follows that
if, in any State which denies to a colored person any one of all those
rights, that person should commit a crime against the laws of a State —
murder, arson, rape, or any other crime — all protection and punishment
through the courts of the State are taken away, and he can only be tried
and punished in the Federal courts. How is the criminal. to be tried?
If the offense is provided for and punished by Federal law, that law, and
not the State law, is to govern. It is only when the offense does not
happen to be within the purview of Federal law that the Federal courts
are to try and punish him under any other law. Then resort is to be had
to **the common law, as modified and changed" by State legislation, "so
far as the same is not incoUvSistent with the Constitution and laws of the
United States. ' ' So that over this vast domain of criminal jurisprudence
provided by each State for the protection of its own citizens and for the
punishment of all persons who violate its criminal laws. Federal law,
whenever it can be made to apply, displaces State law. The question
here naturally arises, from what source Congress derives the power to
transfer to Federal tribunals certain classes of cases embraced in this sec-
tion. The Constitution expressly declares that the judicial power of the
United States "shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under
this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made or
which shall be made under their authority; to all cases affecting ambas-
sadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and
maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall
be a party; to controversies between two or more States, between a State
and citizens of another State, between citizens of different States, between
citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States,
and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens,
or subjects." Here the judicial power of the United States is expressly
set forth and defined; and the act of September 24, 1789, establishing the
judicial courts of the United States, in conferring upon the Federal courts
jurisdiction over cases originating in State tribunals, is careful to confine
them to the classes enumerated in the above-recited clause of the Consti-
tution. This section of the bill undoubtedly comprehends cases and
authorizes the exercise of powers that are not, by the Constitution, within
I
Andrew Johnson 411
the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States. To transfer them to
those courts would be an exercise of authority well calculated to excite
distrust and alarm on the part of all the States, for the bill applies alike
to all of them — as well to those that have as to those that have not been
engaged in rebellion.
It may be assumed that this authority is incident to the power granted
to Congress by the Constitution, as recently amended, to enforce, by ap-
propriate legislation, the article declaring that —
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
lace subject to their jurisdiction.
It can not, however, be justly claimed that, with a view to the enforce-
ent of this article of the Constitution, there is at present any necessity
"or the exercise of all the powers which this bill confers. Slavery has
een abolished, and at present nowhere exists within the jurisdiction of
e United States; nor has there been, nor is it likely there will be, any
ttempt to revive it by the people or the States. If, however, any such
ttempt shall be made, it will then become the duty of the General Gov-
nment to exercise any and all incidental powers necessary and proper
:o maintain inviolate this great constitutional law of freedom.
The fourth section of the bill provides that officers and agents of the
Freedmen's Bureau shall be empowered to make arrests, and also that
other officers may be specially commissioned for that purpose by the Presi-
dent of the United States. It also authorizes circuit courts of the United
States and the superior courts of the Territories to appoint, without limi-
tation, commissioners, who are to be charged with the performance of
quasi judicial duties. The fifth section empowers the commissioners so
to be selected by the courts to appoint in writing, under their hands, one
or more suitable persons from time to time to execute warrants and other
processes described by the bill. These numerous official agents are made
to constitute a sort of police, in addition to the military, and are author-
ized to summon a posse comitatus, and even to call to their aid such por-
tion of the land and naval forces of the United States, or of the militia,
* * as may be necessary to the performance of the duty with which they
are charged. ' ' This extraordinary power is to be conferred upon agents
irresponsible to the Government and to the people, to whose number the
discretion of the commissioners is the only limit, and in whose hands
such authority might be made a terrible engine of wrong, oppression,
and fraud. The general statutes regulating the land and naval forces of
the United States, the militia, and the execution of the laws are believed
to be adequate for every emergency which can occur in time of peace. If
it should prove otherwise, Congress can at any time amend those laws in
such manner as, while subserving the public welfare, not to jeopard the
rights, interests, and liberties of the people.
412 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
•
commissioner in every case brought before him, and a fee of $5 to his
deputy or deputies ' ' for each person he or they may arrest and take be-
fore any such commissioner, " " with such other fees as may be deemed
reasonable by such commissioner, " " in general for performing such other
duties as may be required in the premises." All these fees are to be
* * paid out of the Treasury of the United States, ' ' whether there is a con-
viction or not; but in case of conviction they are to be recoverable from
the defendant. It seems to me that under the influence of such tempta-
tions bad men might convert any law, however beneficent, into an instru-
ment of persecution and fraud.
By the eighth section of the bill the United States courts, which sit
only in one place for white citizens, must migrate with the marshal and
district attorney (and necessarily with the clerk, although he is not men-
tioned) to any part of the district upon the order of the President, and
there hold a court, ''for the purpose of the more speedy arrest and trial
of persons charged with a violation of this act;" and there the judge and
officers of the court must remain, upon the order of the President, "for
the time therein designated. ' '
The ninth section authorizes the President, or such person as he may
empower for that purpose, **to employ such part of the land or naval
forces of the United States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to pre-
vent the violation and enforce the due execution of this act. ' ' This lan-
guage seems to imply a permanent military force, that is to be always at
hand, and whose only business is to be the enforcement of this measure
over the vast region where it is intended to operate.
I do not propose to consider the policy of this bill. To me the details
of the bill seem fraught with evil. The white race and the black race of
the South have hitherto lived together under the relation of master and
slave — capital owning labor'. Now, suddenly, that relation is changed,
and as to ownership capital and labor are divorced. They stand now
each master of itself. In this new relation, one being necessary to the
other, there will be a new adjustment, which both are deeply interested
in making harmonious. Bach has equal power in settling the terms,
and if left to the laws that regulate capital and labor it is confidently
believed that they will vSatisfactorily work out the problem. Capital, it is
true, has more intelligence, but labor is never so ignorant as not to under-
stand its own interests, not to know its own value, and not to see that
capital must pay that value.
This bill frustrates this adjustment. It intervenes between capital and
labor and attempts to settle questions of political economy through the
agency of numerous officials w^hose interest it will be to foment discord
between the two races, for as the breach widens their employment will
continue, and when it is closed their occupation will terminate.
In all our history, in all our experience as a people living under Fed-
eral and State law, no such System as that contemplated by the details
Andrew Johnson 413
of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish
for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond
any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race.
In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in
favor of the colored and against the white race. They interfere with
the municipal legislation of the States, with the relations existing exclu-
sively between a State and its citizens, or between inhabitants of the same
State — an absorption and assumption of power by the General Govern-
ment which, if acquiesced in, must sap and destroy our federative system
of limited powers and break down the barriers which preserve the rights
of the States. It is another step, or rather stride, toward centralization
and the concentration of all legislative powers in the National Govern-
ment. The tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate the spirit of rebel-
lion and to arrest the progress of those influences which are more closely
drawing around the States the bonds of union and peace.
My lamented predecessor, in his proclamation of the ist of January,
1863, ordered and declared that all persons held as slaves within certain
States and parts of States therein designated were and thenceforward
should be free; and further, that the executive government of the United
States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, would rec-
ognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. This guaranty has
been rendered especially obligatory and sacred by the amendment of the
Constitution abolishing slavery throughout the United States. I there-
fore fully recognize the obligation to protect and defend that class of our
people whenever and wherever it shall become necessary, and to the full
extent compatible with the Constitution of the United States.
Entertaining these sentiments, it only remains for me to say that I will
cheerfully cooperate with Congress in any measure that may be necessary
for the protection of the civil rights of the freedmen, as well as those
of all other classes of persons throughout the United States, by judicial
process, under equal and impartial laws, in conformity with the provi-
sions of the Federal Constitution.
I now return the bill to the Senate, and regret that in considering the
bills and joint resolutions — forty- two in number — which have been thus
far submitted for my approval I am compelled to withhold my assent
from a second measure that has received the sanction of both Houses of
Congress. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May 75, 1866,
To the Senate of the United States:
I return to the Senate, in which House it originated, the bill, which has
passed both Houses of Congress, entitled *'An act for the admission of
the State of Colorado into the Union, ' ' with my objections to its becoming
a law at this time.
414 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
First. From the best information which I have been able to obtain
I do not consider the estabHshment of a State government at present
necessary for the welfare of the people of Colorado. Under the exist-
ing Territorial government all the rights, privileges, and interests of the
citizens are protected and secured. The qualified voters choose their
own legislators and their own local officers, and are represented in Con-
gress by a Delegate of their own selection. They make and execute their
own municipal laws, subject only to revision by Congress — an authority
not likely to be exercised unless in extreme or extraordinary cases. The
population is small, some estimating it so low as 25,000, while advo-
cates of the bill reckon the number at from 35 5 000 to 40,000 souls. The
people are principally recent settlers, many of whom are understood to
be ready for removal to other mining districts beyond the limits of the
Territory if circumstances shall render them more inviting. Such a
population can not but find relief from excessive taxation if the Terri-
torial system, which devolves the expenses of the executive, legislative,
and judicial departments upon the United States, is for the present con-
tinued. They can not but find the security of person and property
increased by their reliance upon the national executive power for the
maintenance of law and order against the disturbances necessarily incident
to all newly organized communities.
Second. It is not satisfactorily established that a majority of the citizens
of Colorado desire or are prepared for an exchange of a Territorial for a
State government. In September, 1864, under the authority of Congress,
an election was lawfully appointed and held for the purpose of ascertain-
ing the views of the people upon this particular question. Six thou-
sand one hundred and ninety- two votes were cast, and of this number a
majority of 3, 152 was given against the proposed change. In September,
1865, without any legal authority, the question was again presented to
the people of the Territory, with the view of obtaining a reconsideration
of the result of the election held in compliance with the act of Congress
approved March 21, 1864. At this second election 5,905 votes were
polled, and a majority of 155 was given in favor of a State organization.
It does not seem to me entirely safe to receive this, the last-mentioned,
result, so irregularly obtained, as sufficient to outweigh the one which
had been legally obtained in the first election. Regularity and conformity
to law are essential to the preservation of order and stable government,
and should, as far as practicable, always be observed in the formation of
new States.
Third. The admission of Colorado at this time as a State into the
Federal Union appears to me to be incompatible with the public interests
of the country. While it is desirable that Territories, when sufficiently
matured, should be organized as States, yet the spirit of the Constitution
seems to require that there should be an approximation toward equality
among the several States composing the Union. No State can have less
Andrew Johnson 415
or more than two Senators in Congress. The largest State has a pop-
ulation of 4,000,000; several of the States have a population exceeding
2,000,000, and many others have a population exceeding 1,000,000. A
population of 127,000 is the ratio of apportionment of Representatives
among the several States.
If this bill should become a law, the people of Colorado, 30,000 in
number, would have in the House of Representatives one member, while
New York, with a population of 4,000,000, has but thirty-one; Colorado
would have in the electoral college three votes, while New York has only
thirty-three; Colorado would have in the Senate two votes, while New
York has no more.
Inequalities of this character have already occurred, but it is believed
that none have happened where the inequality was so great. When such
inequality has been allowed. Congress is supposed to have permitted it on
the ground of some high public necessity and under circumstances which
promised that it would rapidly disappear through the growth and develop-
ment of the newly admitted State. Thus, in regard to the several States
in what was formerly called the ' ' Northwest Territory, ' ' lying east of
the Mississippi, their rapid advancement in population rendered it certain
that States admitted with only one or two Representatives in Congress
would in a very short period be entitled to a great increase of representa-
tion. So, when California was admitted, on the ground of commercial
and political exigencies, it was well foreseen that that State was destined
rapidly to become a great, prosperous, and important mining and com-
mercial community. In the case of Colorado, I am not aware that any
national exigency, either of a political or commercial nature, requires a
departure from the law of equality which has been so generally adhered
to in our history.
If information submitted in connection with this bill is reliable, Colo-
rado, instead of increasing, has declined in population. At an election for
members of a Territorial legislature held in 1861, 10,580 votes were cast;
at the election before mentioned, in 1864, the number of votes cast was
6, 192; while at the irregular election held in 1865, which is assumed as a
basis for legislative action at this time, the aggregate of votes was 5,905.
Sincerely anxious for the welfare and prosperity of every Territory and
State, as well as for the prosperity and welfare of the whole Union, I
regret this apparent decline of population in Colorado; but it is manifest
that it is due to emigration which is going on from that Territory into
other regions within the United States, which either are in fact or are
believed by the inhabitants of Colorado to be richer in mineral wealth
and agricultural resources. If, however, Colorado has not really declined
in population, another census or another election under the authority of
Congress would place the question beyond doubt, and cause but little
delay in the ultimate admission of the Territory as a State if desired by
the people.
41 6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
The tenor of these objections furnishes the reply which maybe expected
to an argument in favor of the measure derived from the enabling act
which was passed by Congress on the 2 ist day of March, 1 864. Although
Congress then supposed that the condition of the Territory was such as
to warrant its admission as a State, the result of two years' experience
shows that every reason which existed for the institution of a Territorial
instead of a State government in Colorado at its first organization still
continues in force.
The condition of the Union at the present moment is calculated to
inspire caution in regard to the admission of new States. Kleven of the
old States have been for some time, and still remain, unrepresented in
Congress. It is a common interest of all the States, as well those rep-
resented as those unrepresented, that the integrity and harmony of the
Union should be restored as completely as possible, so that all those who
are expected to bear the burdens of the Federal Government shall be con-
sulted concerning the admission of new States; and that in the meantime
no new State shall be prematurely and unnecessarily admitted to a par-
ticipation in the political power which the Federal Government wields,
not for the benefit of any individual State or section, but for the common
safety, welfare, and happiness of the whole country.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C,/une 75, 1866.
To the Senate of the United States:
The bill entitled "An act to enable the New York and Montana Iron
Mining and Manufacturing Company to purchase a certain amount of the
public lands not now in market' ' is herewith returned to the Senate, in
which it originated, with the objections which induce me to withhold my
approval.
By the terms of this bill the New York and Montana Iron Mining and
Manufacturing Company are authorized, at any time within one year
after the date of approval, Xq preempt two tracts of land in the Territory
of Montana, not exceeding in the aggregate twenty sections, and not
included in any Indian reservation or in any Government reservation for
military or other purposes. Three of these sections may be selected from
lands containing iron ore and coal, and the remainder from timber lands
lying near thereto. These selections are to be made under regulations
from the Secretary of the Interior and be subject to his approval. The
company, on the selection of the lands, may acquire immediate posses-
sion by permanently marking their boundaries and publishing description
thereof in any two newspapers of general circulation in the Territory
of Montana. Patents are to be issued on the performance, within two
years, of the following conditions:
First. The lands to be surveyed at the expense of the company, and
each tract to be "as nearly in a square form as may be practicable."
Andrew Johnso7t 417
Second. The company to furnish evidence satisfactory to the Secre-*
tary of the Interior that they have erected and have in operation in one
or more places on said lands iron works capable of manufacturing at
least 1,500 tons of iron per annum.
Third. The company to have paid for said lands the minimum price
of $1.25 per acre.
It is also provided that the * ' patents shall convey no title to any min-
eral lands except iron and coal, or to any lands held by right of possession,
or by any other title, except Indian title, valid at the time of the selection
of the said lands. ' ' The company are to have the privileges of ordinary
preemptors and be subject to the same restrictions as such preemptors
with reference to wood and timber on the lands, with the exception of so
much as may be necessarily used in the erection of buildings and in the
legitimate business of manufacturing iron.
The parties upon whom these privileges are conferred are designated
in the bill as * ' The New York and Montana Iron Mining and Manufac-
turing Company." Their names and residence not being disclosed, it
must be inferred that this company is a corporation, which, under color
of corporate powers derived from some State or Territorial legislative
authority, proposes to carry on the business of mining and manufacturing
iron, and to accomplish these ends seeks this grant of public land in
Montana. Two questions thus arise, viz, whether the privileges the bill
would confer should be granted to an}^ person or persons, and, secondly,
whether, if unobjectionable in other respects, they should be conferred
upon a corporation.
The public domain is a national trust, set apart and held for the gen-
eral welfare upon principles of equal justice, and not to be bestowed as a
special privilege upon a favored class. The proper rules for the disposal
of public land have from the earliest period been the subject of earnest
inquiry, grave discussion, and deliberate judgment. The purpose of
direct revenue was the first object, and this was attained by public sale
to the highest bidder, and subsequently by the right of private purchase
at a fixed minimum. It was soon discovered that the surest and most
speedy means of promoting the wealth and prosperity of the country was
by encouraging actual settlement and occupation, and hence a system of
preemption rights, resulting most beneficially, in all the Western Territo-
ries. By progressive steps it has advanced to the homestead principle,
securing to every head of a family, widow, and single man 21 years of
age and to every soldier who has borne arms for his country a landed
estate sufficient, with industry, for the purpose of independent support.
Without tracing the system of preemption laws through the several
stages, it is sufficient to observe that it rests upon certain just and plain
principles, firmly estabhshed in all our legislation. The object of these
laws is to encourage the expansion of population and the development
of agricultural interests, and hence they have been invariably restricted
M P— voi< VI— 27
41 8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
to settlers. Actual residence and cultivation are made indispensable
conditions; and, to guard the privilege from abuses of speculation or
monopoly, the law is rigid as to the mode of establishing claims by ade-
quate testimony, with penalties for perjury. Mining, trading, or any
pursuit other than culture of the soil is interdicted, mineral lands being
expressly excluded from preemption privileges, excepting those contain-
ing coal, which, in quantities not exceeding i6o acres, are restricted to
individuals in actual possession and commerce, with an enhanced mini-
mum of $20 per acre.
For a quarter of a century the quantity of land subject to agricultural
preemption has been limited so as not to exceed a quarter section, or 160
acres; and, still further to guard against monopoly, the privilege of pre-
emption is not allowed to any person who owns 320 acres of land in any
State or Territory of the United States, nor is any person entitled to more
than one preemptive right, nor is it extended to lands to which the Indian
usufruct has not been extinguished. To restrict the privilege within
reasonable limits, credit to the ordinary preemptor on offered land is not
extended beyond twelve months, within which time the minimum price
must be paid. Where the settlement is upon uiioffered territory, the time
for payment is limited to the day of public offering designated by procla-
mation of the President; while, to prevent depreciation of the land by
waste or destruction of what may constitute its value, penal enactments
have been made for the punishment of persons depredating upon public
timber.
Now, supposing the New York and Montana Iron Mining and Manu-
facturing Company to be entitled to all the preemption rights which it
has been found just and expedient to bestow upon natural persons, it will
be seen that the privileges conferred by the bill in question are in direct
conflict with every principle heretofore observed in respect to the disposal
of the public lands.
The bill confers preemption right to mineral lands, which, excepting
coal lands, at an enhanced minimum, have heretofore, as a general prin-
ciple, been carefully excluded from preemption. The object of the com-
pany is not to cultivate the soil or to promote agriculture, but is for the
sole purpose of mining and manufacturing iron. The company is not
limited, like ordinary preempt ors, to one preemptive claim of a quarter
vSection, but may preempt two bodies of land, amounting in the aggre-
gate to twenty sections, containing 12,800 acres, or eighty ordinary in-
dividual preemption rights. The timber is not protected, but, on the
contrary, is devoted to speedy destruction; for even before the consum-
mation of title the company are allowed to consume whatever may be
necessary in the erection of buildings and the business of manufacturing
iron. For these special privileges, in contravention of the land policy
of so many years, the company are required to pay only the minimum
price of $1.25 per acre, or one-sixteenth of the established minimum, and
Andrew Johnson 419
are granted a credit of two years, or twice the time allowed ordinary
preemptors on offered lands.
Nor is this all. The preemption right in question covers three sections
of land containing iron ore and coal. The act passed on the ist of July,
1864, made it lawful for the President to cause tracts embracing coal beds
or coal fields to be offered at public sale in suitable legal subdivisions to
the highest bidder, after public notice of not less than three months, at
a minimum price of $20 per acre, and any lands not thus disposed of were
thereafter to be liable to private entry at said minimum. By the act of
March 3, 1865, the right of preemption to coal lands is granted to any
citizen of the United States who at that date was engaged in the business
of coal mining on the public domain for purposes of commerce; and he is
authorized to enter, according to legal subdivisions, at the minimum price
of $20 per acre, a quantity of land not exceeding 160 acres, to embrace
his improvements and mining premises. Under these acts the minimum
price of three sections of coal lands would be thirty-eight thousand four
hundred dollars ($38,400).
By the bill now in question these sections containing coal and iron are
bestowed on this company at the nominal price of $1.25 per acre, or two
thousand four hundred dollars ($2,400) , thus making a gratuity or gift to
the New York and Montana Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company
of thirty-six thousand dollars ($36,000).
On what ground can such a gratuity to this company be justified, espe-
cially at a time when the burdens of taxation bear so heavily upon all
classes of the people ?
I^ess than two years ago it appears to have been the deliberate judg-
ment of Congress that tracts of land containing coal beds or coal fields
should be sold, after three months' notice, to the bidder at public auction
who would give the highest price over $20 per acre, and that a citizen
engaged in the business of actual coal mining on the public domain
should only secure a tract of 160 acres, at private entry, upon payment
of $20 per acre and formal and satisfactory proof that he in all respects
came within the requirements of the statute. It can not be that the coal
fields of Montana have depreciated nearly twentyfold in value since July,
1864. So complete a revolution in the land policy as is manifested by
this act can only be ascribed, therefore, to an inadvertence, which Con-
gress will, I trust, promptly correct.
Believing that the preemption policy — so deliberately adopted, so long
practiced, so carefully guarded with a view to the disposal of the public
lands in a manner that would promote the population and prosperity of
the country — should not be perverted to the purposes contemplated by
this bill, I would . be constrained to withhold my sanction even if this
company were, as natural persons, entitled to the privileges of ordinary
preemptors; for if a corporation, as the name and the absence of any des-
ignation of individuals would denote, the measure before me is liable to
another fatal objection.
42 o Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Why should incorporated companies have the privileges of individual
preemptors? What principle of justice requires such a policy? What
motive of public welfare can fail to condemn it? Lands held by corpo-
rations were regarded by ancient laws as held in mortmain, or by " dead
hand," and from the time of Magna Charta corporations required the
royal license to hold land, because such holding was regarded as in dero-
gation of public policy and common right. Preemption is itself a special
privilege, only authorized by its supposed public benefit in promoting
the settlement and cultivation of vacant territory and in rewarding the
enterprise of the persons upon whom the privilege is bestowed. "Pre-
emption rights, ' ' as declared by the Supreme Court of the United States,
"are founded in an enlightened public policy, rendered necessary by the
enterprise of our citizens. The adventurous pioneer, who is found in
advance of our settlements, encounters many hardships, and not unfre-
quently dangers from savage incursions. He is generally poor, and it is
fit that his enterprise should be rewarded by the privilege of purchasing
the spot selected by him, not to exceed i6o acres."
It may be said that this company, before they obtain a patent, must
prove that within two years they * ' have erected and have in operation
in one or more places on the said lands iron works with a capacity for
manufacturing at least 1,500 tons of iron per annum." On the other
hand, they are to have possession for two years of more than 12,000
acres of the choice land of the Territory, of which nearly 2,000 acres are
to contain iron ore and coal and over 10,000 acres to be of timber land
selected by themselves. They will thus have the first and exclusive
choice. In fact, they are the only parties who at this time would have
any privilege whatever in the way of obtaining titles in that Territory.
Inasmuch as Montana has not yet been organized into a land district, the
general preemption laws for the benefit of individual settlers have not yet
been extended to that country, nor has a single acre of public land in the
Territory yet been surveyed. With such exclusive and extraordinary
privileges, how many companies would be willing to undertake furnaces
that would produce 5 tons per day in much less time than two years?
It is plain the pretended consideration on which the patent is to issue
bears no just proportion to that of the ordinary preemptor, and that this
bill is but the precursor of a system of land distribution to a privileged
class, unequal, unjust, and which ought not to receive the sanction of
the General Government. Many thousand pioneers have turned their
steps to the Western Territories, seeking, with their wives and children,
homesteads to be acquired by sturdy industry under the preemption laws.
On their arrival they should not find the timbered lands and the tracts
containing iron ore and coal already surveyed and claimed by corporate
companies, favored by the special legislation of Congress, and with bound-
aries fixed even in advance of the public surveys — a departure from the
salutary provision requiring a settler upon unsurveyed lands, to limit the
Andrew Johnson 42 1
boundaries of his claim to the Hnes of the pubHc survey after they shall
have been established. He receives a title only to a legal subdivision,
including his residence and improvements. The survey of the company
may not accord with that which will hereafter be made by the Govern-
ment, while the patent that issues will be descriptive of and confer a title
to the tract as surveyed by the company.
I am aware of no precedent for granting such exclusive rights to a
manufacturing company for a nominal consideration. Congress have
made concessions to railway companies of alternate sections within given
limits of the lines of their roads. This policy originated in the belief
that the facilities afforded by reaching the parts of the country remote
from the great centers of population would expedite the settlement and
sale of the public domain. These incidental advantages were secured
without pecuniary loss to the Government, by reason of the enhanced
value of the reserved sections, which are held at the double minimum.
Mining and manufacturing companies, however, have always been dis-
tinguished from public-improvement corporations. The former are, in
law and in fact, only private associations for trade and business on indi-
vidual account and for personal benefit. Admitting tlie proposition that
railroad grants can stand on sound principle, it is plain that such can not
be the case with concessions to companies like that contemplated by this
measure. In view of the strong temptation to monopolize the public
lands, with the pernicious results, it would seem at least of doubtful ex-
pediency to lift corporations above all competition with actual settlers by
authorizing them to become purchasers of public lands in the Territories
for any purpose, and particularly when clothed with the special benefits of
this bill. For myself, I am convinced that the privileges of ordinary pre-
emptors ought not to be extended to incorporated companies.
A third objection may be mentioned, as it exemplifies the spirit in
which special privileges are sought by incorporated companies.
Land subject to Indian occupancy has always been scrupulously guarded
by law from preemption settlement or encroachment under any pretext
until the Indian title should be extinguished. In the fourth section of
this act, however, lands held by ** Indian title" are excepted from pro-
hibition against the patent to be issued to the New York and Montana
Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company.
The bill provides that the patent * ' shall convey no title to any mineral
lands except iron and coal, or to any lands held by right of posses.sion, or by
any other title, except Indian title, valid at the time of the selection of the
said lands. ' ' It will be seen that by the first section lands in ' * Indian
reservations" are excluded from individual preemption right, but by the
fourth section the patent may cover any Indian title except a reservation;
so that no matter what may be the nature of the Indian title, unless it be
in a reservation, it is unprotected from the privilege conceded by this bill.
Without further pursuing the subject, I return the bill to the Senate
422 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
without my signature, and with the following as prominent objections to
its becoming a law:
First. That it gives to the New York and Montana Iron Mining and
Manufacturing Company preemption privileges to iron and coal lands on
a large scale and at the ordinary minimum — a privilege denied to ordinary
preemptors. It bestows upon the company large tracts of coal lands at
one-sixteenth of the minimum price required from ordinary preemptors.
It also relieves the company from restrictions imposed upon ordinary pre-
emptors in respect to timber lands; allows double the time for payment
granted to preemptors on offered lands; and these privileges are for pur-
poses not heretofore authorized by the preemption laws, but for trade and
manufacturing.
Second. Preemption rights on such a scale to private corporations are
unequal and hostile to the policy and principles which sanction preemption
laws.
Third. The bill allows this company to take possession of land, use it,
and acquire a patent thereto before the Indian title is extinguished, and
thus violates the good faith of the Government toward the aboriginal
^"^^^- * ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.,July i6, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
A careful examination of the bill passed by the two Houses of Con-
gress entitled **An act to continue in force and to amend 'An act to
establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees, and for other
purposes ' ' ' has convinced me that the legislation which it proposes
would not be consistent with the welfare of the country, and that it falls
clearly within the reasons assigned in my message of the 19th of Feb-
ruary last, returning, without my signature, a similar measure which
originated in the Senate. It is not my purpose to repeat the objections
which I then urged. They are yet fresh in your recollection, and can
be readily examined as a part of the records of one branch of the National
Legislature. Adhering to the principles set forth in that message, I now
reaflSrm them and the line of policy therein indicated.
The only ground upon which this kind of legislation can be justified
is that of the war-making power. The act of which this bill is intended
as amendatory was passed during the existence of the war. By its own
provisions it is to terminate within one year from the cessation of hos-
tilities and the declaration of peace. It is therefore yet in existence,
and it is likely that it will continue in force as long as the freedmen may
require the benefit of its provisions. It will certainly remain in opera-
tion as a law until some months subsequent to the meeting of the next
session of Congress, when, if experience shall make evident the necessity
of additional legislation, the two Houses will have ample time to mature
Andrew Johnson 423
and pass the requisite measures. In the meantime the questions arise,
Why should this war measure be continued beyond the period designated
in the original act, and why in time of peace should military tribunals
be created to continue until each ''State shall be fully restored in its
constitutional relations to the Government and shall be duly represented
in the Congress of the United States"?
It was manifest, with respect to the act approved March 3, 1865, that
prudence and wisdom alike required that jurisdiction over all cases con-
cerning the free enjoyment of the immunities and rights of citizenship,
as well as the protection of person and property, should be conferred
upon some tribunal in every State or district where the ordinary course of
judicial proceedings was interrupted by the rebellion, and until the same
should be fully restored. At that time, therefore, an urgent necessity
existed for the passage of some such law. Now, however, war has sub-
stantially ceased; the ordinary course of judicial proceedings is no longer
interrupted; the courts, both State and Federal, are in full, complete, and
successful operation, and through them every person, regardless of race
and color, is entitled to and can be heard. The protection granted to
the white citizen is already conferred by law upon the freedman; strong
and stringent guards, by way of penalties and punishments, are thrown
around his person and property, and it is believed that ample protection
will be afforded him by due process of law, without resort to the danger-
ous expedient of ' * military tribunals, ' ' now that the war has been brought
to a close. The necessity no longer existing for such tribunals, which
had their origin in the war, grave objections to their continuance must
present themselves to the minds of all reflecting and dispassionate men.
Independently of the danger, in representative republics, of conferring
upon the military, in time of peace, extraordinary powers — so carefully
guarded against by the patriots and statesmen of the earlier days of the
Republic, so frequently the ruin of governments founded upon the same
free principles, and subversive of the rights and liberties of the citizen —
the question of practical economy earnestly commends itself to the con-
sideration of the lawmaking power. With an immense debt already bur-
dening the incomes of the industrial and laboring classes, a due regard
for their interests, so inseparably connected with the welfare of the coun-
try, should prompt us to rigid economy and retrenchment, and influence
us to abstain from all legislation that would unnecessarily increase the
public indebtedness. Tested by this rule of sound political wisdom, I
can see no reason for the establishment of the * ' military jurisdiction ' ' con-
ferred upon the officials of the Bureau by the fourteenth section of the bill.
By the laws of the United States and of the different States competent
courts, Federal and State, have been established and are now in full practi-
cal operation. By means of these civil tribunals ample redress is afforded
for all private wrongs, whether to the person or the property of the citizen,
without denial or unnecessary delay. They are open to all, without regard
424 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
to color or race. I feel well assured that it will be better to trust the rights,
privileges, and immunities of the citizen to tribunals thus established, and
presided over by competent and impartial judges, bound by fixed rules of
law and evidence, and where the right of trial by jury is guaranteed and
secured, than to the caprice or judgment of an officer of the Bureau, who
it is possible may be entirely ignorant of the principles that underlie the
just administration of the law. There is danger, too, that conflict of juris-
diction will frequently arise between the civil courts and these military
tribunals, each having concurrent jurisdiction over the person and the
cause of action — the one judicature administered and controlled by civil
law, the other by the military. How is the conflict to be settled, and who
is to determine between the two tribunals when it arises ? In my opinion,
it is wise to guard against such conflict by leaving to the courts and juries
the protection of all civil rights and the redress of all civil grievances.
The fact can not be denied that since the actual cessation of hostilities
many acts of violence, such, perhaps, as had never been witnessed in their
previous history, have occurred in the States involved in the recent rebel-
lion. I believe, however, that public sentiment will sustain me in the as-
sertion that such deeds of wrong are not confined to any particular State
or section, but are manifested over the entire country, demonstrating that
the cause that produced them does not depend upon any particular locality,
but is the result of the agitation and derangement incident to a long and
bloody civil war. While the prevalence of such disorders must be greatly
deplored, their occasional and temporary occurrence would seem to furnish
no necessity for the extension of the Bureau beyond the period fixed in
the original act.
Besides the objections which I have thus briefly stated, I may urge
upon your consideration the additional reason that recent developments
in regard to the practical operations of the Bureau in many of the States
show that in numerous instances it is used by its agents as a means of
promoting their individual advantage, and that the freedmen are em-
ployed for the advancement of the personal ends of the officers instead of
their own improvement and welfare, thus confirming the fears originally
entertained by many that the continuation of such a Bureau for any
Unnecessary length of time would inevitably result in fraud, corruption,
and oppression. It is proper to state that in cases of this character
investigations have been promptly ordered, and the offender punished
whenever his guilt has been satisfactorily established.
As another reason against the necessity of the legislation contemplated
by this measure, reference may be had to the ''civil-rights bill," now a
law of the land, and which will be faithfully executed so long as it shall
remain unrepealed and may not be declared unconstitutional by courts
of competent jurisdiction. By that act it is enacted —
That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power,
excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States;
Andrew Johnson 425
and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition
of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right in every State and
Territory in the United States to make and enforce contracts; to sue, be parties,
and give evidence; to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and per-
sonal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the
security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject
to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordi-
nance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.
By the provisions of the act full protection is afforded through the dis-
trict courts of the United States to all persons injured, and whose privi-
leges, as thus declared, are in any way impaired; and heavy penalties are
denounced against the person who willfully violates the law. I need not
state that that law did not receive my approval; yet its remedies are far
more preferable than those proposed in the present bill — the one being
civil and the other military.
By the sixth section of the bill herewith returned certain proceedings
by which the lands in the "parishes of St. Helena and St. Luke, South
Carolina," were sold and bid in, and afterwards disposed of by the tax
commissioners, are ratified and confirmed. By the seventh, eighth, ninth,
tenth, and eleventh sections provisions by law are made for the disposal
of the lands thus acquired to a particular class of citizens. While the
quieting of titles is deemed very important and desirable, the discrimina-
tion made in the bill seems objectionable, as does also the attempt to
confer upon the commissioners judicial powers by which citizens of the
United States are to be deprived of their property in a mode contrary to
that provision of the Constitution which declares that no person shall
"be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."
As a general principle, such legislation is unsafe, unwise, partial, and un-
constitutional. It may deprive persons of their property who are equally
deserving objects of the nation's bounty as those whom by this legisla-
tion Congress seeks to benefit. The title to the land thus to be por-
tioned out to a favored class of citizens must depend upon the regularity
of the tax sales under the law as it existed at the time of the sale, and
no subsequent legislation can give validity to the right thus acquired as
against the original claimants. The attention of Congress is therefore
invited to a more mature consideration of the measures proposed in these
sections of the bill.
In conclusion I again urge upon Congress the danger of class legis-
lation, so well 'calculated to keep the public mind in a state of uncer-
tain expectation, disquiet, and restlessness and to encourage interested
hopes and fears that the National Government will continue to furnish
to classes of citizens in the several States means for support and mainte-
nance regardless of whether they pursue a life of indolence or of labor,
and regardless also of the constitutional limitations of the national au-
thority in times of peace and tranquillity.
426 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
The bill is herewith returned to the House of Representatives, in which
it originated, for its final action. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.July 28, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I herewith return, without my approval, the bill entitled **An act erect-
ing the Territory of Montana into a surveying district, and for other
purposes. ' '
The bill contains four sections, the first of which erects the Territory
into a surveying district and authorizes the appointment of a surveyor-
general; the second constitutes the Territory a land district; the third
authorizes the appointment of a register and receiver for said district;
and the fourth requires the surveyor-general to —
select and survey eighteen alternate odd sections of nonmineral timber lands within
said district for the New York and Montana Iron Mining and Manufacturing Com-
pany, incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, which lands the said
company shall have immediate possession of on the payment of ^1.25 per acre, and
shall have a patent for the same whenever, within two years after their selection,
they shall have furnished evidence satisfactory to the Secretary of the Interior that
they have erected and have in operation on the said lands iron works with a capacity
for manufacturing 1,500 tons of iron per annum: Provided^ That the said lands shall
revert to the United States in case the above-mentioned iron works be not erected
within the specified time: And provided. That until the title to the said lands shall
have been perfected the timber shall not be cut off from more than one section of
the said lands.
To confer the special privileges specified in this fourth section appears
to be the chief object of the bill, the provisions of which are subject to
some of the most important objections that induced me to return to the
Senate with my disapproval the bill entitled "An act to enable the New
York and Montana Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company to purchase
a certain amount of the public lands not now in market." That bill
authorized the same corporation to select and sui"vey in the Territory of
Montana, in square form, twenty-one sections of land, three of which might
contain coal and iron ore, for which the minimum rate of $1.25 per acre
was to be paid. The present bill omits these sections of mineral lands,
and directs the surveyor-general to select and survey the timber lands; but
it contains the objectionable feature of granting to a private mining and
manufacturing corporation exclusive rights and privileges in the public
domain which are by law denied to individuals. The first choice of tim-
ber land in the Territory is bestowed upon a corporation foreign to the
Territory and over which Congress has no control. The surveyor-general
of the district, a public officer who should have no connection with any
purchase of public land, is made the agent of the corporation to select the
land, the selections to be made in the absence of all competition; and over
11,000 acres are bestowed at the lowest price of public lands. It is by
Andrew Johnson 427
ho means certain that the substitution of alternate sections for the com-
pact body of lands contemplated by the other bill is any less injurious to
the public interest, for alternate sections stripped of timber are not likely
to enhance the value of those reserved by the Government. Be this as it
may, this bill bestows a large monopoly of public lands without adequate
consideration; confers a right and privilege in quantity equivalent to
seventy-two preemption rights; introduces a dangerous system of privi-
leges to private trading corporations; and is an unjust discrimination in
favor of traders and speculators against individual settlers and pioneers
who are seeking homes and improving our Western Territories. Such a
departure from the long-established, wise, and just policy which has here-
tofore governed the disposition of the public funds [lands] can not receive
my sanction. The objections enumerated apply to the fourth section of
the bill. The first, second, and third sections, providing for the appoint-
ment of a surveyor-general, register, and receiver, are unobjectionable if
any necessity requires the creation of these ofi&ces and the additional ex-
penses of a new surveying land district. But they appear in this instance
to be only needed as a part of the machinery to enable the ' ' New York
and Montana Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company ' ' to secure these
privileges; for I am informed by the proper Department, in a communi-
cation hereto annexed, that there is no public necessity for a surveyor-
general, register, or receiver in Montana Territory, since it forms part of
an existing surveying and land district, wherein the public business is,
under present laws, transacted with adequate facility, so that the pro-
visions of the first, second, and third sections would occasion needless
expense to the General Government. ANDREW JOHNSON.
PROCLAMATIONS.
Andrew Johnson, Prksidknt of the United States of America.
To all whom it may concern:
An exequatur, bearing date the 13th day of October, 1864, having been
issued to Esteban Rogers, recognizing him as consul ad interim of the
Republic of Chile for the port of New York and its dependencies and
declaring him free to exercise and enjoy such functions, powers, and privi-
leges as are allowed to consuls by the law of nations or by the laws of
the United States and existing treaty stipulations between the Govern-
ment of Chile and the United States; but as it is deemed advisable that
the said Esteban Rogers should no longer be permitted to continue in the
exercise of said functions, powers, and privileges:
These are therefore to declare that I no longer recognize the said
428 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Esteban Rogers as consul ad interim of the Republic of Chile for the port
of New York and its dependencies and will not permit him to exercise
or enjoy any of the functions, powers, or privileges allowed to a consular
officer of that nation; and that I do hereby wholly revoke and annul the
said exequatur heretofore given and do declare the same to be absolutely
null and void from this day forward.
In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent
and the seal of the United States of America to be hereunto
affixed.
[SKAi,.] Given under my hand, at Washington, this 1 2th day of Febru-
ary, A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United States
of America the ninetieth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii^iviAM H. Seaward,
Secretary of State,
Andrkw Johnson, Prksidejnt of the) United States of America.
To all whom it may concern:
An exequatur, bearing date the 7th day of October, 1864, having been
issued to Claudius Edward Habicht, recognizing him as consul of Sweden
and Norway at New York and declaring him free to exercise and enjoy
such functions, powers, and privileges as are allowed to consuls by the
law of nations or by the laws of the United States and existing treaty
stipulations between the Government of Sweden and Norway and the
United States; but as it is deemed advisable that the said Claudius
Edward Habicht should no longer be permitted to continue in the exer-
cise of said functions, powers, and privileges:
These are therefore to declare that I no longer recognize the said
Claudius Edward Habicht as consul of Sweden and Norway at New
York and will not permit him to exercise or enjoy any of the functions,
powers, or privileges allowed to a consular officer of that nation; and
that I do hereby wholly revoke and annul the said exequatur heretofore
given and do declare the same to be absolutely null and void from this
day forward.
In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent
and the seal of the United States of America to be hereunto
affixed.
[SKAi,.] Given under my hand, at Washington, the 26th day of
March, A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the ninetieth.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W1LI.IAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State,
Andrew Johnson • 429
Andrew Johnson, Prksidknt of the: Unitkd States of America.
To all whom it may concern:
An exequatur, bearing date the ist day of July, 1865, having been
issued to S. M. Svenson, recognizing him as vice-consul of Sweden and
Norway at New Orleans and declaring him free to exercise and enjoy
such functions, powers, and privileges as are allowed to vice-consuls by
the law of nations or by the laws of the United States and existing
treaty stipulations between the Government of Sweden and Norway and
the United States; but as it is deemed advisable that the said S. M.
Svenson should no longer be permitted to continue in the exercise of
said functions, powers, and privileges:
These are therefore to declare that I no longer recognize the said
S. M. Svenson as vice-consul of Sweden and Norway at New Orleans
and will not permit him to exercise or enjoy any of the functions, powers,
or privileges allowed to a consular officer of that nation; and that I do
hereby wholly revoke and annul the said exequatur heretofore given
and do declare the same to be absolutely null and void from this day
forward.
In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent
and the seal of the United States of Americfa to be hereunto
affixed.
[SEAi,.] Given under my hand, at Washington, the 26th day of
March, A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the ninetieth.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Seward,
Secretary of State,
By the President of the United States of America,
a proclamation.
Whereas by proclamations of the 15th and 19th of April, 1861, the
President of the United States, in virtue of the power vested in him by
the Constitution and the laws, declared that the laws of the United
States were opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in the States
of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Texas by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary
course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals
by law; and
Whereas by another proclamation, made on the i6th day of August,
in the same year, in pursuance of an act of Congress approved July 13,
1 861, the inhabitants of the States of Georgia, South CaroUna, Virginia,
430 Messages a7id Papers of the Presidents
North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mis-
sissippi, 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 before named as might maintain a
loyal adhesion to the Union and the Constitution or might be from time
to time occupied and controlled by forces of the United States engaged
in the^ dispersion of insurgents) were declared to be in a state of insur-
rection against the United States; and
Whereas by another proclamation, of the ist day of July, 1862, issued in
pursuance of an act of Congress approved June 7, in the same year, the
insurrection was declared to be still existing in the States aforesaid, with
the exception of certain specified counties in the State of Virginia; and
Whereas by another proclamation, made on the 2d day of April, 1863,
in pursuance of the act of Congress of July 13, 1861, the exceptions
named in the proclamation of August 16, 1861, were revoked and the
inhabitants of the States of Georgia, South Carohna, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Alabama, lyouisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida,
and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties of Virginia designated as
West Virginia and the ports of New Orleans, Key West, Port Royal,
and Beaufort, in North Carolina) were declared to be still in a state of
insurrection agamst the United States; and
Whereas the House of Representatives, on the 22d day of July, 1861,
adopted a resolution in the words following, namely:
Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States,
That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the dis-
unionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional Govern-
ment and in arms around the capital; that in this national emergency Congress,
banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to
the whole country; that this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppres-
sion, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or
interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend
and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union, with all
the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; and that as soon
as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.
And whereas the Senate of the United States, on the 25th day of July,
1 86 1, adopted a resolution in the words following, to wit:
Resolved, That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country
by the disunionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional
Government and in arms around the capital; that in this national emergency Con-
gress, banishing all feeling of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its
duty to the whole country; that this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any
spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose
of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those
States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws
made in pursuance thereof and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality,
and rights of the several States unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accom-
plished the war ought to cease.
Andrew Johnson 431
And whereas these resolutions, though not joint or concurrent in form,
are substantially identical, and as such may be regarded as having ex-
pressed the sense of Congress upon the subject to which they relate; and
Whereas by my proclamation of the 13th day of June last the insur-
rection in the State of Tennessee was declared to have been suppressed,
the authority of the United States therein to be undisputed, and such
United States officers as had been duly commissioned to be in the undis-
turbed exercise of their official functions; and
Whereas there now exists no organized armed resistance of misguided
citizens or others to the authority of the United States in the States
of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ala-
bama, lyouisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida, and the laws can
be sustained and enforced therein by the proper civil authority. State
or Federal, and the people of said States are well and loyally disposed
and have conformed or will conform in their legislation to the condi-
tion of affairs growing out of the amendment to the Constitution of the
United States prohibiting slavery within the limits and jurisdiction of
the United States; and
Whereas, in view of the before-recited premises, it is the manifest
determination of the American people that no State of its own will has
the right or the power to go out of, or separate itself from, or be sepa-
rated from, the American Union, and that therefore each State ought to
remain and constitute an integral part of the United States; and
Whereas the people of the several before-mentioned States have, in
the manner aforesaid, given satisfactory evidence that they acquiesce
in this sovereign and important resolution of national unity; and
Whereas it is believed to be a fundamental principle of government
that people who have revolted and who have been overcome and subdued
must either be dealt with so as to induce them voluntarily to become
friends or else they must be held by absolute military power or devas-
tated so as to prevent them from ever again doing harm as enemies, which
last-named policy is abhorrent to humanity and to freedom; and
Whereas the Constitution of the United States provides for constituent
communities only as States, and not as Territories, dependencies, prov-
inces, or protectorates; and
Whereas such constituent States must necessarily be, and by the Con-
stitution and laws of the United States are, made equals and placed upon
a like footing as to political rights, immunities, dignity, and power with
the several States with which they are united; and
Whereas the observance of political equality, as a principle of right
and justice, is well calculated to encourage the people of the aforesaid
States to be and become more and more constant and persevering in their
renewed allegiance; and
Whereas standing armies, military occupation, martial law, military
tribunals, and the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
432 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
are in time of peace dangerous to public liberty, incompatible with the
individual rights of the citizen, contrary to the genius and spirit of our
free institutions, and exhaustive of the national resources, and ought not,
therefore, to be sanctioned or allowed except in cases of actual necessity
for repelling invasion or suppressing insurrection or rebellion; and
Whereas the policy of the Government of the United States from the
beginning of the insurrection to its overthrow and final suppression has
been in conformity with the principles herein set forth and enumerated:
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
do hereby proclaim and declare that the insurrection which heretofore
existed in the States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Caro-
lina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida
is at an end and is henceforth to be so regarded.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 2d day of April, A. D.
1866, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the ninetieth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wiivi^iAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States op America.
To all whom it may concern:
Whereas the exequatur of Claudius Edward Habicht, recognizing him
as consul of Sweden and Norway at New York, and that of S. M. Sven-
son as vice-consul of Sweden and Norway at New Orleans were formally
revoked on the 26th day of March last; and
Whereas representations have been made to me since that date which
have effectually relieved those gentlemen from the charges of unlawful
and unfriendly conduct heretofore entertained against them:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States of America, do hereby annul the revocation of the exe-
quaturs of the said Claudius Edward Habicht and S. M. Svenson and
restore to them the right to exercise the functions and privileges here-
tofore granted as consular officers of the Government of Sweden and
Norway.
In testimony whereof I' have hereunto signed my name and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed.
r -I Done at the city of Washington, this 30th day of May,
A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United States the
ninetieth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
Andrew Johnson 433
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas it has become known to me that certain evil-disposed persons
have, within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States, begun
and set on foot and have provided and prepared, and are still engaged in
providing and preparing, means for a military expedition and enterprise,
which expedition and enterprise is to be carried on from the territory
and jurisdiction of the United States against colonies, districts, and peo-
ple of British North America, within the dominions of the United King-
dom of Great Britain and Ireland, with which said colonies, districts, and
people and Kingdom the United States are at peace; and
Whereas the proceedings aforesaid constitute a high misdemeanor, for-
bidden by the laws of the United States as well as by the law of nations:
Now, therefore, for the purpose of preventing the carrying on of the
unlawful expedition and enterprise aforesaid from the territory and juris-
diction of the United States and to maintain the public peace as well as
the national honor and enforce obedience and respect to the laws of the
United States, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do
admonish and warn all good citizens of the United States against taking
part in or in any wise aiding, countenancing, or abetting said unlawful pro-
ceedings; and I do exhort all judges, magistrates, marshals, and officers
in the service of the United States to employ all their lawful authority
and power to prevent and defeat the aforesaid unlawful proceedings and
to arrest and bring to justice all persons who may be engaged therein.
And, pursuant to the act of Congress in such case made and provided, I
do furthermore authorize and empower Major- General George G. Meade,
commander of the Military Division of the Atlantic, to employ the land
and naval forces of the United States and the militia thereof to arrest and
prevent the setting on foot and carrying on the expedition and enter-
prise aforesaid.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed,
r -| Done at the city of Washington, this 6th day of June,
A. p. 1866, and of the Independence of the United States the
ninetieth. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii^WAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas a war is existing in the Republic of Mexico, aggravated by
foreign military intervention; and
Whereas the United States, in accordance with their settled habits and
' M P— VOL VI— 28
434 Messages and Papers of the Presideiits
policy, are a neutral power in regard to the war which thus afflicts the
Republic of Mexico; and
, Whereas it has become known that one of the belligerents in the said
war, namely, the Prince Maximilian, who asserts himself to be Emperor
in Mexico, has issued a decree in regard to the port of Matamoras and
other Mexican ports which are in the occupation and possession of another
of the said belligerents, namely, the United States of Mexico, which decree
is in the following words:
The port of Matamoras and all those of the northern frontier which have with-
drawn from their obedience to the Government are closed to foreign and coasting
traffic during such time as the empire of the law shall not be therein reinstated.
Art. 2. Merchandise proceeding from the said ports, on arriving at any other
where the excise of the Empire is collected, shall pay the duties on importation,
introduction, and consumption, and, on satisfactory proof of contravention, shall be
irremissibly confiscated. Our minister of the treasury is charged with the punctual
execution of this decree.
Given at Mexico, the 9th of July, 1866.
And whereas the decree thus recited, by declaring a belligerent block-
ade unsupported by competent military or naval force, is in violation of
the neutral rights of the United States as defined by the law of nations
as well as of the treaties existing between the United States of America
and the aforesaid United States of Mexico:
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
do hereby proclaim and declare that the aforesaid decree is held and will
be held by the United States to be absolutely null and void as against
the Government and citizens of the United States, and that any attempt
which shall be made to enforce the same against the Government or the
citizens of the United States will be disallowed.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, the 17th day of August,
A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninety-first. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
WlIvI^IAM H. Sbward,
Secretary of State.
By th:^ PimsiDEjNT of thk United Statks of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas by proclamations of the 15th and 19th of April, 1861, the
President of the United States, in virtue of the power vested in him by
the Constitution and the laws, declared that the laws of the United
States were opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in the States
of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Texas by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary
Andrew Johnson 435
course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals
by law; and
Whereas by another proclamation, made on the i6th day of August,
in the same year, in pursuance of an act of Congress approved Jul}^ 13,
1 86 1, the inhabitants of the States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, lyouisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mis-
sissippi, and Florida (except the inhabitants of that part of the State of
Virginia lying west of the Alleghany Mountains, and except also the
inhabitants of such other parts of that State and the other States before
named as might maintain a loyal adhesion to the Union and the Consti-
tution or might be from time to time occupied and controlled by forces of
the United States engaged in the dispersion of insurgents) were declared
to be in a state of insurrection against the United States; and
Whereas by another proclamation, of the ist day of July, 1862, issued
in pursuance of an act of Congress approved June 7, in the same year, the
insurrection was declared to be still existing in the States aforesaid, with
the exception of certain specified counties in the State of Virginia; and
Whereas by another proclamation, made on the 2d day of April, 1863,
in pursuance of the act of Congress of July 13, 1861, the exceptions
named in the proclamation of August 16, 1861, were revoked and the
inhabitants of the States of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Alabama, I^ouisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida,
and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties of Virginia designated as
West Virginia and the ports of New Orleans, Key West, Port Royal,
and Beaufort, in North Carolina) were declared to be still in a state of
insurrection against the United States; and
Whereas by another proclamation, of the 15th day of September, 1863,
made in pursuance of the act of Congress approved March 3, 1863, the
rebellion was declared to be still existing and the privilege of the writ
of habeas corpus was in certain specified cases suspended throughout the
United States, said suspension to continue throughout the duration of
the rebellion or until said proclamation should, by a subsequent one to be
issued by the President of the United States, be modified or revoked; and
Whereas the House of Representatives, on the 22d day of July, 1861,
adopted a resolution in the words following, namely:
Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States,
That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the dis-
unionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional Govern-
ment and in arms around the capital; that in this national emergency Congress,
banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to
the whole country; that this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppres-
sion, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or
interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend
and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union, with all
the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; and that as soon
as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.
436 Messages aitd Papers of the Presidents
And whereas the Senate of the United States, on the 25th day of July,
1 86 1, adopted a resolution in the words following, to wit:
' Resolved^ That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country
by the disunionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional
Government and in arms around the capital; that in this national emergency Con-
gress, banishing all feeling of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its
duty to the whole country; that this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any
spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose
of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those
States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws
made in pursuance thereof and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality,
and rights of the several States unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accom-
plished the war ought to cease.
And whereas these resolutions, though not joint or concurrent in form,
are substantially identical, and as such have hitherto been and yet are
regarded as having expressed the sense of Congress upon the subject to
which they relate; and
Whereas the President of the United States, by proclamation of the
13th of June, 1865, declared that the insurrection in the State of Ten-
nessee had been suppressed, and that the authority of the United States
therein was undisputed, and that such United States officers as had been
duly commissioned were in the undisturbed exercise of their official func-
tions; and
Whereas the President of the United States, by further proclamation,
issued on the 2d day of April, 1866, did promulgate and declare that
there no longer existed any armed resistance of misguided citizens or
others to the authority of the United States in any or in all the States
before mentioned, excepting only the State of Texas, and did further
promulgate and declare that the laws could be sustained and enforced in
the several States before mentioned, except Texas, by the proper civil
authorities, State or Federal, and that the people of the said States,
except Texas, are well and loyally disposed and have conformed or will
conform in their legislation to the condition of affairs growing out of the
amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibiting slavery
within the limits and jurisdiction of the United States;
And did further declare in the same proclamation that it is the mani-
fest determination of the American people that no State, of its own
will, has a right or power to go out of, or separate itself from, or be sepa-
rated from, the American Union; and that, therefore, each State ought
to remain and constitute an integral part of the United States;
And did further declare in the same last-mentioned proclamation that
the several aforementioned States, excepting Texas, had in the manner
aforesaid given satisfactory evidence that they acquiesce in this sovereign
and important resolution of national unity; and
Whereas the President of the United States in the same proclamation
did further declare that it is believed to be a fundamental principle of
Andrew Johnson 437
government that the people who have revolted and who have been over-
come and subdued must either be dealt with so as to induce them volun-
tarily to become friends or else they must be held by absolute military
power or devastated so as to prevent them from ever again doing harm
as enemies, which last-named policy is abhorrent to humanity and to
freedom; and
Whereas the President did in the same proclamation further declare
that the Constitution of the United States provides for constituent com-
munities only as States, and not as Territories, dependencies, provinces,
or protectorates;
And further, that such constituent States must necessarily be, and by
the Constitution and laws of the United States are, made equals and
placed upon a like footing as to political rights, immunities, dignity,
and power with the several States with which they are united;
And did further declare that the observance of political equality, as a
principle of right and justice, is well calculated to encourage the people
of the before-named States, except Texas, to be and to become more and
more constant and persevering in their renewed allegiance; and
Whereas the President did further declare that standing armies, mili-
tary occupation, martial law, military tribunals, and the suspension of the
writ of habeas corpus are in time of peace dangerous to public liberty,
incompatible with the individual rights of the citizen, contrary to the
genius and spirit of our free institutions, and exhaustive of the national
resources, and ought not, therefore, to be sanctioned or allowed except
in cases of actual necessity for repelling invasion or suppressing insur-
rection or rebellion;
And the President did further, in the same proclamation, declare that
the policy of the Government of the United States from the beginning
of the insurrection to its overthrow and final suppression had been con-
ducted in conformity with the principles in the last-named proclamation
recited; and
Whereas the President, in the said proclamation of the 13th of June,
1865, upon the grounds therein stated and hereinbefore recited, did then
and thereby proclaim and declare that the insurrection which heretofore
existed in the several States before named, except in Texas, was at an
end and was henceforth to be so regarded; and
Whereas subsequently to the said 2d day of April, 1866, the insur-
rection in the State of Texas has been completely and everywhere sup-
pressed and ended and the authority of the United States has been
successfully and completely established in the said State of Texas and
now remains therein unresisted and undisputed, and such of the proper
United States officers as have been duly commissioned within the limits
of the said State are now in the undisturbed exercise of their official
functions; and
Whereas the laws can now be sustained and enforced in the said State
438 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of Texas by the proper civil authority, State or Federal, and the people
of the said State of Texas, like the people of the other States before
named, are well and loyally disposed and have conformed or will conform
in their legislation to the condition of affairs growing out of the amend-
ment of the Constitution of the United States prohibiting slavery within
the limits and jurisdiction of the United States; and
Whereas all the reasons and conclusions set forth in regard to the
several States therein specially named now apply equally and in air re-
spects to the State of Texas, as well as to the other States which had
been involved in insurrection; and
Whereas adequate provision has been made by military orders to en-
force the execution of the acts of Congress, aid the civil authorities, and
secure obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States within
the State of Texas if a resort to military force for such purpose should
at any time become necessary:
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
do hereby proclaim and declare that the insurrection which heretofore
existed in the State of Texas is at an end and is to be henceforth so
regarded in that State as in the other States before named in which the
vSaid insurrection was proclaimed to be at an end by the aforesaid procla-
mation of the 2d day of April, 1866.
And I do further proclaim that the said insurrection is at an end
and that peace, order, tranquillity, and civil authority now exist in and
throughout the whole of the United States of America.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed.
P 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of August,
A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninety-first. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
WlIvIvIAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
By the Prejsidknt of the United States.
A PROCLAMATION.
Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, has been pleased to vouchsafe
to us as a people another year of that national life which is an indispen-
sable condition of peace, security, and progress. That year has, more-
over, been crowned with many peculiar blessings.
The civil war that so recently closed among us has not been anywhere
reopened; foreign intervention has ceased to excite alarm or apprehen-
sion; intrusive pestilence has been benignly mitigated; domestic tran-
quillity has improved, sentiments of conciliation have largely prevailed.
Andrew Johnson 439
and affections of loyalty and patriotism have been widely renewed; our
fields have yielded quite abundantly, our mining industry has been
richly rewarded, and we have been allowed to extend our railroad system
fer into the interior recesses of the country, while our commerce has
resumed its customary activity in foreign seas.
These great national blessings demand a national acknowledgment.
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
do hereby recommend that Thursday, the 29th day of November next,
be set apart and be observed everywhere in the several States and Terri-
tories of the United States by the people thereof as a day of thanksgiv-
ing and praise to Almighty God, with due remembrance that "in His
temple doth every man speak of His honor. ' ' I recommend also that
on the same solemn occasion they do humbly and devoutly implore Him
to grant to our national councils and to our whole people that divine
wisdom which alone can lead any -nation into the ways of all good.
In offering these national thanksgivings, praises, and supplications
we have the divine assurance that ''the Lord remaineth a king forever;
them that are meek shall He guide in judgment and such as are gentle
shall He learn His way; the Lord shall give strength to His people,
and the Lord shall give to His people the blessing of peace. ' '
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 8th day of October,
A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United States the
ninety-first. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, April 9, 1866.]
KxKCuTivK Mansion, April 7, 1866.
It is eminently right and proper that the Government of the United
States should give earnest and substantial evidence of its just apprecia-
tion of the services of the patriotic men who when the life of the nation
was imperiled entered the Army and Navy to preserve the integrity of the
Union, defend the Government, and maintain and perpetuate unimpaired
its free institutions.
It is therefore directed —
First. That in appointments to office in the several Executive Depart-
ments of the General Government and the various branches of the pub-
lic service connected with said Departments preference shall be given to
440 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
such meritorious and honorably discharged soldiers and sailors — particu-
larly those who have been disabled by wounds received or diseases con-
tracted in the line of duty — as may possess the proper qualifications.
Second. That in all promotions in said Departments and the several
branches of the public service connected therewith such persons shall
have preference, when equally eligible and qualified, over those who have
not faithfully and honorably served in the land or naval forces of the
United States. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Dkpartmknt of State,
Washington, April zj, 1866.
On the 14th of April, 1865, great affliction was brought upon the Amer-
ican people b}^ the assassination of the lamented Abraham Lincoln, then
President of the United States. The undersigned is therefore directed
by the President to announce that in commemoration of that event the
public offices will be closed to-morrow, the 14th instant.
WIIvIvIAM H. SEWARD.
Gknkrai. Orders, No. 26.
War Department,
Adjutant- Generai^'s Office,
Washington, May z, 1866.
Order in Rei^ation to TriaIvS by Mii^itary Courts and
Commissions.
Whereas some military commanders are embarrassed by doubts as to
the operation of the proclamation of the President dated the 2d day of
April, 1866, upon trials by military courts-martial and military officers;
to remove such doubts —
// is ordered by the President, That hereafter, whenever offenses com-
mitted by civilians are to be tried where civil tribunals are in existence
which can try them, their cases are not authorized to be, and will not be,
brought before military courts-martial or commissions, but will be com-
mitted to the proper civil authorities. This order is not applicable to
camp followers, as provided for under the sixtieth article of war, or to
contractors and others specified in section 16, act of July 17, 1862, and
sections i and 2, act of March 2, 1863. Persons and offenses cognizable
by the Rules and Articles of War and by the acts of Congress above cited
will continue to be tried and punished by military tribunals as prescribed
by the Rules and Articles of War and acts of Congress hereinafter cited,
to wit:
[Sixtieth of the Rules and Articles of War.]
60. All sutlers and retainers to the camp, and all persons whatsoever serving with
the armies of the United States in the field, though not enlisted soldiers, are to be
subject to orders, according to the rules and discipline of war.
Andrew Johnson 441
[Extract from "An act to define the pay and emoluments of certain officers of the Army, and for
other purposes," approved July 17, 1862.]
Sec, t6. And be it further enacted, That whenever any contractor for subsistence,
clothing, arms, ammunition, munitions of war, and for every description of supplies
for the Army or Navy of the United States, shall be found guilty by a court-martial
of fraud or willful neglect of duty, he shall be punished by fine, imprisonment, or
such other punishment as the court-martial shall adjudge; and any person who shall
contract to furnish supplies of any kind or description for the Army or Navy, he
shall be deemed and taken as a part of the land or naval forces of the United States
for which he shall contract to furnish said supplies, and be subject to the rules and
regulations for the government of the land and naval forces of the United States.
[Extract from "An act to prevent and punish frauds upon the Government of the United States,"
approved March 2, 1863.]
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled, That any person in the land or naval forces of the
United States, or in the militia in actual service of the United States in time of war,
who shall make or cause to be made, or present or cause to be presented for payment
or approval to or by any person or officer in the civil or military service of the United
States, any claim upon or against the Government of the United States, or any de-
partment or officer thereof, knowing such claim to be false, fictitious, or fraudulent;
any person in such forces or service who shall, for the purpose of obtaining or aiding
in obtaining the approval or payment of such claim, make, use, or cause to be made
or used, any false bill, receipt, voucher, entry, roll, account, claim, statement, certifi-
cate, affidavit, or deposition, knowing the same to contain any false or fraudulent
statement or entry; any person in said forces or service who shall make or procure
to be made, or knowingly advise the making of, any false oath to any fact, statement,
or certificate, voucher or entry, for the purpose of obtaining or of aiding to obtain
any approval or payment of any claim against the United States, or any depart-
ment or officer thereof; any person n said forces or service who, for the purpose of
obtaining or enabling any other person to obtain from the Government of the
United States, or any department or officer thereof, any payment or allowance, or
the approval or signature of any person in the military, naval, or civil service of the
United States of or to any false, fraudulent, or fictitious claim, shall forge or coun-
terfeit, or cause or procure to be forged or counterfeited, any signature upon any bill,
receipt, voucher, account, claim, roll, statement, affidavit, or deposition; and any per-
son in said forces or service who shall utter or use the same as true or genuine,
knowing the same to have been forged or counterfeited; any person in said forces
or service who shall enter into any agreement, combination, or conspiracy to cheat or
defraud the Government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof,
by obtaining or aiding and assisting to obtain the payment or allowance of any false
or fraudulent claim; any person in said forces or service who shall steal, embezzle, or
knowingly and willfully misappropriate or apply to his own use or benefit, or who
shall wrongfully and knowingly sell, convey, or dispose of any ordnance, arms, am-
munition, clothing, subsistence stores, money, or other property of the United States,
furnished or to be used for the military or naval service of the United States; any
contractor, agent, paymaster, quartermaster, or other person whatsoever in said forces
or service having charge, possession, custody, or control of any money or other public
property used or to be used in the military or naval service of the United States, who
shall, with intent to defraud the United States, or willfully to conceal such money or
other property, deliver or cause to be delivered to any other person having authority
to receive the same any amount of such money or other public property less than
that for which he shall receive a certificate or receipt; any person in said forces
or ser\nce who is or shall be authorized to make or deliver any certificate, voucher, or
442 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
receipt, or other paper certifying tfie receipt of arms, ammunition, provisions, cloth-
ing, or other public property so used or to be used, who shall make or deliver the
same to any person without having full knowledge of the truth of the facts stated
therein, and with intent to cheat, defraud, or injure the United States; any person
in said forces or service who shall knowingly purchase or receive, in pledge for
any obligation or indebtedness, from any soldier, officer, or other person called into
or employed in said forces or service, any arms, equipments, ammunition, clothes, or
military stores, or other public property, such soldier, officer, or other person not
having the lawful right to pledge or sell the same, shall be deemed guilty of a crim-
inal offense, and shall be subject to the rules and regulations made for the gov-
ernment of the military and naval forces of the United States, and of the militia
when called into and employed in the actual service of the United States in time
of war, and to the provisions of this act. And every person so offending may be
arrested and held for trial by a court-martial, and if found guilty shall be punished
by fine and imprisonment, or such other punishment as the court-martial may
adjudge, save the punishment of death.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted. That any person heretofore called or hereafter
to be called into or employed in such forces or service who shall commit any viola-
tion of this act, and shall afterwards receive his discharge or be dismissed from the
service, shall, notwithstanding such discharge or dismissal, continue to be liable to
be arrested and held for trial and sentence by a court-martial in the same manner
and to the same extent as if he had not received such discharge or been djsmissed.
* * * * * ^ *
By order of the Secretary of War:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
* ExKCuTivK Mansion, May 2g, 1866.
The President with profound sorrow announces to the people of the
United States the death of Winfield Scott, the late Lieutenant- General
of the Army. On the day which may be appointed for his funeral the
several Executive Departments of the Government will be closed.
The heads of the War and Navy Departments will respectively give
orders for paying appropriate honors to the memory of the deceased.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
[From the Daily National Intelligencer, June 6, 1866.]
Attornky-GknkraIv's Office,
Washington, D. C. , /une 5, 1S66.
By direction of the President, you* are hereby instructed to cause the
arrest of all prominent, leading, or conspicuous persons called ** Fenians"
who you may have probable cause to believe have been or may be guilty
of violations of the neutrality laws of the United States.
JAMES SPEED,
Attorney-General.
♦Addressed to district attorneys and marshals of the United States.
Andrew Johnson 443
D:epARTMBNT OF State,
Washington, Jufie 18, 1866.
The President directs the undersigned to perform the painful duty
of announcing to the people of the United States that lycwis Cass, dis-
tinguished not more by faithful service in varied public trusts than by
exalted patriotism at a recent period of political disorder, departed this
life at 4 o'clock yesterday morning. The several Executive Departments
of the Government will cause appropriate honors to be rendered to the
memory of the deceased at home and abroad wherever the national name
and authority are acknowledged.
WII.I.IAM H. SEWARD.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, D. C, October 26, 1866.
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.
Sir: Recent advices indicate an early evacuation of Mexico by the
French expeditionary forces and that the time has arrived when our min-
ister to Mexico should place himself in communication with that Republic.
In furtherance of the objects of his mission and as evidence of the ear-
nest desire felt by the United States for the proper adjustment of the
questions involved, I deem it of great importance that General Grant
should by his presence and advice cooperate with our minister.
I have therefore to ask that you will request General Grant to proceed
to some point on our Mexican frontier most suitable and convenient for
communication with our minister, or (if General Grant deems it best) to
accompany him to his destination in Mexico, and to give him the aid of
his advice in carrying out the instructions of the Secretary of State, a*
copy of which is herewith sent for the General's information.
General Grant will make report to the Secretary of War of such mat-
ters as, in his discretion, ought to be communicated to the Department.
Very respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
Executive Mansion,
Washing to?i. D. C, , October jo, 1866,'
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.
Sir: General Ulysses S. Grant having found it inconvenient to assume
the duties specified in my letter to you of the 26th instant, you will please
relieve him from the same and assign them in all respects to William T.
Sherman, Lieutenant -General of the Army of the United States. By way
of guiding General Sherman in the performance of his duties, you will
furnish him with a copy of your special orders to General Grant, made
in compliance with my letter of the 26th instant, together with a copy
444 Messages and Papers of the Presideitts
of the instructions of the Secretary of State to Lewis D. Campbell, esq.,
therein mentioned. The Lieutenant- General will proceed to the execu-
t:ion of his duties without delay.
Very respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
KxKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, November i, 1866.
Hon. Sdwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.
Sir: In the report of General Grant of the 27th ultimo, inclosed in
your communication of that date, reference is made to the force at pres-
ent stationed in the Military Department of Washington (which embraces
the District of Columbia, the counties of Alexander and Fairfax, Va. ,
and the States of Maryland and Delaware), and it is stated that the
entire number of troops comprised in the command is 2,224, of which
only 1,550 are enumerated as "effective." In view of the prevalence
in various portions of the country of a revolutionary and turbulent dis-
position, which might at any moment assiime insurrectionary proportions
and lead to serious disorders, and of the duty of the Government to be at
all times prepared to act with decision and effect, this force is not deemed
adequate for the protection and security of the seat of Government.
I therefore request that you will at once take such measures as will
insure its safety, and thus discourage any attempt for its possession by
insurgent or other illegal combinations.
Very respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, D. C, November 2, 1866.
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.
Sir: There is ground to apprehend danger of an insurrection in Balti-
more against the constituted authorities of the State of Maryland on or
about the day of the election soon to be held in that city, and that in
such contingency the aid of the United States might be invoked under
the acts of Congress which pertain to that subject. While I am averse
to any military demonstration that would have a tendency to interfere
with the free exercise of the elective franchise in Baltimore or be con-
strued into any interference in local questions, I feel great solicitude
that should an insurrection take place the Government should be pre-
pared to meet and promptly put it down. I accordingly desire you to
call General Grant's attention to the subject, leaving to his own dis-
cretion and judgment the measures of preparation and precaution that
should be adopted.
Very respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 445
SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.
Washington, December j, 1866.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
After a brief interval the Congress of the United States resumes its
annual legislative labors. An all- wise and merciful Providence has abated
the pestilence which visited our shores, leaving its calamitous traces upon
some portions of our country. Peace, order, tranquillity, and civil author-
ity have been formally declared to exist throughout the whole of the
United States. In all of the States civil authority has superseded the
coercion of arms, and the people, by their voluntary action, are maintain-
ing their governments in full activity and complete operation. The
enforcement of the laws is no longer * ' obstructed in any State by combi-
nations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial
proceedings," and the animosities engendered by the war are rapidly
yielding to the beneficent influences of our free institutions and to the
kindly effects of unrestricted social and commercial intercourse. An
entire restoration of fraternal feeling must be the earnest wish of every
patriotic heart; and we will have accomplished our grandest national
achievement when, forgetting the sad events of the past and remember-
ing only their instructive lessons, we resume our onward career as a free,
prosperous, and united people.
In my message of the 4th of December, 1865, Congress was informed of
the measures which had been instituted by the Executive with a view
to the gradual restoration of the States in which the insurrection occurred
to their relations with the General Government. Provisional governors
had been appointed, conventions called, governors elected, legislatures
assembled, and Senators and Representatives chosen to the Congress of
the United States. Courts had been opened for the enforcement of laws
long in abeyance. The blockade had been removed, custom-houses rees-
tablished, and the internal-revenue laws put in force, in order that the
people might contribute to the national income. Postal operations had
been renewed, and efforts were being made to restore them to their former
condition of efficiency. The States themselves had been asked to take
part in the high function of amending the Constitution, and of thus sanc-
tioning the extinction of African slavery as one of the legitimate results
of our internecine struggle.
Having progressed thus far, the executive department found that it had
accomplished nearly all that was within the scope of its constitutional
authority. One thing, however, yet remained to be done before the work
of restoration could be completed, and that was the admission to Congress
of loyal Senators and Representatives from the States whose people had
rebelled against the lawful authority of the General Government. This
446 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
question devolved upon the respective Houses, which by the Constitution
are made the judges of the elections, returns, and qualifications of their
own members, and its consideration at once engaged the attention of
Congress.
In the meantime the executive department — no other plan having been
proposed by Congress — continued its efforts to perfect, as far as was prac-
ticable, the restoration of the proper relations between the citizens of the
respective States, the States, and the Federal Government, extending
from time to time, as the public interests seemed to require, the judicial,
revenue, and postal systems of the country. With the advice and con-
sent of the Senate, the necessary officers were appointed and appropria-
tions made by Congress for the payment of their salaries. The proposition
to amend the Federal Constitution, so as to prevent the existence of slavery
within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction, was
ratified by the requisite number of States, and on the i8th day of Decem-
ber, 1865, it was officially declared to have become valid as a part of the
Constitution of the United States. All of the States in which the insurrec-
tion had existed promptly amended their constitutions so as to make them
conform to the great change thus effected in the organic law of the land;
declared null and void all ordinances and laws of secession; repudiated
all pretended debts and obligations created for the revolutionary purposes
of the insurrection, and proceeded in good faith to the enactment of meas-
ures for the protection and amelioration of the condition of the colored
race. Congress, however, 3^et hesitated to admit any of these States to
representation, and it was not until toward the close of the eighth month
of the session that an exception was made in favor of Tennessee by the
admission of her Senators and Representatives.
I deem it a subject of profound regret that Congress has thus far failed
to admit to seats loyal Senators and Representatives from the other
States whose inhabitants, with those of Tennessee, had engaged in the
rebellion. Ten States — more than one-fourth of the whole number —
remain without representation; the seats of fifty members in the House
of Representatives and of twenty members in the Senate are yet vacant,
not by their own consent, not by a failure of election, but by the refusal
of Congress to accept their credentials. Their admission, it is believed,
would have accomplished much toward the renewal and strengthening
of our relations as one people and removed serious cause for discontent
on the part of the inhabitants of those States. It would have accorded
with the great principle enunciated in the Declaration of American In-
dependence that no people ought to bear the burden of taxation and yet
be denied the right of representation. It would have been in consonance
with the express provisions of the Constitution that "each State shall
have at least one Representative" and "that no State, without its con-
sent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." These pro-
visions were intended to secure to every State and to the people of every
Andrew Johnson 447
State the right of representation in each House of Congress; and so
important was it deemed by the framers of the Constitution that the
equaUty of the States in the Senate should be preserved that not even
by an amendment of the Constitution can any State, without its consent,
be denied a voice in that branch of the National Legislature.
It is true it has been assumed that the existence of the States was
terminated by the rebellious acts of their inhabitants, and that, the in-
surrection having been suppressed, they were thenceforward to be con-
sidered merely as conquered territories. The legislative, executive, and
judicial departments of the Government have, however, with great dis-
tinctness and uniform consistency, refused to sanction an assumption so
incompatible with the nature of our republican system and with the pro-
fessed objects of the war. Throughout the recent legislation of Congress
the undeniable fact makes itself apparent that these ten political commu-
nities are nothing less than States of this Union. At the very com-
mencement of the rebellion each House declared, with a unanimity as
remarkable as it was significant, that the war wa§ not ' * waged upon our
part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of Conquest or sub-
jugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or
established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the
supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof,
and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of
the several States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects" were
"accomplished the war ought to cease." In some instances Senators
were permitted to continue their legislative functions, while in other
instances Represertatives were elected and admitted to seats after their
States had formally declared their right to withdraw from the Union
and were endeavoring to maintain that right by force of arms. All of
the States whose people were in insurrection, as States, were included
in the apportionment of the direct tax of $20,000,000 annually laid upon
the United States by the act approved 5th August, 1 86 1 . Congress, by the
act of March 4, 1862, and by the apportionment of representation there-
under also recognized their presence as States in the Union; and they
have, for judicial purposes, been divided into districts, as States alone
can be divided. The same recognition appears in the recent legislation
in reference to Tennessee, which evidently rests upon the fact that the
functions of the State were not destroyed by the rebellion, but merely sus-
pended; and that principle is of course applicable to those States which,
like Tennessee, attempted to renounce their places in the Union.
The action of the executive department of the Government upon this
subject has been equally definite and uniform, and the purpose of the war
was specifically stated in the proclamation issued by my predecessor on
the 2 2d day of September, 1862. It was then solemnly proclaimed and
declared "that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for
the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the
448 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
United States and each of the States and the people thereof in which
States that relation is or may be suspended or disturbed."
The recognition of the States by the judicial department of the Gov-
ernment has also been clear and conclusive in all proceedings affecting
them as States had in the Supreme, circuit, and district courts.
In the admission of Senators and Representatives from any and all of
the States there can be no just ground of apprehension that persons who
are disloyal will be clothed with the powers of legislation, for this could
not happen when the Constitution and the laws are enforced by a vigilant
and faithful Congress. Each House is made the "judge of the elections,
returns, and qualifications of its own members," and may, "with the
concurrence of two- thirds, expel a member. ' ' When a Senator or Rep-
resentative presents his certificate of election, he may at once be admitted
or rejected; or, should there be any question as to his eligibility, his cre-
dentials may be referred for investigation to the appropriate committee.
If admitted to a seat, it must be upon evidence satisfactory to the House
of which he thus becomes a member that he possesses the requisite con-
stitutional and fegal qualifications. If refused admission as a member
for want of due allegiance to the Government and returned to his con-
stituents, they are admonished that none but persons loyal to the United
States will be allowed a voice in the legislative councils of the nation,
and the political power and moral influence of Congress are thus effect-
ively exerted in the interests of loyalty to the Government and fidelity
to the Union. Upon this question, so vitally affecting the restoration of
the Union and the permanency of our present form of government, my
convictions, heretofore expressed, have undergone no change, but, on
the contrary, their correctness has been confirmed by reflection and time.
If the admission of loyal members to seats in the respective Houses of
Congress was wise and expedient a year ago, it is no less wise and expe-
dient now. If this anomalous condition is right now — if in the exact
condition of these States at the present time it is lawful to exclude them
from representation — I do not see that the question will be changed by
the efflux of time. Ten years hence, if these States remain as they are,
the right of representation will be no stronger, the right of exclusion
will be no weaker.
The Constitution of the United States makes it the duty of the Presi-
dent to recommend to the consideration of Congress * * such measures as
he shall judge necessary and expedient." I know of no measure more
imperatively demanded by every consideration of national interest, sound
policy, and equal justice than the admission of loyal members from the
now unrepresented States. This would consummate the work of restora-
tion and exert a most salutary influence in the reestablishment of peace,
harmony, and fraternal feeling. It would tend greatly to renew the con-
fidence of the American people in the vigor and stability of their insti-
tutions. It would bind us more closely together as a nation and enable
Andrew Johnson 449
us to show to the world the inherent and recuperative power of a gov-
ernment founded upon the will of the people and established upon the
principles of liberty, justice, and intelligence. Our increased strength
and enhanced prosperity would irrefragably demonstrate the fallacy of
the arguments against free institutions drawn from our recent national
disorders by the enemies of republican government. The admission of
loyal members from the States now excluded from Congress, by allaying
doubt and apprehension, would turn capital now awaiting an opportunity
for investment into the channels of trade and industry. It would alle-
viate the present troubled condition of those States, and by inducing
emigration aid in the settlement of fertile regions now uncultivated and
lead to an increased production of those staples which have added so
greatly to the wealth of the nation and commerce of the world. New
fields of enterprise would be opened to our progressive people, and soon
the devastations of war would be repaired and all traces of our domestic
differences effaced from the minds of our countrymen.
In our efforts to preserve * ' the unity of government which constitutes
us one people ' ' by restoring the States to the condition which they held
prior to the rebellion, we should be cautious, lest, having rescued our
nation from perils of threatened disintegration, we resort to consolidation,
and in the end absolute despotism, as a remedy for the recurrence of simi-
lar troubles. The war having terminated, and with it all occasion for
the exercise of powers of doubtful constitutionality, we should hasten to
bring legislation within the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution
and to return to the ancient landmarks established by our fathers for the
guidance of succeeding generations.
The constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic
act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. * * * If in the opinion
of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any
particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Consti-
tution designates; but let there be no change by usurpation, for * * ^ it is the
customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
Washington spoke these words to his countrymen when, followed by
their love and gratitude, he voluntarily retired from the cares of public
life. ** To keep in all things within the pale of our constitutional powers
and cherish the Federal Union as the only rock of safety ' ' were prescribed
by Jefferson as rules of action to endear to his ' * countrymen the true
principles of their Constitution and promote a union of sentiment and
action, equally auspicious to their happiness and safety." Jackson held
that the action of the General Government should always be strictly con-
fined to the sphere of its appropriate duties, and justly and forcibly urged
that our Government is not to be maintained nor our Union preserved
* * by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States. In thus
attempting to make our General Government strong we make it weak.
Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much as
M P— vol, VI— 29
450 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
possible to themselves; in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its
beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection; not in binding the
States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed
in its proper constitutional orbit. ' ' These are the teachings of men whose
deeds and services have made them illustrious, and who, long since with-
drawn from the scenes of life, have left to their country the rich legacy
of their example, their wisdom, and their patriotism. Drawing fresh
inspiration from their lessons, let us emulate them in love of country and
respect for the Constitution and the laws.
The report of the Secretary of the Treasury affords much information
respecting the revenue and commerce of the country. His views upon
the currency and with reference to a proper adjustment of our revenue
system, internal as well as impost, are commended to the careful consid-
eration of Congress. In my last annual message I expressed my general
views upon these subjects. I need now only call attention to the neces-
sity of carrying into every department of the Government a system of
rigid accountability, thorough retrenchment, and wise economy. With
no exceptional nor unusual expenditures, the oppressive burdens of taxa-
tion can be lessened by such a modification of our revenue laws as will
be consistent with the public faith and the legitimate and necessary wants
of the Government.
The report presents a much more satisfactory condition of our finances
than one year ago the most sanguine could have anticipated. During
the fiscal year ending the 30th June, 1865 (the last year of the war), the
public debt was increased $941,902,537, and on the 31st of October, 1865,
it amounted to $2,740,854,750. On the 31st day of October, 1866, it
had been reduced to $2,551,310,006, the diminution during a period of
fourteen months, commencing September i, 1865, and ending October
31, 1866, having been $206,379,565. In the last annual report on the
state of the finances it was estimated that during the three quarters of
the fiscal year ending the 30th of June last the debt would be increased
$1 12, 194,947. During that period, however, it was reduced $31, 196,387,
the receipts of the year having been $89,905,905 more and the expendi-
tures $200,529,235 less than the estimates. Nothing could more clearly
indicate than these statements the extent and availability of the national
resources and the rapidity and safety with which, under our form of gov-
ernment, great military and naval CvStablishments can be disbanded and
expenses reduced from a war to a peace footing.
During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1866, the receipts were $558,-
032,620 and the expenditures $520,750,940, leaving an available surplus
of $37,281,680. It is estimated that the receipts for the fiscal year end-
ing the 30th June, 1867, will be $475,061,386, and that the expenditures
will reach the sum of $316,428,078, leaving in the Treasury a surplus of
$158,633,308. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1886, it is estimated
that the receipts will amount to $436,000,000 and that the expendi-
Andrew Johnson 451
tures will be $350,247,641, showing an excess of $85,752,359 in favor
of the Government. These estimated receipts may be diminished by a
reduction of excise and import duties, but after all necessary reductions
shall have been made the revenue of the present and of following years
will doubtless be sufficient to cover all legitimate charges upon the Treas-
ury and leave a large annual surplus to be applied to the payment of the
principal of the debt. There seems now to be no good reason why taxes
may not be reduced as the country advances in population and wealth,
and yet the debt be extinguished within the next quarter of a century.
The report of the Secretary of War furnishes valuable and important
information in reference to the operations of his Department during the
'past year. Few volunteers now remain in the service, and they are being
'discharged as rapidly as they can be replaced by regular troops. The
Army has been promptly paid, carefully provided with medical treat-
iment, well sheltered and subsisted, and is to be furnished with breech-
[loading small arms. The military strength of the nation has been unim-
lired by the discharge of volunteers, the disposition of unserviceable
)r perishable stores, and the retrenchment of expenditure. Sufficient
[war material to meet any emergency has been retained, and from the
[disbanded volunteers standing ready to respond to the national call large
armies can be rapidly organized, equipped, and concentrated. Fortifica-
tions on the coast and frontier have received or are being prepared for
more powerful armaments; lake surveys and harbor and river improve-
ments are in course of energetic prosecution. Preparations have been
made for the payment of the additional bounties authorized during the
recent session of Congress, under such regulations as will protect the
Government from fraud and secure to the honorably discharged soldier
the well-earned reward of his faithfulness and gallantry. More than
6,000 maimed soldiers have received artificial limbs or othei: surgical
apparatus, and 41 national cemeteries, containing the remains of 104,526
Union soldiers, have already been established. The total estimate of
military appropriations is $25,205,669.
It is stated in the report of the Secretary of the Navy that the naval
force at this time consists of 278 vessels, armed with 2,351 guns. Of
these, 115 vessels, carrying 1,029 guns, are in commission, distributed
chiefly among seven squadrons. The number of men in the service is
13,600. Great activity and vigilance have been displayed by all the
squadrons, and their movements have been judiciously and efficiently
arranged in such manner as would best promote American commerce
and protect the rights and interests of our countrymen abroad. The
vessels unemployed are undergoing repairs or are laid up until their
services may be required. Most of the ironclad fleet is at League Island,
in the vicinity of Philadelphia, a place which, until decisive action
should be taken by Congress, was selected by the Secretary of the Navy
as the most eligible location for that class of vessels. It is important
452 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
that a suitable public station should be provided for the ironclad fleet.
It is intended that these vessels shall be in proper condition for any
emergency, and it is desirable that the bill accepting I^eague Island for
naval purposes, which passed the House of Representatives at its last
session, should receive final action at an early period, in order that there
may be a suitable public station for this class of vessels, as well as a navy-
yard of area sufficient for the wants of the service on the Delaware River.
The naval pension fund amounts to $11,750,000, having been increased
$2,750,000 during the year. The expenditures of the Department for
the fiscal year ending 30th June last were $43,324,526, and the estimates
for the coming year amount to $23,568,436. Attention is invited to
the condition of our seamen and the importance of legislative measures
for their relief and improvement. The suggestions in behalf of this
deserving class of our fellow-citizens are earnestly recommended to the
favorable attention of Congress.
The report of the Postmaster-General presents a most satisfactory
condition of the postal service and submits recommendations which de-
serve the consideration of Congress. The revenues of the Department
for the year ending June 30, 1866, were $14,386,986 and the expenditures
$15,352,079, showing an excess of the latter of $965,093. In anticipa-
tion of this deficiency, however, a special appropriation was made by
Congress in the act approved July 28, 1866. Including the standing
appropriation of $700,000 for free mail matter as a legitimate portion of
the revenues, yet remaining unexpended, the actual deficiency for the past
year is only $265,093 — a sum within $51,141 of the amount estimated
in the annual report of 1864. The decrease of revenue compared with
the previous year was iVs per cent, and the increase of expenditures,
owing principally to the enlargement of the mail service in the South,
was 12 per cent. On the 30th of June last there were in operation 6,930
mail routes, with an aggregate length of 180,921 miles, an aggregate
annual transportation of 71,837,914 miles, and an aggregate annual cost,
including all expenditures, of $8,410, 184. The length of railroad routes
is 32,092 miles and the annual transportation 30,609,467 miles. The
length of steamboat routes is 14,346 miles and the annual transportation
3,411,962 miles. The mail service is rapidly increasing throughout the
whole country, and its steady extension in the Southern States indicates
their constantly improving condition. The growing importance of the
foreign service also merits attention. The post-office department of
Great Britain and our own have agreed upon a preliminary basis for a
new postal convention, which it is believed will prove eminently benefi-
cial to the commercial interests of the United States, inasmuch as it con-
templates a reduction of the international letter postage to one-half the
existing rates; a reduction of postage with all other countries to and from
which correspondence is transmitted in the British mail, or in closed mails
through the United Kingdom; the establishment of uniform and reason-
Andrew Johnson 453
able charges for the sea and territorial transit of correspondence in closed
mails; and an allowance to each ^ost-office department of the right to
use all mail communications established under the authority of the other
for the dispatch of correspondence, either in open or closed mails, on the
same terms as those applicable to the inhabitants of the country provid-
ing the means of transmission.
The report of the Secretary of the Interior exhibits the condition of
those branches of the public service which are committed to his super-
vision. During the last fiscal year 4,629,312 acres of public land were
disposed of, 1,892,516 acres of which were entered under the homestead
act. The policy originally adopted relative to the public lands has under-
gone essential modifications. Immediate revenue, and not their rapid
settlement, was the cardinal feature of our land system. I^ong experi-
ence and earnest discuSvSion have resulted in the conviction that the early
development of our agricultural resources and the diffusion of an ener-
getic population over our vast territory are objects of far greater impor-
tance to the national growth and prosperity than the proceeds of the
sale of the land to the highest bidder in open market. The preemption
laws confer upon the pioneer who complies with the terms they impose
the privilege of purchasing a limited portion of ' ' unoffered lands ' ' at the
minimum price. The homestead enactments relieve the settler from
the payment of purchase money, and secure him a permanent home upon
the condition of residence for a term of years. This liberal policy invites
emigration from the Old and from the more crowded portions of the
New World. Its propitious results are undoubted, and will be more
signally manifested when time shall have given to it a wider development.
Congress has made liberal grants of public land to corporations in aid
of the construction of railroads and other internal improvements. Should
this policy hereafter prevail, more stringent provisions will be required to
secure a faithful application of the fund. The title to the lands should
not pass, by patent or otherwise, but remain in the Government and sub-
ject to its control until some portion of the road has been actually built.
Portions of them might then from time to time be conveyed to the cor-
poration, but never in a greater ratio to the whole quantity embraced by
the grant than the completed parts bear to the entire length of the pro-
jected improvement. This restriction would not operate to the prejudice
of any undertaking conceived in good faith and executed with reasonable
energy, as it is the settled practice to withdraw from market the lands
falling within the operation of such grants, and thus to exclude the incep-
tion of a subsequent adverse right. A breach of the conditions which
Congress may deem proper to impose should work a forfeiture of claim to
the lands so withdrawn but unconveyed, and of title to the lands conveyed
which remain unsold.
Operations on the several lines of the Pacific Railroad have been pros-
ecuted with unexampled vigor and success. Should no unforeseen causes
454 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of delay occur, it is confidently anticipated that this great thorough-
fare will be completed before the expiration of the period designated by
Congress.
During the last fiscal year the amount paid to pensioners, including
the expenses of disbursement, was $13,459,996, and 50,177 names were
added to the pension rolls. The entire number of pensioners June 30,
1866, was 126,722. This fact furnishes melancholy and striking proof
of the sacrifices made to vindicate the constitutional authority of the
Federal Government and to maintain inviolate the integrity of the Union.
They impose upon us corresponding obligations. It is estimated that
$33,000,000 will be required to meet the exigencies of this branch of the
service during the next fiscal year.
Treaties have been concluded v^dth the Indians, who, enticed into armed
opposition to our Government at the outbreak of the rebellion, have
unconditionally submitted to our authority and manifested an earnest
desire for a renewal of friendly relations.
During the year ending September 30, 1866, 8,716 patents for useful
inventions and designs were issued, and at that date the balance in the
Treasury to the credit of the patent fund was $228,297.
As a subject upon which depends an immense amount of the produc-
tion and commerce of the country, I recommend to Congress such leg-
islation as may be necessary for the preservation of the levees of the
Mississippi River. It is a matter of national importance that early steps
should be taken, not only to add to the efficiency of these barriers against
destructive inundations, but for the removal of all obstructions to the
free and safe navigation of that great channel of trade and commerce.
The District of Columbia under existing laws is not entitled to that rep-
resentation in the national councils which from our earliest history has
been uniformly accorded to each Territory established from time to time
within our limits. It maintains peculiar relations to Congress, to whom
the Constitution has granted the power of exercising exclusive legisla-
tion over the seat of Government. Our fellow-citizens residing in the
District, whose interests are thus confided to the special guardianship
of Congress, exceed in number the population of several 'of our Territo-
ries, and no just reason is perceived why a Delegate of their choice should
not be admitted to a seat in the House of Representatives. No mode
seems so appropriate and effectual of enabling them to make known their
peculiar condition and wants and of securing the local legislation adapted
to them. I therefore recommend the passage of a law authorizing the
electors of the District of Columbia to choose a Delegate, to be allowed
the same rights and privileges as a Delegate representing a Territory.
The increasing enterprise and rapid progress of improvement in the Dis-
trict are highly gratifying, and I trust that the efforts of the municipal
authorities to promote the prosperity of the national metropolis will
receive the efficient and generous cooperation of Congress.
Andrew Johnson 455
The report of the Commissioner of Agriculture reviews the operations
of his Department during the past year, and asks the aid of Congress in
its efforts to encourage those States which, scourged by war, are now
earnestly engaged in the reorganization of domestic industry.
It is a subject of congratulation that no foreign combinations against
our domestic peace and safety or our legitimate influence among the
nations have been formed or attempted. While sentiments of reconcil-
iation, loyalty, and patriotism have increased at home, a more just con-
sideration of our national character and rights has been manifested by
foreign nations.
The entire success of the Atlantic telegraph between the coast of Ire-
land and the Province of Newfoundland is an achievement which has
been justly celebrated in both hemispheres as the opening of an era in
the progress of civilization. There is reason to expect that equal success
will attend and even greater results follow the enterprise for connecting
the two continents through the Pacific Ocean by the projected line of
telegraph between Kamchatka and the Russian possessions in America.
The resolution of Congress protesting against pardons by foreign gov-
ernments of persons convicted of infamous offenses on condition of emi-
gration to our country has been communicated to the states with which
we maintain intercourse, and the practice, so justly the subject of com-
plaint on our part, has not been renewed.
The congratulations of Congress to the Emperor of Russia upon his
escape from attempted assassination have been presented to that humane
and enlightened ruler and received by him with expressions of grateful
appreciation.
The Executive, warned of an attempt by Spanish American adven-
turers to induce the emigration of freedmen of the United States to a for-
eign country, protested against the project as one which, if consummated,
would reduce them to a bondage even more oppressive than that from
which they have just been relieved. Assurance has been received
from the Government of the State in which the plan was matured that
the proceeding will meet neither its encouragement nor approval. It is
a question worthy of your consideration whether our laws upon this
subject are adequate to the prevention or punishment of the crime thus
meditated.
In the month of April last, as Congress is aware, a friendly arrange-
ment was made between the Emperor of France and the President of
the United States for the withdrawal from Mexico of the French expe-
ditionary military forces. This withdrawal was to be effected in three
detachments, the first of which, it was understood, would leave Mexico in
November, now past, the second in March next, and the third and last
in November, 1867. Immediately upon the completion of the evacuation
the French Government was to assume the same attitude of noninterven-
tion in regard to Mexico as is held hj the Government of the United
456 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
States. Repeated assurances have been given by the Emperor since that
agreement that he would complete the promised evacuation within the
period mentioned, or sooner.
It was reasonably expected that the proceedings thus contemplated
would produce a crisis of great political interest in the Republic of Mex-
ico. The newly appointed minister of the United States, Mr. Campbell,
was therefore sent forward on the 9th day of November last to assume
his proper functions as minister plenipotentiary of the United States to
that Republic. It was also thought expedient that he should be attended
in the vicinity of Mexico by the lyieutenant- General of the Army of the
United States, with the view of obtaining such information as might be
important to determine the course to be pursued by the United States
in reestablishing and maintaining necessary and proper intercourse with
the Republic of Mexico. Deeply interested in the cause of liberty and
humanity, it seemed an obvious duty on our part to exercise whatever
influence we possessed for the restoration and permanent establishment
in that country of a domestic and republican form of government.
Such was the condition of our affairs in regard to Mexico when, on the
2 2d of November last, official information was received from Paris that
the Emperor of France had some time before decided not to withdraw a
detachment of his forces in the month of November past, according to
engagement, but that this decision was made with the purpose of with-
drawing the whole of those forces in the ensuing spring. Of this deter-
mination, however, the United States had not received any notice or
intimation, and so soon as the information was received by the Govern-
ment care was taken to make known its dissent to the Emperor of
France.
I can not forego the hope that France will reconsider the subject and
adopt some resolution in regard to the evacuation of Mexico which will
conform as nearly as practicable with the existing engagement, and thus
meet the just expectations of the United States. The papers relating to
the subject will be laid before you. It is believed that with the evacuation
of Mexico by the expeditionary forces no subject for serious differences
between France and the United States would remain. The expressions of
the Emperor and people of France warrant a hope that the traditionary
friendship between the two countries might in that case be renewed and
permanently restored.
A claim of a citizen of the United States for indemnity for spoliations
committed on the high seas by the French authorities in the exercise of
a belligerent power against Mexico has been met by the Government
of France with a proposition to defer settlement until a mutual conven-
tion for the adjustment of all claims of citizens and subjects of both
countries arising out of the recent wars on this continent shall be agreed
upon by the two countries. The suggestion is not deemed unreasonable,
but it belongs to Congress to direct the manner in which claims for indem-
I
Andrew Johnson 457
nity by foreigners as well as by citizens of the United States arising out
of the late civil war shall be adjudicated and determined. I have no
doubt that the subject of all such claims will engage your attention at a
convenient and proper time.
It is a matter of regret that no considerable advance has been made
toward an adjustment of the differences between the United States and
Great Britain arising out of the depredations upon our national commerce
and other trespasses committed during our civil war by British subjects,
in violation of international law and treaty obligations. The delay, how-
ever, may be believed to have resulted in no small degree from the domes-
tic situation of Great Britain. An entire change of ministry occurred
in that country during the last session of Parliament. The attention
of the new ministry was called to the subject at an early day, and there
is some reason to expect that it will now be considered in a becoming and
friendly spirit. The importance of an early disposition of the question
can not be exaggerated. Whatever might be the wishes of the two
Governments, it is manifest that good will and friend.ship between the
two countries can not be established until a reciprocity in the practice
of good faith and neutrality shall be restored between the respective
nations.
On the 6th of June last, in violation of our neutrality laws, a military
expedition and enterprise against the British North American colonies
was projected and attempted to be carried on within the territory and
jurisdiction of the United States. In obedience to the obligation imposed
upon the Executive by the Constitution to see that the laws are faith-
fully executed, all citizens were warned by proclamation against taking
part in or aiding such unlawful proceedings, and the proper civil, mili-
tary, and naval officers were directed to take all necessary measures for
the enforcement of the laws. The expedition failed, but it has not been
without its painful consequences. Some of our citizens who, it was
alleged, were engaged in the expedition were captured, and have been
brought to trial as for a capital offense in the Province of Canada. Judg-
ment and sentence of death have been pronounced against some, while
others have been acquitted. Fully beHeving in the maxim of govern-
ment that severity of civil punishment for misguided persons who have
engaged in revolutionary attempts which have disastrously failed is un-
sound and unwise, such representations have been made to the British
Government in behalf of the convicted persons as, being sustained by an
enhghtened and humane judgment, will, it is hoped, induce in their cases
an exercise of clemency and a judicious amnesty to all who were engaged
in the movement. Counsel has been employed by the Government to
defend citizens of the United States on trial for capital offenses in Canada,
and a discontinuance of the prosecutions which were instituted in the
courts of the United States against those who took part in the expedition
has been directed.
458 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
I have regarded the expedition as not only political in its nature, but
as also in a great measure foreign from the United States in its causes,
character, and objects. The attempt was understood to be made in sym-
pathy with an insurgent party in Ireland, and by striking at a British
Province on this continent was designed to aid in obtaining redress for
political grievances which, it was assumed, the people of Ireland had suf-
fered at the hands of the British Government during a period of several
centuries. The persons engaged in it were chiefly natives of that coun-
try, some of whom had, while others had not, become citizens of the
United States under our general laws of naturalization. Complaints of
misgovernment in Ireland continually engage the attention of the British
nation, and so great an agitation is now prevailing in Ireland that the
British Government have deemed it necessary to suspend the writ of
habeas corpus in that country. These circumstances must necessarily
modify the opinion which we might otherwise have entertained in regard
to an expedition expressly prohibited by our neutrality laws. So long
as those laws remain upon our statute books they should be faithfully
executed, and if they operate harshly, unjustly, or oppressively Congress
alone can apply the remedy by their modification or repeal.
Political and commercial interests of the United States are not un-
likely to be affected in some degree by events which are transpiring in
the eastern regions of Europe, and the time seems to have come when
our Government ought to have a proper diplomatic representation in
Greece.
This Government has claimed for all persons not convicted or accused
or suspected of crime an absolute political right of self -expatriation and
a choice of new national allegiance. Most of the European States have
dissented from this principle, and have claimed a right to hold such of
their subjects as have emigrated to and been naturalized in the United
States and afterwards returned on transient visits to their native coun-
tries to the performance of military service in like manner as resident
subjects. Complaints arising from the claim in this respect made by
foreign states have heretofore been matters of controversy between the
United States and some of the European powers, and the irritation con-
sequent upon the failure to settle this question increased during the war
in which Prussia, Italy, and Austria were recently engaged. While
Great Britain has never acknowledged the right of expatriation, she has
not for some years past practically insisted upon the opposite doctrine.
France has been equally forbearing, and Prussia has proposed a com-
promise, which, although evincing increased liberality, has not been
accepted by the United States. Peace is now prevailing everywhere in
Europe, and the present seems to be a favorable time for an assertion by
Congress of the principle so long maintained by the executive depart-
ment that naturalization by one state fully exempts the native-born sub-
ject of any other state from the performance of military service under any
Andrew Johnson 459
foreign government, so long as he does not voluntarily renounce its rights
and benefits.
In the performance of a duty imposed upon me by the Constitution I
have thus submitted to the representatives of the States and of the people
such information of our domestic and foreign aif airs as the public interests
seem to require. Our Government is now undergoing its most trying
ordeal, and my earnest prayer is that the peril may be successfully and
finally passed without impairing its original strength and symmetry.
The interests of the nation are best to be promoted by the revival of
fraternal relations, the complete obliteration of our past differences, and
the reinauguration of all the pursuits of peace. Directing our efforts to
the early accomplishment of these great ends, let us endeavor to preserve
harmony between the coordinate departments of the Government, that
each in its proper sphere may cordially cooperate with the other in secur-
ing the maintenance of the Constitution, the preservation of the Union,
and the perpetuity of our free institutions.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, December 8, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In reply to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 5 th
instant, inquiring if any portion of Mexican territory has been occupied
by United States troops, I transmit the accompanying report upon the
subject from the Secretary of War. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 8, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I have the honor to communicate a report of the Secretary of State
relating to the discovery and arrest of John H. Surratt.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, December 11, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith reports from the Secretary of War and the Attor-
ney-General, in compliance with a resolutiorf of the 3d instant, request-
ing the President to communicate to the House, * * if not in his opinion
incompatible with the public interests, the information asked for in a
resolution of this House dated the 23d June last, and which resolution
he has up to this time failed to answer, as to whether any application
460 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
has been made to him for the pardon of G. E. Pickett, who acted as a
major-general of the rebel forces in the late war for the suppression of
insurrection, and, if so, what has been the action thereon; and also to
communicate copies of all papers, entries, indorsements, and other docu-
mentary evidence in relation to any proceeding in connection with such
application; and that he also inform this House whether, since the
adjournment at Raleigh, N. C. , on the 30th of March last, of the last
board or court of inquiry convened to investigate the facts attending the
hanging of a number of United States soldiers for alleged desertion from
the rebel army, any further measures have been taken to bring the said
Pickett or other perpetrators of that crime to punishment. ' '
In transmitting the accompanying pa;^ers containing the information
requested by the House of Representatives it is proper to state that,
instead of bearing date the 23d of June last, the first resolution was dated
the 23d of July, and was received by the Executive only four days before
the termination of the session. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December z/, 1866.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I communicate a translation of a letter of the 17th of August last
addressed to me by His Majesty Alexander, Emperor of Russia, in reply
to the joint resolution of Congress approved on the i6th day of May,
1866, relating to the attempted assassination of the Emperor, a certified
copy of which was, in compliance with the request of Congress, forwarded
to His Majesty by the hands of Gustavus V. Fox, late Assistant Secretary
of the Navy of the United States. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 75, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Interior, in
answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the loth
instant, in relation to the Atchison and Pikes Peak Railroad Company.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 20, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
December 4 last, requesting information ' 'relating to the attempt of Santa
Anna and Ortega to organize armed expeditions within the United States
for the purpose of overthrowing the National Government of the Republic
of Mexico, ' ' I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers
accompanying it. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 461
Washington, December 21, 1866.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 19th
instant, calling for a copy of certain correspondence relating to the joint
occupancy of the island of San Juan, in Washington Territory, I transmit
a report from the Secretary of State on the subject.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January j, iSS^/.
To the House of Representatives:
I have the honor to communicate an additional report of the Secretary
of State relating to the discovery and arrest of John H. Surratt.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, y«;22^arj/ 8, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War and the accom-
panying papers, in reply to the resolution of the House of Representa-
tives of the 13th ultimo, requesting copies of all official documents, orders,
letters, and papers of every description relative to the trial by a military
commission and conviction of Crawford Keys and others for the mur-
der of Emory Smith and others, and to the respite of the sentence in the
case of said Crawford Keys or either of his associates, their transfer to
Fort Delaware, and subsequent release upon a writ of habeas corpus.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<2;2z^«rj/ 8, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit the accompanying report from the Attorney- General as a
partial reply to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the loth
ultimo, requesting a * ' list of names of all persons engaged in the late
rebellion against the United States Government who have been pardoned
by the President from April 15, 1865, to this date; that said list shall
also state the rank of each person who has been so pardoned, if he has
been engaged in the military service of the so-called Confederate govern-
ment, and the position if he shall have held any civil office under said
so-called Confederate government; and shall also further state whether
such person has at any time prior to April 14, 1861, held any office under
the United States Government, and, if so, what office, together with the
reasons for granting such pardons and also the names of the person or
persons at whose solicitation such pardon was granted."
ANDREW JOHNSON.
462 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
W ASBl^Q'tOlii , January p, iS6y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Navy,
in answer to a resolution of the House of the 19th ultimo, requesting a
statement of the amounts charged to the State Department since May i ,
1865, for services rendered by naval vessels.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, ya/?^«rj/ p, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Navy,
with the accompanying documents, in answer to a resolution of the Senate
of the 5th ultimo, calling for copies of orders, instructions, and directions
issued from that Department in relation to the employment of officers
and others in the navy-yards of the United States, and all communica-
tions received in relation to employment at the Norfolk Navy- Yard.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
. Washington, /««2^^ry 10, i86y.
To the House of Represe7itatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to a resolution of
the 17th ultimo, calling for information relative to the revolution in Can-
dia, a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCUTivK Mansion,
Washington, fanuary z^, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of the 19th ultimo,
requesting information regarding the occupation of Mexican territory by
the troops of the United States, I transmit a report of the Secretary of
State and one of the Secretary of War, and the documents by which they
were accompanied. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 18, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with a resolution of the 19th ultimo, requesting certain
information in regard to the Universal Exposition to be held at Paris
during the present year, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State
and the documents to which it refers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 463
Washington, D. C.January zp, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I herewith communicate a report from the Secretary of the Interior, in
answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the i6th instant,
in relation to the clerks of the Federal courts and the marshal of the United
States for the district of North Carolina.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War and the accom-
panying papers, in compliance with the resoluti.jn of the House of Repre-
sentatives of the 19th ultimo, requesting copies of all papers in possession
of the President touching the case of George St. Leger Grenfel.
JANUARY 21, 1867. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<2;2««rj/ ^j, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 21st in-
stant, a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers.*
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /«?^^^arv 28, 186'/.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report f from the Secretary of State, with accom-
panying papers, in answer to the Senate's resolution of the 7th instant.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fanuary 28, 186'/.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the
7th instant, in relation to the attempted compromise of certain suits insti-
tuted in the English courts in behalf of the United States against Fraser,
Trenholm & Co. , alleged agents of the so-called Confederate government,
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the documents by
which it was accompanied. ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Correspondence with Mr. Motley, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Vienna,
relative to his reported resignation.
t Relating to an alleged emigration of citizens of the United States to the dominions of the Sub-
lime Porte for the purpose of settling and acquiring landed property there.
464 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, January 2g, 1867.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report* from the Secretary of State, in answer to
the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th instant.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fanuary 2g, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
In comphance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 12th ultimo and its request of the 28th instant for all correspond-
ence, reports, and information in my possession in relation to the riot
which occurred in the city of New Orleans on the 30th day of July last,
I transmit herewith copies of telegraphic dispatches upon the subject,
and reports from the Secretary of War, with the papers accompanying
the same. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 2^, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 4th of December last, requesting information upon the present con-
dition of affairs in the Republic of Mexico, and of one of the i8th of the
same month, desiring me to communicate to the House of Representatives
copies of all correspondence on the subject of the evacuation of Mexico
by the French troops not before officially published, I transmit a report
from the Secretary of State and the papers accompanying it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January ji, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith reports from the heads of the several Executive
Departments, containing the information in reference to appointments to
office requested in the resolution adopted by the House of Representatives
on the 6th of December last. ' ANDREW JOHNSON.
Executive) Mansion, January ji, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report by the Secretary of War of January 30,
containing the information asked for in a resolution of the House of
* stating that the Department of State has received no information concerning the removal of
the Protestant Church or religious assembly meeting at the American embassy from the city
of Rome by an order of that Government.
Andrew Johnson 465
Representatives of January 25, 1867, hereto annexed, respecting the ex-
ecution of "An act providing for the appointment of a commissioner to
examine and report upon certain claims of the State of Iowa," approved
July 25, 1866. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January jz, IBS'/.
To the Senate of the United States:
The accompanying reports from the heads of the several Executive
Departments of the Government are submitted in compliance with a res-
olution of the Senate dated the 12th ultimo, inquiring whether any per-
son appointed to an office required by law to be filled by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate, and who was commissioned during the
recess of the Senate, previous to the assembling of the present Congress,
to fill a vacancy, has been continued in such office and permitted to dis-
charge its functions, either by the granting of a new commission or
otherwise, since the end of the session of the Senate on the 28th day of
July last, without the submission of the name of such person to the Sen-
ate for its confirmation; and particularly whether a surveyor or naval
officer of the port of Philadelphia has thus been continued in office with-
out the consent of the Senate, and, if any such officer has performed the
duties of that office, whether he has received any salary or compensation
therefor. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February i, iSdy.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded the 29th day of August, 1866, between Alexander
Cummings, governor of Colorado Territory and ex officio superintendent
of Indian affairs, Hon. A. C. Hunt, and D. C. Oakes, United States Indian
agent, duly authorized and appointed as commissioners for the purpose,
and the chiefs and warriors of the Uintah Jampa, or Grand River, bands
of Utah Indians.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 31st of January, with
copy of letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 28th of Jan-
uary, 1867, together with a map showing the tract of country claimed by
paid Indians, accompany the treaty.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 4, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 2d instant, requesting
the Secretary of State to report what steps have been taken by him to
M P— voiv VI— 30
466 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
secure to the United States the right to make the necessary surveys for
an inter oceanic ship canal through the territory of Colombia, I transmit
herewith the report of the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February ^, 186'j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith communicate a report from the Secretary of the Interior of
this date, in answer to a resolution of the Senate of the 31st ultimo,
in relation to the deputy marshals, bailiffs, and criers in the District of
Columbia who have received compensation for the year 1866.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February ^, iSSy.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit a report of the Secretary of the Treasury, in answer to a
resolution of the Senate of the 31st ultimo, on the subject of a treaty of
reciprocity with the Hawaiian Islands.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 5, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, in answer to the Senate's resolution of the 2d
instant, a report from the Secretary of State, with an accompanying
document.* ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 5, 1867.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to a resolu-
tion of the House of Representatives of yesterday, making inquiry as
to the States which have ratified the amendment to the Constitution
proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 7, 1867.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 4th
instant, requesting me to communicate to that body any official corre-
spondence which may have taken place with regard to the visit of Pro-
fessor Agassiz to Brazil, I transmit herewith the report of the Secretary
of State and the papers accompanying it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
*Copy of the letter on which the Secretary of State founded his inquiries addressed to Mr. Mot-
ley, United States minister at Vienna, with regard to his reported conversation and opinions.
Andrew Johnson 467
Washington, February 7, 186'/.
To the House of Representatives:
I herewith communicate a report of the Secretary of the Interior, in
answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 2 2d ultimo,
requesting information relative to the condition, occupancy, and area of
the Hot Springs Reservation, in the State of Arkansas.
ANDRKW JOHNSON.
Washington, Fehuary p, 186 j.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith, in answer to the Senate's resolution of the 7th
instant, a report* from the Secretary of State, with an accompanying
document. ANDRKW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 11, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 6th of February,
1867, requesting me to transmit copies of all correspondence not here-
tofore communicated on the subject of grants to American citizens for
railroad and telegraph lines across the territory of the Republic of Mex-
ico, I submit herewith the report of the Secretary of State and the papers
accompanying it. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 16, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to a resolu-
tion of the House of Representatives of yesterday, making further inquiry
as to the States which have ratified the amendment to the Constitution
proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 16, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 27th of July last, rela-
tive to the practicability of estabHshing equal reciprocal relations between
the United States and the British North American Provinces and to the
actual condition of the question of the fisheries, I transmit a report on the
subject from the Secretary of State, with the papers to which it refers.
ANDRKV7 JOHNSON.
♦Relating to the reported transfer of the United States minister from Stockholm to Bogota.
468 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, February 18, iSSy.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have received a resolution of the Senate dated the 8th day of January
last, requesting the President to inform the Senate if any violations of the
act entitled "An act to protect all persons in the United States in their
civil rights and furnish the means of their vindication" have come to
his knowledge, and, if so, what steps, if any, have been taken by him
to enforce the law and punish the offenders.
Not being cognizant of any cases which came within the purview of the
resolution, in order that the inquiry might have the fullest range I referred
it to the heads of the several Executive Departments, whose reports are
herewith communicated for the information of the Senate.
With the exception of the cases mentioned in the reports of the Secre-
tary of War and the Attorney- General, no violations, real or supposed, of
the act to which the resolution refers have at any time come to the knowl-
edge of the Executive. The steps taken in these cases to enforce the law
appear in these reports.
The Secretary of War, under date of the 15th instant, submitted a series
of reports from the General Commanding the armies of the United States
and other military officers as to supposed violations of the act alluded
to in the resolution, with the request that they should be referred to the
Attorney- General "for his investigation and report, to the end that the
cases may be designated which are cognizant by the civil authorities and
such as are cognizant by military tribunals. ' ' I have directed the refer-
ence so to be made. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 18, 1867.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a letter of the 26th ultimo, addressed to me by W. F. M.
Arny, secretary and acting governor of the Territory of New Mexico,
with the memorials to Congress by which it was accompanied, requesting
certain appropriations for that Territory. The attention of the House of
Representatives is invited to the subject.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February ig, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit the accompanying reports from the Secretary of the Treas-
ury and the Secretary of War, in answer to the resolution of the House of
Representatives of the 28th May last, requesting certain information in
regard to captured and forfeited cotton.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 469
Washington, February 20, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, giving information of
States which have ratified the amendment to the Constitution proposed
by the Thirty- ninth Congress in addition to those named in his report
which was communicated in my message of the i6th instant, in answer
to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 15th instant.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 21, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the nth instant,
a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents.*
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 21, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 31st ultimo,
a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents, f
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 21, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 19th instant,
a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents. %
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 21, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolu-
tion of the 14th instant, a report § from the Secretary of State of this date.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 21, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
For the reasons stated 1 1 in the accompanying communication from the
Secretary of the Interior, I withdraw the treaty concluded with the New
♦Correspondence relative to the refusal of the United States consul at Cadiz, Spain, to certify
invoices of wines shipped from that port, etc.
t Correspondence vnth foreign ministers of the United States relative to the policy of the Presi-
dent toward the States lately in rebellion.
X Correspondence relative to the salary of the United States minister to Portugal.
§ stating that the correspondence relative to the refusal of the United States consul at Cadiz,
Spain, to certify invoices of wines shipped from that port had been sent to the Senate.
jl For the purpose of concluding a new treaty.
470 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
York Indians in Kansas and submitted to the Senate in the month of
December, 1863, but upon which I am informed no action has yet been
^^^^^' . ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, D. C, February 23, i86y.
To the Septate of the United States: '
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded in the city of Washington on the 19th of February,
1867, between the United States and the Sac and Fox tribes of Indians
of Missouri.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 23d and copy of a let-
ter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 19th of February, 1867,
accompany the treaty. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, D. C, February 2j, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded in the city of Washington on the i8th February, 1867,
between the United States and the Sac and Fox tribes of Indians of the
Mississippi.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 23d and a copy of a letter
of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 19th February, 1867, accom-
pany the treaty. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, D. C, February 2j, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded on the 19th February, 1867, between the United States
and the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Indians.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 23d instant and accom-
panying copies of letters of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and Major
T. R. Brown, in relation to said treaty, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 2j, i86y.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit a copy of a letter of the 12 th instant addressed to me by
His Excellency Lucius Fairchild, governor of the State of Wisconsin, and
of the memorial to Congress concerning the Paris Exposition adopted
by the legislature of that State during its present session.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 471
KxkcuTive: Mansion, February 2^, i86y.
Tu the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretarj^ of the Interior, in reply
to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the nth instant, call-
ing for certain information relative to removals and appointments in his
Department since the adjournment of the first session of the Thirty-ninth
Congress. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February 26, 1867,
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a correspondence between the Secre-
tary of State and G. V. Fox, esq., relative to the presentation by the latter
to the Emperor of Russia of the resolution of Congress expressive of the
feelings of the people of the United States in reference to the providential
escape of that sovereign from an attempted assassination.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 26, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, with a view to ratification, a general conven-
tion of amity, commerce, and navigation and for the surrender of fugi-
tive criminals between the United States and the Dominican Republic,
signed by the plenipotentiaries of the parties at the city of St. Domingo
on the 8th of this month. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February 27, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Navy,
in answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 21st
instant, calling for a copy of a letter addressed by Richard M. Boynton
and Harriet M. Fisher to the Secretary of the Navy in the month of Feb-
ruary, 1863, together with the indorsement made thereon by the Chief
of the Bureau of Ordnance. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 2, i86y.
To tike House- of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report of the Attorney- General, additional to the
one submitted by him December 13, 1866, in reply to the resolution of
the House of Representatives of December 10, 1866, requesting *'a list
of names of all persons who have been engaged in the late rebellion against
472 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the United States Government who have been pardoned by the President
from April 15, 1865, to this date; that said Hst shall also state the rank
of each person who has been so pardoned, if he has been engaged in the
military service of the so-called Confederate States, and the position if
he shall have held any civil office under said so-called Confederate gov-
ernment; and shall also further state whether such person has at any
time prior to April 14, 1861, held any office under the United States Gov-
ernment, and, if so, what office, together with the reasons for granting
such pardons, and also the names of the person or persons at whose solid-
tation such pardon was granted." ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the House of Representatives: ' ''
The act entitled "An act making appropriations for the support of
the Army for the year ending June 30, 1868, and for other purposes"
contains provisions to which I must call attention. Those provisions
are contained in the second section, which in certain cases virtually
deprives the President of his constitutional functions as Commander in
Chief of the Army, and in the sixth section, which denies to ten States
of this Union their constitutional right to protect themselves in any emer-
gency by means of their own militia. Those provisions are out of place
in an appropriation act. I am compelled to defeat these necessary appro-
priations if I withhold my signature to the act. Pressed by these con-
siderations, I feel constrained to return the bill with my signature, but to
accompany it with my protest against the sections which I have indicated.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
VETO MESSAGES.
Washington, fanuary 5, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have received and considered a bill entitled "An act to regulate the
elective franchise in the District of Columbia, ' ' passed by the Senate on
the 13th of December and by the House of Representatives on the suc-
ceeding day. It was presented for my approval on the 26th ultimo — six
days after the adjournment of Congress — and is now returned with my
objections to the Senate, in which House it originated.
Measures having been introduced at the commencement of the first
session of the present Congress for the extension of the elective franchise
to persons of color in the District of Columbia, steps were taken by the
corporate authorities of Washington and Georgetown to ascertain and
make known the opinion of the people of the two cities upon a subject so
Andrew Johnson 473
immediately affecting their welfare as a community. The question was
submitted to the people at special elections held in the month of Decem-
ber, 1865, when the qualified voters of Washington and Georgetown, with
great unanimity of sentiment, expressed themselves opposed to the con-
templated legislation. In Washington, in a vote of 6,556 — the largest,
with but two exceptions, ever polled in that city — only thirty-five ballots
were cast for negro suffrage, while in Georgetown, in an aggregate of
813 votes — a number considerably in excess of the average vote at the
four preceding annual elections — but one was given in favor of the pro-
posed extension of the elective franchise. As these elections seem to
have been conducted with entire fairness, the result must be accepted as
a truthful expression of the opinion of the people of the District upon the
question which evoked it. Possessing, as an organized community, the
same popular right as the inhabitants of a State or Territory to make
known their will upon matters which affect their social and political con-
dition, they could have selected no more appropriate mode of memorializ-
ing Congress upon the subject of this bill than through the suffrages of
their qualified voters.
Entirely disregarding the wishes of the people of the District of Colum-
bia, Congress has deemed it right and expedient to pass the measure now
submitted for my signature. It therefore becomes the duty of the Execu-
tive, standing between the legislation of the one and the will of the other,
fairly expressed, to determine whether he should approve the bill, and
thus aid in placing upon the statute books of the nation a law against
which the people to whom it is to apply have solemnly and with such
unanimity protested, or whether he should return it with his objections in
the hope that upon reconsideration Congress, acting as the representa-
tives of the inhabitants of the seat of Government, will permit them to
regulate a purely local question as to them may seem best suited to their
interests and condition.
The District of Columbia was ceded to the United States by Maryland
and Virginia in order that it might become the permanent seat of Gov-
ernment of the United States. Accepted by Congress, it at once became
subject to the ' ' exclusive legislation ' ' for which provision is made in the
Federal Constitution. It should be borne in mind, however, that in exer-
cising its functions as the lawmaking power of the District of Columbia
the authority of the National Legislature is not without limit, but that
Congress is bound to observe the letter and spirit of the Constitution as
well in the enactment of local laws for the seat of Government as in legis-
lation common to the entire Union. Were it to be admitted that the
right * ' to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever ' ' conferred
upon Congress unlimited power within the District of Columbia, titles of
nobility might be granted within its boundaries; laws might be made
' ' respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right
474 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for
a redress of grievances." Despotism would thus reign at the seat of
government of a free republic, and as a place of permanent residence it
would be avoided by all who prefer the blessings of liberty to the mere
emoluments of official position.
It should also be remembered that in legislating for the District of
Columbia under the Federal Constitution the relation of Congress to its
inhabitants is analogous to that of a legislature to the people of a State
under their own local constitution. It does not, therefore, seem to be ask-
ing too much that in matters pertaining to the District Congress should
have a like respect for the will and interest of its inhabitants as is enter-
tained by a State legislature for the wishes and prosperity of those for
whom they legislate. The spirit of our Constitution and the genius of
our Government require that in regard to any law which is to affect and
have a permanent bearing upon a people their will should exert at least
a reasonable influence upon those who are acting in the capacity of their
legislators. Would, for instance, the legislature of the State of New York,
or of Pennsylvania, or of Indiana, or of any State in the Union, in opposi-
tion to the expressed will of a large majority of the people whom they
were chosen to represent, arbitrarily force upon them as voters all persons
of the African or negro race and make them eligible for office without
any other qualification than a certain term of residence within the State?
In neither of the States named would the colored population, when act-
ing together, be able to produce any great social or political result. Yet
in New York, before he can vote, the man of color must fulfill conditions
that are not required of the white citizen; in Pennsylvania the elective
franchise is restricted to white freemen, while in Indiana negroes and
mulattoes are expressly excluded from the right of suffrage. It hardly
seems consistent with the principles of right and justice that representa-
tives of States where suffrage is either denied the colored man or granted
to him on qualifications requiring intelligence or property should compel
the people of the District of Columbia to try an experiment which their
own constituents have thus far shown an unwillingness to test for them-
selves. Nor does it accord with our republican ideas that the principle
of self-government should lose its force when applied to the residents of
the District merely because their legislators are not, like those of the
States, responsible through the ballot to the people for whom they are
the lawmaking power.
The great object of placing the seat of Government under the exclu-
sive legislation of Congress was to secure the entire independence of the
General Government from undue State influence and to enable it to dis-
charge without danger of interruption or infringement of its authority
the high functions for which it was created by the people. For this
important purpose it was ceded to the United States by Maryland and
Virginia, and it certainly never could have been contemplated as one of
Andrew Johnson 475
the objects to be attained by placing it under the exclusive jurisdiction
of Congress that it would afford to propagandists or political parties a
place for an experimental test of their principles and theories. While,
indeed, the residents of the seat of Government are not citizens of any
State and are not, therefore, allowed a voice in the electoral college or
representation in the councils of the nation, they are, nevertheless,
American citizens, entitled as such to every guaranty of the Constitu-
tion, to every benefit of the laws, and to every right which pertains to
citizens of our common country. In all matters, then, affecting their
domestic affairs, the spirit of our democratic form of government de-
mands that their wishes should be consulted and respected and they
taught to feel that although not permitted practically to participate in
national concerns, they are, nevertheless, under a paternal government
regardful of their rights, mindful of their wants, and solicitous for their
prosperity. It was evidently contemplated that all local questions would
be left to their decision, at least to an extent that would not be incom-
patible with the object for which Congress was granted exclusive legis-
lation over the seat of Government. When the Constitution was yet
under consideration, it was assumed by Mr. Madison that its inhabitants
would be allowed ' ' a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived
from their own suffrages." When for the first time Congress, in the
year 1800, assembled at Washington, President Adams, in his speech at
its opening, reminded the two Houses that it was for them to consider
whether the local powers over the District of Columbia, vested by the
Constitution in the Congress of the United States, should be immediately
exercised, and he asked them to "consider it as the capital of a great
nation, advancing with unexampled rapidity in arts, in commerce, in
wealth, and in population, and possessing within itself those resources
which, if not thrown away or lamentably misdirected, would secure to it
a long course of prosperity and self-government." Three years had not
elapsed when Congress was called upon to determine the propriety of
retroceding to Maryland and Virginia the jurisdiction of the territory
which they had respectively relinquished to the Government of the
United States. It was urged on the one hand that exclusive jurisdic-
tion was not necessary or useful to the Government; that it deprived the
inhabitants of the District of their political rights; that much of the time
of Congress was consumed in legislation pertaining to it; that its gov-
ernment was expensive; that Congress was not competent to legislate
for the District, because the members were strangers to its local con-
cerns; and that it was an example of a government without representa-
tion— an experiment dangerous to the liberties of the States. On the
other hand it was held, among other reasons, and successfully, that the
Constitution, the acts of cession of Virginia and Maryland, and the act
of Congress accepting the grant all contemplated the exercise of exclu-
sive legislation by Congress, and that its usefulness, if not its necessity.
476 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
was inferred from the inconvenience which was felt for want of it by the
Congress of the Confederation; that the people themselves, who, it was
said, had been deprived of their political rights, had not complained and
did not desire a retrocession; that the evil might be remedied by giving
them a representation in Congress when the District should become suf-
ficiently populous, and in the meantime a local legislature; that if the
inhabitants had not political rights they had great political influence;
that the trouble and expense of legislating for the District would not be
great, but would diminish, and might in a great measure be avoided by
a local legislature; and that Congress could not retrocede the inhabit-
ants without their consent. Continuing to live substantially under the
laws that existed at the time of the cession, and such changes only hav-
ing been made as were suggested by themselves, the people of the Dis-
trict have not sought by a local legislature that which has generally
been willingly conceded by the Congress of the nation.
As a general rule sound policy requires that the legislature should yield
to the wishes of a people, when not inconsistent with the constitution
and the laws. The measures suited to one community might not be well
adapted to the condition of another; and the persons best qualified to
determine such questions are those whose interests are to be directly
affected by any proposed law. In Massachusetts, for instance, male per-
sons are allowed to vote without regard to color, provided they possess a
certain degree of intelligence. In a population in that State of i ,231 ,066
there were, by the census of i860, only 9,602 persons of color, and of the
males over 20 years of age there were 339,086 white to 2,602 colored.
By the same official enumeration there were in the District of Columbia
60,764 whites to 14,316 persons of the colored race. Since then, how-
ever, the population of the District has largely increased, and it is esti-
mated that at the present time there are nearly 100,000 whites to 30,000
negroes. The cause of the augmented numbers of the latter class needs
no explanation. Contiguous to Maryland and Virginia, the District dur-
ing the war became a place of refuge for those who escaped from servi-
tude, and it is yet the abiding place of a considerable proportion of
those who sought within its limits a shelter from bondage. Until then
held in slavery and denied all opportunities for mental culture, their first
knowledge of the Government was acquired when, by conferring upon
them freedom, it became the benefactor of their race. The test of their
capability for improvement began when for the first time the career of
free industry and the avenues to intelligence were opened to them. Pos-
sessing these advantages but a limited time — the greater number perhaps
having entered the District of Columbia during the later years of the war,
or since its termination — ^we may well pause to inquire whether, after so
brief a probation, they are as a class capable of an intelligent exercise of
the right of suffrage and qualified to discharge the duties of official posi-
tion. The people who are daily witnesses of their mode of living, and
Andrew Johnson 477
who have become familiar with their habits of thought, have expressed the
conviction that they are not yet competent to serve as electors, and thus
become eligible for office in the local governments under which they live.
Clothed with the elective franchise, their numbers, already largely in ex-
cess of the demand for labor, would be soon increased by an influx from
the adjoining States. Drawn from fields where employment is abundant,
they would in vain seek it here, and so add to the embarrassments already
experienced from the large class of idle persons congregated in the Dis-
trict. Hardly yet capable of forming correct judgments upon the impor-
tant questions that often make the issues of a political contest, they could
readily be made subservient to the purposes of designing persons. While
in Massachusetts, under the census of i860, the proportion of white to
colored males over 20 years of age was 130 to i, here the black race con-
stitutes nearly one- third of the entire population, whilst the same class
surrounds the District on all sides, ready to change their residence at a
moment's notice, and with all the facility of a nomadic people, in order to
enjoy here, after a short residence, a privilege they find nowhere else.
It is within their power in one year to come into the District in such
numbers as to have the supreme control of the white race, and to gov-
ern them by their own officers and by the exercise of all the municipal
authority — among the rest, of the power of taxation over property in
which they have no interest. In Massachusetts, where they have enjoyed
the benefits of a thorough educational system, a qualification of intelli-
gence is required, while here suffrage is extended to all without discrim^-
ination — as well to the most incapable who can prove a residence in the
District of one year as to those persons of color who, comparatively few
in number, are permanent inhabitants, and, having given evidence of
merit and qualification, are recognized as useful and responsible mem-
bers of the community. Imposed upon an unwilhng people placed by
the Constitution under the exclusive legislation of Congress, it would
be viewed as an arbitrarj^ exercise of power and as an indication by the
country of the purpose of Congress to compel the acceptance of negro
suffrage by the States. It would engender a feeling of opposition and
hatred between the two races, which, becoming deep rooted and ineradi-
cable, would prevent them from living together in a state of mutual
friendliness. Carefully avoiding every measure that might tend to pro-
duce such a result, and following the clear and well-ascertained popular
will, we should assiduously endeavor to promote kindly relations between
them, and thus, when that popular will leads the way, prepare for the
gradual and harmonious introduction of this new element into the polit-
ical power of the country.
It can not be urged that the proposed extension of suffrage in the Dis-
trict of Columbia is necessary to enable persons of color to protect either
their interests or their rights. They stand here precisely as they stand
in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. Here as elsewhere, in all that
478 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
pertains to civil rights, there is nothing to distinguish this class of
persons from citizens of the United States, for they possess the "full
and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of per-
son and property as is enjoyed by white citizens," and are made "sub-
ject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law,
statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstand-
ing." Nor, as has been assumed, are their suffrages necessary to aid a
loyal sentiment here, for local governments already exist of undoubted
fealty to the Government, and are sustained by communities which were
among the first to testify their devotion to the Union, and which during
the struggle furnished their full quotas of men to the military service
of the country.
The exercise of the elective franchise is the highest attribute of an
American citizen, and when guided by virtue, intelligence, patriotism,
and a proper appreciation of our institutions constitutes the true basis of
a democratic form of government, in which the sovereign power is lodged
in the body of the people. Its influence for good necessarily depends
upon the elevated character and patriotism of the elector, for if exercised
by persons who do not justly estimate its value and who are indifferent
as to its results it will only serve as a means of placing power in the
hands of the unprincipled and ambitious, and must eventuate in the com-
plete destruction of that liberty of which it should be the most powerful
conservator. Great danger is therefore to be apprehended from an un-
timely extension of the elective franchise to any new class in our country,
especially when the large majority of that class, in wielding the power
thus placed in their hands, can not be expected correctly to comprehend
the duties and responsibilities which pertain to suffrage. Yesterday, as
it were, 4,000,000 persons were held in a condition of slavery that had
existed for generations; to-day they are freemen and are assumed by
law to be citizens. It can not be presumed, from their previous condition
of servitude, that as a class they are as well informed as to the nature of
our Government as the intelligent foreigner who makes our land the home
of his choice. In the case of the latter neither a residence of five years
and the knowledge of our institutions which it gives nor attachment to
the principles of the Constitution are the only conditions upon which he
can be admitted to citizenship; he must prove in addition a good moral
character, and thus give reasonable ground for the belief that he will be
faithful to the obligations which he assumes as a citizen of the Republic.
Where a people — the source of all political power — speak by their suf-
frages through the instrumentahty of the ballot box, it must be carefully
guarded against the control of those who are corrupt in principle and
enemies of free institutions, for it can only become to our political and
social system a safe conductor of healthy popular sentiment when kept
free from demoralizing influences. Controlled through fraud and usur-
pation by the designing, anarchy and despotism must inevitably follow.
Andrew Johnson 479
In the hands of the patriotic and worthy our Government will be pre-
served upon the principles of the Constitution inherited from our fathers.
It follows, therefore, that in admitting to the ballot box a new class of
voters not qualified for the exercise of the elective franchise we weaken
our system of government instead of adding to its strength and durability.
In returning this bill to the Senate I deeply regret that there should
be any conflict of opinion between the legislative and executive depart-
ments of the Government in regard to measures that vitally affect the
prosperity and peace of the country. Sincerely desiring to reconcile
the States with one another and the whole people to the Government
of the United States, it has been my earnest wish to cooperate with Con-
gress in all measures having for their object a proper and complete
adjustment of the questions resulting from our late civil war. Harmony
between the coordinate branches of the Government, always necessary
for the public welfare, was never more demanded than at the present
time, and it will therefore be my constant aim to promote as far as pos-
sible concert of action between them. The differences of opinion that
have already occurred have rendered me only the more cautious, lest the
Executive should encroach upon any of the prerogatives of Congress,
or by exceeding in any manner the constitutional limit of his duties
destroy the equilibrium which should exist between the several coor-
dinate departments, and which is so essential to the harmonious work-
ing of the Government. I know it has been urged that the executive
department is more likelj^ to enlarge the sphere of its action than either
of the other two branches of the Government, and especially in the exer-
cise of the veto power conferred upon it by the Constitution. It should
be remembered, however, that this power is wholly negative and con-
servative in its character, and was intended to operate as a check upon
unconstitutional, hasty, and improvident legislation and as a means of
protection against invasions of the just powers of the executive and judi-
cial departments. It is remarked by Chancellor Kent that — •
To enact laws is a transcendent power, and if the body that possesses it be a full
and equal representation of the people there is danger of its pressing with destruc-
tive weight upon all the other parts of the machinery of Government. It has there-
fore been thought necessary by the most skillful and most experienced artists in the
science of civil polity that strong barriers should be erected for the protection and
security of the other necessary powers of the Government. Nothing has been deemed
more fit and expedient for the purpose than the provision that the head of the execu-
tive department should be so constituted as to secure a requisite share of independence
and that he should have a negative upon the passing of laws; and that the judiciary
power, resting on a still more permanent basis, should have the right of determining
upon the validity qf laws by the standard of the Constitution.
The necessity of some such check in the hands of the Executive is
shown by reference to the most eminent writers upon our system of gov-
ernment, who seem to concur in the opinion that encroachtnents are most
to be apprehended from the department in which all legislative powers
480 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
are vested by the Constitution. Mr. Madison, in referring to the diffi-
culty of providing some practical security for each against the invasion
of the others, remarks that ' ' the legislative department is everywhere
extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all powder into its impet-
uous vortex. " * ' The founders of our Republic * * * seem never to
have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations, which by assem-
bling all power in the same hands must lead to the same tyranny as is
threatened by Executive usurpations. " ' * In a representative republic,
where the executive magistracy is carefully limited both in the extent
and the duration of its power, and where the legislative power is exer-
cised by an assembly which is inspired, by a supposed influence over the
people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength, which is suffi-
ciently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet
not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions
by means which reason prescribes, it is against the enterprising ambi-
tion of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy
and exhaust all their precautions. " " The legislative department derives
a superiority in our governments from other circumstances. Its consti-
tutional powers being at once more extensive and less susceptible of pre-
cise limits, it can with the greater facility mask, under complicated and
indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes on the coordinate
departments. " " On the other side, the Executive power being restrained
within a narrower compass and being more simple in its nature, and the
judiciary being described by landmarks still less uncertain, projects of
usurpation by either of these departments would immediately betray and
defeat themselves. Nor is this all. As the legislative department alone
has access to the pockets of the people and has in some constitutions full
discretion and in all a prevailing influence over the pecuniary rewards of
those who fill the other departments, a dependence is thus created in the
latter which gives still greater facility to encroachments of the former. ' '
* ' We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an ag-
grandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. ' '
Mr. Jefferson, in referring to the early constitution of Virginia, objected
that by its provisions all the powers of government — legislative, execu-
tive, and judicial — resulted to the legislative body, holding that "the
concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic
government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised
by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. One hundred and
seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one." *'As little
will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective despo-
tism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not
only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of govern-
ment should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magis-
tracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being
effectually checked and restrained by the others. For this reason that
Andrew Johnson 481
convention which passed the ordinance of government laid its foundation
on this basis, that the legislative, executive, and judicial departments
should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the
powers of more than one of them at the same time. But no barrier was
provided between these several powers. The judiciary and executive
members were left dependent on the legislative for their subsistence in
office, and some of them for their continuance in it. If, therefore, the
legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely
to be made, nor, if made, can be effectual, because in that case they may
put their proceedings into the form of an act of assembly, which will
render them obligatory on the other branches. They have accordingly
in many instances decided rights which should have been left to judi-
ciary controversy; and the direction of the executive, during the whole
time of their session, is becoming habitual and familiar."
Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries on the Constitution, reviews
the same subject, and says:
The truth is that the legislative power is the great and overruling power in every
free government. ^ * ^ The representatives of the people will watch with jeal-
ousy every encroachment of the executive magistrate, for it trenches upon their
own authority. But who shall watch the encroachment of these representatives
themselves? Will they be as jealous of the exercise of power by themselves as by
others? * * *•
There are many reasons which may be assigned for the engrossing influence of the
legislative department. In the first place^ its constitutional powers are more exten-
sive, and less capable of being brought within precise limits than those of either the
other departments. The bounds of the executive authority are easily marked out
and defined. It reaches few objects, and those are known. It can not transcend them
without being brought in contact with the other departments. Laws may check and
restrain and bound its exercise. The same remarks apply with still greater force to
the judiciar}'. The jurisdiction is, or may be, bounded to a few objects or persons; or,
however general and unlimited, its operations are necessarily confined to the mere
administration of private and public justice. It can not punish without law. It can
not create controversies to act upon. It can decide only upon rights and cases as
they are brought by others before it. It can do nothing for itself. It must do every-
thing for others. It must obey the laws, and if it corruptly administers them it is
subjected to the power of impeachment. On the other hand, the legislative power^
except in the few cases of constitutional prohibition, is unlimited. It is forever vary-
ing its means and its ends. It governs the institutions and laws and public policy
of the country. It regulates all its vast interests. It disposes of all its property.
Ivook but at the exercise of two or three branches of its ordinary powers. It levies
all taxes; it directs and appropriates all supplies; it gives the rules for the descent,
distribution, and devises of all property held by individuals; it controls the sources
and the resources of wealth; it changes at its will the whole fabric of the laws; it
molds at its pleasure almost all the institutions which give strength and comfort and
dignity to society.
In the next place, it is the direct visible representative of the will of the people in
all the changes of times and circumstances. It has the pride as well as the power
of numbers. It is easily moved and steadily moved by the strong impulses of pop-
ular feeling and popular odium. It obeys without reluctance the wishes and the
will of the majority for the time being. The path to public favor lies open by such
IvI P— vci, vr~3i
482 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
obedience, and it finds not only support but impunity in whatever measures the major-
ity advises, even though they transcend the constitutional limits. It has no motive,
therefore, to be jealous or scrupulous in its own use of power; and it finds its ambi-
tion stimulated and its arm strengthened by the countenance and the courage of
numbers. These views are not alone those of men who look with apprehension upon
the fate of republics, but they are also freely admitted by some of the strongest advo-
cates for popular rights and the permanency of republican iUvStitutions. * * *
* * -x- -x- ^ it -x-
* * * Each department should have a will of its own. * * * Bach should
have its own independence secured beyond the power of being taken away by either
or both of the others. But at the same time the relations of each to the other should
be so strong that there should be a mutual interest to sustain and protect each other.
There should not only be constitutional means, but personal motives to resist en-
croachments of one or either of the others. Thus ambition would be made to coun-
teract ambition, the desire of power to check power, and the pressure of interest to
balance an opposing interest.
■X- * -X- -X- -Sfr ^t *
* * * The judiciary is naturally and almost necessarily, as has been already
said, the weakest department. It can have no means of influence by patronage.
Its powers can never be wielded for itself. It has no command over the purse or the
sword of the nation. It can neither lay taxes, nor appropriate money, nor command
armies, nor appoint to ofl&ce. It is never brought into contact with the people by
constant appeals and solicitations and private intercourse, which belong to all the
other departments of* Government. It is seen only in controversies or in trials and
punishments. Its rigid justice and impartiality give it no claims to favor, however
they may to respect. It stands solitary and unsupported, except by that portion of
public opinion which is interested only in the strict administration of justice. It can
rarely secure the sympathy or zealous support either of the Executive or the IvCgis-
latm-e. If they are not, as is not unfrequently the case, jealous of its prerogatives,
the constant necessity of scrutinizing the acts of each, upon the application of any
private person, and the painful duty of pronouncing judgment that these acts are a
departure from the law or Constitution can have no tendency to conciliate kindness
or nourish influence. It would seem, therefore, that some additional guards would,
under the circumstances, be necessary to protect this department from the abso-
lute dominion of the others. Yet rarely have any such guards been applied, and
every attempt to introduce them has been resisted with a pertinacity which demon-
strates how slow popular leaders are to introduce checks upon their own power
and how slow the people are to believe that the judiciary is the real bulwark of their
liberties. ^^ * *
•X -x- * -x- -x- * *
* * * If any department of the Government has undue influence or absorbing
power, it certainly has not been the executive or judiciary.
In addition to what has been said by these distinguished writers, it
may also be urged that the dominant party in each House may, by the
expulsion of a sufficient number of members or by the exclusion from
representation of a requisite number of States, reduce the minority to less
than one-third. Congress by these means might be enabled to pass a
law, the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding,
which would render impotent the other two departments of the Govern-
ment and make inoperative the wholesome and restraining power which
it was intended by the framers of the Constitution should be exerted by
them. This would be a practical concentration of all power in the Con-
Andreiv Johnson 483
gress of the United States; this, in the language of the author of the
Declaration of Independence, would be * ' precisely the definition of des-
potic government. ' '
I have preferred to reproduce these teachings of the great statesmen
and constitutional lawyers of the early and later days of the Republic
rather than to rely simply upon an expression of my own opinions. We
can not too often recur to them, especially at a conjuncture like the
present. Their application to our actual condition is so apparent that
they now come to us a living voice, to be listened to with more attention
than at any previous period of our history. We have been and are yet
in the midst of popular commotion. The passions aroused by a great
civil war are still dominant. It is not a time favorable to that calm and
deliberate judgment which is the only safe guide when radical changes
ill our institutions are to be made. The measure now before me is one
of those changes. It initiates an untried experiment for a people who
have said, with one voice, that it is not for their good. This alone should
make us pause, but it is not all. The experiment has not been tried, or
so much as demanded, by the people of the several States for themselves.
In but few of the States has such an innovation been allowed as giving
the ballot to the colored population without any other qualification than
a residence of one year, and in most of them the denial of the ballot to
this race is absolute and by fundamental law placed beyond the domain
of ordinary legislation. In most of those States the evil of such suffrage
would be partial, but, small as it would be, it is guarded by constitutional
barriers. Here the innovation assumes formidable proportions, which
may easily grow to such an extent as to make the white population a
subordinate element in the body politic.
After full deliberation upon this measure, I can not bring myself to
approve it, even upon local considerations, nor yet as the beginning of an
experiment on a larger scale. I yield to no one in attachment to that
rule of general suffrage which distinguishes our policy as a nation. But
there is a limit, wisely observed hitherto, which makes the ballot a privi-
lege and a trust, and which requires of some classes a time suitable for
probation and preparation. To give it indiscriminately to a new class,
wholly unprepared by previous habits and opportunities to perform the
trust w^hich it demands, is to degrade it, and finally to destroy its power,
for it may be safely assumed that no political truth is better established
than that such indiscriminate and all-embracing extension of popular
suffrage must end at last in its destruction.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<3!ww«r)/ 28, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I return to the Senate, in w^hich House it originated, a bill entitled
"An act to admit the State of Colorado into the Union," to which I can
484 Messages mid Papers of the Presidents
not, consistently with my sense of duty, give my approval. With the
exception of an additional section, containing new provisions, it is sub-
stantially the same as the bill of a similar title passed by Congress during
the last session, submitted to the President for his approval, returned
with the objections contained in a message bearing date the 15th of May
last, and yet awaiting the reconsideration of the Senate.
A second bill, having in view the same purpose, has now passed both
Houses of Congress and been presented for my signature. Having again
carefully considered the subject, I have been unable to perceive any rea-
son for changing the opinions which have already been communicated
to Congress. I find, on the contrary, that there are many objections to
the proposed legislation of which I was not at. that time aware, and
that while several of those which I then assigned have in the interval
gained in strength, yet others have been created by the altered character
of the measures now submitted.
The constitution under which the State government is proposed to be
formed very properly contains a provision that all laws in force at the time
of its adoption and the admission of the State into the Union shall con-
tinue as if the constitution had not been adopted. Among those laws is
one absolutely prohibiting negroes and mulattoes from voting. At the
recent session of the Territorial legislature a bill for the repeal of this law,
introduced into the council, was almost unanimously rejected; and at the
very time when Congress was engaged in enacting the bill now under
consideration the legislature passed an act excluding negroes and mulat-
toes from the right to sit as jurors. This bill was vetoed by the governor
of the Territory, who held that by the laws of the United States negroes
and mulattoes are citizens, and subject to the duties, as well as entitled
to the rights, of citizenship. The bill, however, was passed, the objections
of the governor to the contrary notwithstanding, and is now a law of the
Territory. Yet in the bill now before me, by which it is proposed to admit
the Territory as a State, it is provided that "there shall be no denial
of the elective franchise or any other rights to any person by reason of
race or color, excepting Indians not taxed."
The incongruity thus exhibited between the legislation of Congress
and that of the Territory, taken in connection with the protest against
the admission of the State hereinafter referred to, would seem clearly to
indicate the impolicy and injustice of the proposed enactment.
It mnght, indeed, be a subject of grave inquiry, and doubtless will
result in such inquiry if this bill becomes a law, whether it does not
attempt to exercise a power not conferred upon Congress by the Federal
Constitution. That instrument simply declares that Congress may ad-
mit new States into the Union. It nowhere says that Congress may
make new States for the purpose of admitting them into the Union or
for any other purpose; and yet this bill is as clear an attempt to make
the institutions as any in which the people themselves could engage.
Andrew Johnson 485
In view of this action of Congress, the house of representatives of the
Territory have earnestly protested against being forced into the Union
without first having the question submitted to the people. Nothing
could be more reasonable than the position which they thus assume;
and it certainly can not be the purpose of Congress to force upon a
community against their will a government which they do not believe
themselves capable of sustaining.
The following is a copy of the protest alluded to as officially trans-
mitted to me:
Whereas it is announced in the public prints that it is the intention of Congress to
admit Colorado as a State into the Union: Therefore,
Resolved by the house of representatives of the Territory, That, representing, as
we do, the last and only legal expression of public opinion on this question, we ear-
nestly protest against the passage of a law admitting the State without first having
the question submitted to a vote of the people, for the reasons, first, that we have a
right to a voice in the selection of the character of our government; second, that we
have not a sufficient population to support the expenses of a State government. For
these reasons we trust that Congress will not force upon us a government against our
will.
Upon information which I considered reliable, I assumed in my mes-
sage of the 15th of May last that the population of Colorado was not
more than 30,000, and expressed the opinion that this number was
entirely too- small either to assume the responsibilities or to enjoy the
privileges of a State.
It appears that previous to that time the legislature, with a view to
ascertain the exact condition of the Territory, had passed a law author-
izing a census of the population to be taken. The law made it the duty
of the assessors in the several counties to take the census in connection
with the annual assessments, and, in order to secure a correct enumer-
ation of the population, allowed them a liberal compensation for the
service by paying them for every name returned, and added to their pre-
vious oath of office an oath to perform this duty with fidelity.
From the accompanying official report it appears that returns have
been received from fifteen of the eighteen counties into which the State
is divided, and that their population amounts in the aggregate to 24,909.
The three remaining counties are estimated to contain 3,000, making a
total population of 27,909.
This census was taken in the summer season, when it is claimed that
the population is much larger than at any other period, as in the autumn
miners in large numbers leave their work and return to the East with
the results of their summer enterprise.
The population, it will be observed, is but slightly in excess of one-
fifth of the number required as the basis of representation for a single
Congressional district in any of the States — the number being 127,000.
I am unable to perceive any good reason for such great disparity in
the right of representation, giving, as it would, to the people of Colorado
486 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
not only this vast advantage in the House of Representatives, but an
equaHty in the Senate, where the other States are represented by mil-
lions. With perhaps a single exception, no such inequahty as this has
ever before been attempted. I know that it is claimed that the popu-
lation of the different States at the time of their admission has varied at
different periods, but it has not varied much more than the population
of each decade and the corresponding basis of representation for the
different periods.
The obvious intent of the Constitution was that no State should be
admitted with a less population than the ratio for a Representative at the
time of application. The limitation in the second section of the first
article of the Constitution, declaring that **each State shall have at least
one Representative," was manifestly designed to protect the States which
originally composed the Union from being deprived, in the event of a
waning population, of a voice in the popular branch of Congress, and
was never intended as a warrant to force a new State into the Union with
a representative population far below that which might at the time be
required of sister members of the Confederacy. This bill, in view of the
prohibition of the same section, which declares that * ' the number of Rep-
resentatives shall not exceed one for every 30,000," is at least a violation
of the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution.
It is respectfully submitted that however Congress, under the pressure
of circumstances, may have admitted two or three States with less than a
representative population at the time, there has been no instance in which
an application for admission has ever been entertained when the popula-
tion, as ofiScially ascertained, was below 30,000.
Were there any doubt of this being the true construction of the Con-
stitution, it would be dispelled by the early and long-continued practice
of the Federal Government. For nearly sixty years after the adoption of
the Constitution no State was admitted with a population believed at the
time to be less than the current ratio for a Representative, and the first
instance in which there appears to have been a departure from the princi-
ple was in 1845, in the case of Florida. Obviously the result of sectional
strife, we would do well to regard it as a warning of evil rather than as an
example for imitation; and I think candid men of all parties will agree
that the inspiring cause of the violation of this wholesome principle of
restraint is to be found in a vain attempt to balance these antagonisms,
which refused to be reconciled except through the bloody arbitrament of
arms. The plain facts of our history will attest that the great and lead-
ing States admitted since 1845, viz, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minne-
sota, and Kansas, including Texas, which was admitted that year, have
all come with an ample population for one Representative, and some of
them with nearly or quite enough for two.
To demonstrate the correctness of my views on this question, I subjoin
a table containing a list of the States admitted since the adoption of the
Andrew Johnson 487
F'ederal Constitution, with the date of admission, the ratio of representa-
tion, and the representative population when admitted, deduced from the
United States census tables, the calculation being made for the period of
the decade corresponding with the date of admission.
Colorado, which it is now proposed to admit as a State, contains, as has
already been stated, a population less than 28,000, while the present ratio
of representation is 127,000.
There can be no reason that I can perceive for the admission of Colo-
rado that would not apply with equal force to nearly every other Terri-
tory now organized; and I submit whether, if this bill become a law, it
will be possible to resist the logical conclusion that such Territories as
Dakota, Montana, and Idaho must be received as States whenever they
present themselves, without regard to the number of inhabitants they may
respectively contain. Eight or ten new Senators and four or five new
members of the House of Representatives would thus be admitted to rep-
resent a population scarcely exceeding that which in any other portion
of the nation is entitled to but a single member of the House of Repre-
sentatives, while the average for two Senators in the Union, as now con-
stituted, is at least 1,000,000 people. It would surely be unjust to all
other sections of the Union to enter upon a policy with regard to the ad-
mission of new States which might result in conferring such a dispropor-
tionate share of influence in the National Legislature upon communities
which, in pursuance of the wise policy of our fathers, should for some
years to come be retained under the fostering care and protection of the
National Government. If it is deemed just and expedient now to depart
from the settled policy of the nation during all its history, and to admit all
the Territories to the rights and privileges of States, irrespective of their
population or fitness for such government, it is submitted whether it would
not be well to devise such measures as will bring the subject before the
country for consideration and decision. This would seem to be emi-
nently wise, because, as has already been stated, if it is right to admit
Colorado now there is no reason for the exclusion of the other Territories.
It is no answer to these suggestions that an enabling act was passed
authorizing the people of Colorado to take action on this subject. It is
well known that that act was passed in consequence of representations
that the population reached, according to some statements, as high as
80,000, and to none less than 50,000, and was growing with a rapidity
which by the time the admission could be consummated would secure
a population of over 100,000. These representations proved to have
been wholly fallacious, and in addition the people of the Territory by a
deliberate vote decided that they would not assume the responsibilities of
a State government. By that decision they utterly exhausted all power
that was conferred by the enabling act, and there has been no step taken
since in relation to the admission that has had the slightest sanction or
warrant pf law,
488 ^ Messages and Papers of the Presideiits
The proceeding upon which the present application is based was in the
utter absence of all law in relation to it, and there is no evidence that
the votes on the question of the formation of a State government bear
any relation whatever to the sentiment of the Territory. The protest
of the house of representatives previously quoted is conclusive evidence to
the contrary.
But if none of these reasons existed against this proposed enactment,
the bill itself, besides being inconsistent in its provisions in conferring
power upon a person unknown to the laws and who may never have a
legal existence, is so framed as to render its execution almost impossible.
It is, indeed, a question whether it is not in itself a nullity. To say the
least, it is of exceedingly doubtful propriety to confer the power pro-
posed in this bill upon the "governor elect," for as by its own terms
the constitution is not to take eifect until after the admission of the State,
he in the meantime has no more authority than any other private citizen.
But even supposing him to be clothed with sufficient authority to con-
vene the legislature, what constitutes the "State legislature" to which
is to be referred the submission of the conditions imposed by Congress?
Is it a new body to be elected and convened by proclamation of the
"governor elect," or is it that body which met more than a year ago
under the provisions of the State constitution? By reference to the sec-
ond section of the schedule and to the eighteenth section of the fourth
article of the State constitution it will be seen that the term of the mem-
bers of the house of representatives and that of one-half of the members
of the senate expired on the first Monday of the present month. It is
clear that if there were no intrinsic objections to the bill itself in relation
to purposes to be accomplished this objection would be fatal, a§ it is
apparent that the provisions of the third section of the bill to admit
Colorado have reference to a period and a state of facts entjrely different
from the present and affairs as they now exist, and if carried into effect
must necessarily lead to confusion.
Even if it were settled that the old and not a new body were to act,
it would be found impracticable to execute the law, because a consider-
able number of the members, as I am informed, have ceased to be resi-
dents of the Territory, and in the sixty days within which the legislature
is to be convened after the passage of the act there would not be suffi-
cient time to fill the vacancies by new elections, were there any authority
under which they could be held.
It may not be improper to add that if these proceedings were all reg-
ular and the result to be obtained were desirable, simple justice to the
people of the Territory would require a longer period than sixty days
within which to obtain action on the conditions proposed by the third
section of the bill. There are, as is well known, large portions of the
Territory with which there is and can be no general communication,
there being several counties which from November to May can only be
Andrew Johnson
489
reached by persons traveling on foot, while with other regions of the
Territory, occupied by a large portion of the population, there is very
little more freedom of access. Thus, if this bill should become a law,
it would be impracticable to obtain any expression of public sentiment
in reference to its provisions, with a view to enlighten the legislature, if
the old body were called together, and, of course, equally impracticable
to procure the election of a new body. This defect might have been
remedied by an extension of the time and a submission of the question
to the people, with a fair opportunity to enable them to express their
sentiments.
The admission of a new State has generally been regarded as an
epoch in our histpry marking the onward progress of the nation; but
after the most careful and anxious inquiry on the subject I can not per-
ceive that the proposed proceeding is in conformity with the policy
which from the origin of the Government has uniformly prevailed in
the admission of new States. I therefore return the bill to the Senate
without my signature. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Admitted.
Population.
Vermont
Kentucky
Tennessee
Ohio
L,ouisiana
Indiana
Mississippi
Illinois
Alabama
Maine ...
Missouri
Arkansas
Michigan
Florida
Texas
Iowa
Wisconsin
California
Oregon
Minnesota
Kansas
West Virginia
Nevada
* In 1850,
1791
179^
1796
1802
1812
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1836
1837
1845
1845
1846
1848
1850
1858
1859
1861
1862
1864
33,000
33,000
33,000
33,000
35,000
35,000
35,000
35,000
35,000
35,000
35,000
47,700
47,700
70, 680
70,680
70,680
70, 680
70, 680
93, 492
93, 492
93. 492
93,492
127,000
92, 320
95, 638
73, 864
82, 443
75, 212
98, no
53, 677
46, 274
111,150
298, 335
69, 260
65. 175
158, 073
57, 951
* 189, 327
132, 527
250, 497
92, 597
44,630
138,909
107, 206
349, 628
Not known.
Washington, January 29, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
I return for reconsideration a bill entitled ''An act for the admission of
the State of Nebraska into the Union," which originated in the Senate
and has received the assent of both Houses of Congress. A bill having
490 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
in view the same object was presented for my approval a few hours prior
to the adjournment of the last session, but, submitted at a time when there
was no opportunity for a proper consideration of the subject, I withheld
my signature and the measure failed to become a law.
It appears by the preamble of this bill that the people of Nebraska,
availing themselves of the authority conferred upon them by the act
passed on the 19th day of April, 1864, "have adopted a constitution
which, upon due examination, is found to conform to the provisions and
comply with the conditions of said act, and to be republican in its form
of government, and that they now ask for admission into the Union."
This proposed law would therefore seem to be based upon the declaration
contained in the enabling act that upon compliance with its terms the
people of Nebraska should be admitted into the Union upon an equal foot-
ing with the original States. Reference to the bill, however, shows that
while by the first section Congress distinctly accepts, ratifies, and con-
firms the Constitution and State government which the people of the Ter-
ritory have formed for themselves, declares Nebraska to be one of the
United States of America, and admits her into the Union upon an equal
footing with the original States in all respects whatsoever, the third sec-
tion provides that this measure * ' shall not take effect except upon the
fundamental condition that within the State of Nebraska there shall be
no denial of the elective franchise, or of any other right, to any person
by reason of race or color, excepting Indians not taxed; and upon the
further fundamental condition that the legislature of said State, by a
solemn public act, shall declare the assent of said State to the said fun-
damental condition, and shall transmit to the President of the United
States an authentic copy of said act, upon receipt whereof the President,
by proclamation, shall forthwith announce the fact, whereupon said fun-
damental condition shall be held as a part of the organic law of the State;
and thereupon, and without any further proceeding on the part of Con-
gress, the admission of said State into the Union shall be considered as
complete. ' ' This condition is not mentioned in the original enabling act;
was not contemplated at the time of its passage; was not sought by the
people themselves; has not heretofore been applied to the inhabitants of
any State asking admission, and is in direct conflict with the constitution
adopted by the people and declared in the preamble * ' to be republican
in its form of government," for in that instrument the exercise of the
elective franchise and the right to hold office are expressly limited to
white citizens of the United States. Congress thus undertakes to author-
ize and compel the legislature to change a constitution which, it is declared
in the preamble, has received the sanction of the people, and which by
this bill is ''accepted, ratified, and confirmed" by the Congress of the
nation.
The first and third sections of the bill exhibit yet further incongruity.
By the one Nebraska is ' ' admitted into the Union upon an equal footing
Andrew Johnson 491
with the original States in all respects whatsoever, ' ' while by the other
Congress demands as a condition precedent to her admission require-
ments which in our history have never been asked of any people when
presenting a constitution and State government for the acceptance of the
lawmaking power. It is expressly declared by the third section that
the bill "shall not take effect except upon the fundamental condition
that within the State of Nebraska there shall be no denial of the elective
franchise, or of any other right, to any person by reason of race or color,
excepting Indians not taxed." Neither more nor less than the assertion
of the right of Congress to regulate the elective franchise of any State
hereafter to be admitted, this condition is in clear violation of the Fed-
eral Constitution, under the provisions of which, from the very founda-
tion of the Government, each State has been left free to determine for
itself the qualifications necessary for the exercise of suffrage within its
limits. Without precedent in our legislation, it is in marked contrast
with those limitations which, imposed upon States that from time to time
have become members of the Union, had for their object the single pur-
pose of preventing any infringement of the Constitution of the country.
If Congress is satisfied that Nebraska at the present time possesses
sufficient population to entitle her to full representation in the councils
of the nation, and that her people desire an exchange of a Territorial for
71 State government, good faith would seem to demand that she should
be admitted without further requirements than those expressed in the
enabling act, with all of which, it is asserted in the preamble, her inhabit-
ants have complied. Congress may, under the Constitution, admit new
States or reject them, but the people of a State can alone make or change
their organic law and prescribe the qualifications requisite for electors.
Congress, however, in passing the bill in the shape in which it has been
submitted for my approval, does not merely reject the application of the
people of Nebraska for present admission as a State into the Union, on
the ground that the constitution which they have submitted restricts the
exercise of the elective franchise to the white population, but imposes
conditions which, if accepted by the legislature, may, without the consent
of the people, so change the organic law as to make electors of all per-
sons within the State without distinction of race or color. In view of this
fact, I suggest for the consideration of Congress whether it would not be
just, expedient, and in accordance with the principles of our Government
to allow the people, by popular vote or through a convention chosen by
themselves for that purpose, to declare whether or not they will accept
the terms upon which it is now proposed to admit them into the Union.
This course would not occasion much greater delay than that which the
bill contemplates when it requires that the legislature shall be convened
within thirty days after this measure shall have become a law for the
purpose of considering and deciding the conditions which it imposes, and
gains additional force when we consider that the proceedings attending
492 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the formation of the State constitution were not in conformity with the
provisions of the enabling act; that in an aggregate vote of 7,776 the
majority in favor of the constitution did not exceed 100; and that it is
alleged that, in consequence of frauds, even this result can not be re-
ceived as a fair expression of the wishes of the people. As upon them
must fall the burdens of a State organization, it is but just that they
should be permitted to determine for themselves a question which so
materially affects their interests. Possessing a soil and a climate admir-
ably adapted to those industrial pursuits which bring prosperity and
greatness to a people, with the advantage of a central position on the
great highway that will soon connect the Atlantic and Pacific States,
Nebraska is rapidly gaining in numbers and wealth, and may within a
very brief period claim admission on grounds which will challenge and
secure universal assent. She can therefore wisely and patiently afford
to wait. Her population is said to be steadily and even rapidly increas-
ing, being now generally conceded as high as 40,000, and estimated by
some whose judgment is entitled to respect at a still greater number.
At her present rate of growth she will in a very short time have the
requisite population for a Representative in Congress, and, what is far
more important to her own citizens, will have realized such an advance
in material wealth as will enable the expenses of a State government to
be borne without oppression to the taxpayer. Of new communities it
may be said with special force — and it is true of old ones — that the in-
ducement to emigrants, other things being equal, is in almost the precise
ratio of the rate of taxation. The great States of the Northwest owe their
marvelous prosperity largely to the fact that they were continued as Ter-
ritories until they had grown to be wealthy and populous communities.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 2^ i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have carefully examined the bill ' ' to regulate the tenure of certain
civil offices. ' ' The material portion of the bill is contained in the first
vSection, and is of the effect following, namely:
That every person holding any civil office to which he has been appointed, by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter
be appointed to any such office and shall become duly qualified to act therein, is
and shall be entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been appointed
by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and duly qualified;
and that the Secretaries of State, of the TreavSury, of War, of the Navy, and of the
Interior, the Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-General shall hold their offices
respectively for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been
appointed and for one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate.
These provisions are qualified by a reservation in the fourth section,
"that nothing contained in the bill shall be construed to extend the term
Andrew Johnson 493
of any office the duration of which is Hmited by law. ' ' In effect the
bill provides that the President shall not remove from their places any of
the civil officers whose terms of service are not limited by law without the
advice and consent of the Senate of the United States. The bill in this
respect conflicts, in my judgment, with the Constitution of the United
States. The question, as Congress is well aware, is by no means a new
one. That the power of removal is constitutionally vested in the Presi-
dent of the United States is a principle which has been not more distinctly
declared by judicial authority and judicial commentators than it has been
uniformly practiced upon by the legislative and executive departments of
the Government. The question arose in the House of Representatives so
early as the i6th of June, 1789, on the bill for establishing an Executive
Department denominated "the Department of Foreign Affairs." The
first clause of the bill, after recapitulating the functions of that officer
and defining his duties, had these words: "To be removable from office
by the President of the United States. ' ' It was moved to strike out these
words and the motion was sustained with great ability and vigor. It was
insisted that the President could not constitutionally exercise the power
of removal exclusively of the Senate; that the Federalist so interpreted
the Constitution when arguing for its adoption by the several States;
that the Constitution had nowhere given the President power of removal,
either expressly or b}^ strong implication, but, on the contrary, had dis-
tinctly provided for removals from office by impeachment only.
A construction which denied the power of removal by the President
was further maintained by arguments drawn from the danger of the
abuse of the power; from the supposed tendency of an exposure of public
officers to capricious removal to impair the efficiency of the civil service;
from the alleged injustice and hardship of displacing incumbents depend-
ent upon their official stations without sufficient consideration; from a
supposed want of responsibility on the part of the President, and from
an imagined defect of guaranties against a vicious President who might
incline to abuse the power. On the other hand, an exclusive power of
removal by the President was defended as a true exposition of the text
of the Constitution. It was maintained that there are certain causes for
which persons ought to be removed from office without being guilty of
treason, bribery, or malfeasance, and that the nature of things demands
that it should be so. "Suppose," it was said, "a man becomes insane
by the visitation of God and is Hkely to ruin our affairs; are the hands
of the Government to be confined from warding off the evil? Suppose a
person in office not possessing the talents he was judged to have at the
time of the appointment; is the error not to be corrected? Suppose he
acquires vicious habits and incurable indolence or total neglect of the
duties of his office, which shall work mischief to the public welfare; is
there no way to arrest the threatened danger? Suppose he becomes
odious and unpopular by reason of the measures he pursues — and this he
494 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
may do without committing any positive offense against the law; must
he preserve his office in despite of the popular will ? Suppose him grasp-
ing for his own aggrandizement and the elevation of his connections by
every means short of the treason defined by the Constitution, hurrying
your affairs to the precipice of destruction, endangering your domestic
tranquillity, plundering you of the means of defense, alienating the affec-
tions of your allies and promoting the spirit of discord; must the tardy,
tedious, desultory road by way of impeachment be traveled to overtake
the man who, barely confining himself within the letter of the law, is
employed in drawing off the vital principle of the Government? The
nature of things, the great objects of society, the express objects of the
Constitution itself, require that this thing should be otherwise. To unite
the Senate with the President in the exercise of the power," it was said,
''would involve us in the most serious difficulty. Suppose a discovery
of any of those events should take place when the Senate is not in ses-
sion; how is the remedy to be applied? The evil could be avoided in no
other way than by the Senate sitting always. ' ' In regard to the danger
of the power being abused if exercised by one man it was said ' ' that
the danger is as great with respect to the Senate, who are assembled from
various parts of the continent, with different impressions and opin-
ions; " ''that such a body is more likely to misuse the power of removal
than the man whom the united voice of America calls to the Presidential
chair. As the nature of government requires the power of removal," it
was maintained "that it should be exercised in this way by the hand
capable of exerting itself with effect; and the power must be conferred
on the President by the Constitution as the executive officer of the
Government."
Mr. Madison, whose adverse opinion in the Federalist had been relied
upon by those who denied the exclusive power, now participated in the
debate. He declared that he had reviewed his former opinions, and he
summed up the whole case as follows:
The Constitution affirms that the executive power is vested in the President. Are
there exceptions to this proposition? Yes; there are. The Constitution says that
in appointing to office the Senate shall be associated with the President, unless in
the case of inferior officers, when the law shall otherwise direct. Have we (that is,
Congress) a right to extend this exception? I beheve not. If the Constitution has
invested all executive power in the President, I venture to assert that the Legisla-
ture has no right to diminish or modify his executive authority. The question now
resolves itself into this: Is the power of displacing an executive power? I conceive
that if any power whatsoever is in the Executive it is the power of appointing, over-
seeing, and controlling those who execute the laws. If the Constitution had not
qualified the power of the President in appointing to office by associating the Senate
with him in that business, would it not be clear that he would have the right by vir-
tue of his executive power to make such appointment? Should we be authorized in
defiance of that clause in the Constitution, "The executive power shall be vested
in the President," to unite the Senate with the President in the appointment to
office? I conceive not. If it is admitted that we should not be authorized to do this,
Andrew Johnson 495
I think it may be disputed whether we have a right to associate them in removing
persons from office, the one power being as much of an executive nature as the other;
and the first one is authorized by being excepted out of the general rule established
by the Constitution in these words: "The executive power shall be vested in the
President. ' '
The question, thus ably and exhaustively argued, was decided by the
House of Representatives, by a vote of 34 to 20, in favor of the principle
that the executive power of removal is vested by the Constitution in the
Executive, and in the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice-President.
The question has often been raised in subsequent times of high excite-
ment, and the practice of the Government has, nevertheless, conformed
in all cases to the decision thus early made.
The question was revived during the Administration of President Jack-
son, who made, as is well recollected, a very large number of rejnovals,
which were made an occasion of close and rigorous scrutiny and remon-
strance. The subject was long and earnestly debated in the Senate,
and the early construction of the Constitution was, nevertheless, freely
accepted as binding and conclusive upon Congress.
The question came before the Supreme Court of the United States in
January, 1839, ex parte Hennen. It was declared by the court on that
occasion that the power of removal from office was a subject much dis-
puted, and upon which a great diversity of opinion was entertained in
the early history of the Government. This related, however, to the
power of the President to remove officers' appointed with the concurrence
of the Senate, and the great question was whether the removal was to
be by the President alone or with the concurrence of the Senate, both
constituting the appointing power. No one denied the power of the
President and Senate jointly to remove where the tenure of the office was
not fixed by the Constitution, which was a full recognition of the prin-
ciple that the power of removal was incident to the power of appointment;
but it was very early adopted as a practical construction of the Consti-
tution that this power was vested in the President alone, and such
would appear to have been the legislative construction of the Constitu-
tion, for in the organization of the three great Departments of State,
War, and Treasury, in the year 1789, provision was made for the appoint-
ment of a subordinate officer by the head of the Department, who should
have charge of the records, books, and papers appertaining to the office
when the head of the Department should be removed from office by the
President of the United States. When the Navy Department was estab-
lished, in the year 1798, provision was made for the charge and custody
of the books, records, and documents of the Department in case of vacancy
in the office of Secretary by removal or otherwise. It is not here said
"by removal of the President," as is done with respect to the heads of
the other Departments, yet there can be no doubt that he holds his office
with the same tenure as the other Secretaries and is removable by the
496 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
President. The change of phraseology arose, probably, from its having
become the settled and well-understood construction of the Constitution
that the power of removal was vested in the President alone in such
cases, although the appointment of the officer is by the President and
Senate. (13 Peters, p. 139.)
Our most distinguished and accepted commentators upon the Consti-
tution concur in the construction thus early given by Congress, and thus
sanctioned by the Supreme Court. After a full analysis of the Congres-
sional debate to which I have referred, Mr. Justice Story comes to this
conclusion:
After a most animated discussion, the vote finally taken in the House of Repre-
sentatives was affirmative of the power of removal in the President, without any
cooperation of the Senate, by the vote of 34 members against 20. In the Senate
the clause in the bill affirming the power was carried by the casting vote of the Vice-
President. That the final decision of this question so made was greatly influenced
by the exalted character of the President then in office was asserted at the time and
has always been believed; yet the doctrine was opposed as well as supported by the
highest talents and patriotism of the country. The public have acquiesced in this
decision, and it constitutes, perhaps, the most extraordinary case in the history of
the Government of a power conferred by implication on the Executive by the
assent of a bare majority of Congress which has not been questioned on many other
occasions.
The commentator adds:
Nor is this general acquiescence and silence without a satisfactory explanation.
Chancellor Kent's remarks on the subject are as follows:
On the first organization of the Government it was made a question whether the
power of removal in case of officers appointed to hold at pleasure resided nowhere but
in the body which appointed, and, of course, whether the consent of the Senate was
not requisite to remove. This was the construction given to the Constitution, while
it was pending for ratification before the State conventions, by the author of the
Federalist, But the construction which was given to the Constitution by Congress,
after great consideration and discussion, was different. The words of the act [estab-
lishing the Treasury Department] are: "And whenever the same shall be removed
from office by the President of the United States, or in any other case of vacancy
in the office, the assistant shall act." This amounted to a legislative construction
of the Constitution, and it has ever since been acquiesced in and acted upon as a
decisive authority in the case. It applies equally to every other officer of the Gov-
ernment appointed by the President, whose term of duration is not specially declared.
It is supported by the weighty reason that the subordinate officers in the executive
department ought to hold at the pleasure of the head of the department, because
he is invested generally with the executive authority, and the participation in that
authority by the Senate was an exception to a general principle and ought to be
taken strictly. The President is the great responsible officer for the faithful execu-
tion of the law, and the power of removal was incidental to that duty, and might
often be requisite to fulfill it.
Thus has the important question presented by this bill been settled, in
the language of the late Daniel Webster (who, while dissenting from it,
admitted that it was settled) , by construction, settled by precedent, settled
Andrew Johnson 497
by the practice of the Government, and settled by statute. The events of
the last war furnished a practical confirmation of the wisdom of the Con-
stitution as it has hitherto been maintained in many of its parts, including
that which is now the subject of consideration. When the war broke out,
rebel enemies, traitors, abettors, and sympathizers were found in every
Department of the Government, as well in the civil service as in the land
and naval military service. They were found in Congress and among the
keepers of the Capitol; in foreign missions; in each and all the Execu-
tive Departments; in the judicial service; in the post-office, and among
the agents for conducting Indian affairs. Upon probable suspicion they
werfe promptly displaced by my predecessor, so far as they held their
offices under executive authority, and their duties were confided to new
and loyal successors. No complaints against that power or doubts of its
wisdom were entertained in any quarter. I sincerely trust and believe
that no such civil war is likely to occur again. I can not doubt, how-
ever, that in whatever form and on whatever occasion sedition can raise
an effort to hinder or embarrass or defeat the legitimate action of this
Government, whether by preventing the collection of revenue, or disturb-
ing the public peace, or separating the States, or betraying the country to
a foreign enemy, the power of removal from office by the Executive, as
it has heretofore existed and been practiced, will be found indispensable.
Under these circumstances, as a depositary of the executive authority
of the nation, I do not feel at liberty to unite with Congress in reversing
it by giving my approval to the bill. At the early day when this ques-
tion was settled, and, indeed, at the several periods when it has subse-
quently been agitated, the success of the Constitution of the United
States, as a new and peculiar system of free representative govern-
ment, was held doubtful in other countries, and was even a subject of
patriotic apprehension among the American people themselves. A trial
of nearly eighty years, through the vicissitudes of foreign conflicts and
of civil war, is confidently regarded as having extinguished all such
doubts and apprehensions for the future. During that eighty years the
people of the United States have enjoyed a measure of security, peace,
prosperity, and happiness never surpassed by any nation. It can not
be doubted that the triumphant success of the Constitution is due to
the wonderful wisdom with which the functions of government were
distributed between the three principal departments — the legislative,
the executive, and the judicial — and to the fidelity with which each has
confined itself or been confined by the general voice of the nation within
its peculiar and proper sphere. While a just, proper, and watchful
jealousy of executive power constantly prevails, as it ought ever to pre-
vail, yet it is equally true that an efficient Executive, capable, in the
language of the oath prescribed to the President, of executing the laws
and, within the sphere of executive action, of preserving, protecting,
and defending the Constitution of the United States, is an indispensable
M P— vol. VI— 32
498 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
security for tranquillity at home and peace, honor, and safety abroad.
Governments have been erected in many countries upon our model.
If one or many of them have thus far failed in fully securing to their
people the benefits which we have derived from our system, it may be
confidently asserted that their misfortune has resulted from their un-
fortunate failure to maintain the integrity of each of the three great
departments while preserving harmony among them all.
Having at an early period accepted the Constitution in regard to the
Executive office in the sense in which it was interpreted with the con-
currence of its founders, I have found no sufficient grounds in the argu-
ments now opposed to that construction or in any assumed necessity of
the times for changing those opinions. For these reasons I return the
bill to the Senate, in which House it originated, for the further consid-
eration of Congress which the Constitution prescribes. Insomuch as the
several parts of the bill which I have not considered are matters chiefly
of detail and are based altogether upon the theory of the Constitution
from which I am obliged to dissent, I have not thought it necessary
to examine them with a view to make them an occasion of "distinct and
special objections.
Experience, I think, has shown that it is the easiest, as it is also the
most atfractive, of studies to frame constitutions for the self-government
of free states and nations. But I think experience has equally shown
that it is the most difficult of all political labors to preserve and maintain
such free constitutions of self-government when once happily established.
I know no other way in which they can be preserved and maintained
except by a constant adherence to them through the various vicissitudes
of national existence, with such adaptations as may become necessary,
always to be effected, however, through the agencies and in the forms
prescribed in the original constitutions themselves.
Whenever administration fails or seems to fail in securing any of the
great ends for which republican government is established, the proper
course seems to be to renew the original spirit and forms of the Consti-
tution itself. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 2, 1867.
To the House of Representatives:
I have examined the bill * * to provide for the more efficient government
of the rebel States ' ' with the care and anxiety which its transcendent
importance is calculated to awaken. I am unable to give it my assent,
for reasons so grave that I hope a statement of them may have some
influence on the minds of the patriotic and enlightened men with whom
the decision must ultimately rest.
The bill places all the people of the ten States therein named under
the absolute domination of military rulers; and the preamble undertakes
Andrew Johnson 499
to give the reason upon which the measure is based and the ground
upon which it is justified. It declares that there exists in those States
no legal governments and no adequate protection for life or property,
and asserts the necessity of enforcing peace and good order within their
limits. Is this true as matter of fact?
It is not denied that the States in question have each of them an actual
government, with all the powers — executive, judicial, and legislative —
which properly belong to a free state. They are organized like the other
States of the Union, and, like them, they make, administer, and execute
the laws which concern their domestic affairs. An existing de facto gov-
ernment, exercising such functions as these, is itself the law of the state
upon all matters within its jurisdiction. To pronounce the supreme law-
making power of an established state illegal is to say that law itself is
unlawful.
The provisions which these governments have made for the preserva-
tion of order, the suppression of crime, and the redress of private injuries
are in substance and principle the same as those which prevail in the
Northern States and in other civilized countries. They certainly have
not succeeded in preventing the commission of all crime, nor has this
been accomplished anywhere in the world. There, as well as elsewhere,
offenders sometimes escape for want of vigorous prosecution, and occa-
sionally, perhaps, by the inefficiency of courts or the prejudice of jurors.
It is undoubtedly true that these evils have been much increased and
aggravated. North and South, by the demoralizing influences of civil
war and by the rancorous passions which the contest has engendered.
But that these people are maintaining local governments for themselves
which habitually defeat the object of all government and render their
own lives and property insecure is in itself utterly improbable, and the
averment of the bill to that effect is not supported by any evidence which
has come to my knowledge. All the information I have on the subject
convinces me that the masses of the Southern people and those who con-
trol their public acts, while they entertain diverse opinions on questions
of Federal policy, are completely united in the effort to reorganize their
society on the basis of peace and to restore their mutual prosperity as
rapidly and as completely as their circumstances will permit.
The bill, however, would seem to show upon its face that the estab-
lishment of peace and good order is not its real object. The fifth section
declares that the preceding sections shall cease to operate in any State
where certain events shall have happened. These events are, first, the
selection of delegates to a State convention by an election at which
negroes shall be allowed to vote; second, the formation of a State con-
stitution by the convention so chosen; third, the insertion into the
State constitution of a provision which will secure the right of voting
at all elections to negroes and to such white men as may not be disfran-
chised for rebellion or felony; fourth, the submission of the constitution
500 Messages and Papers oj the Presidents
for ratification to negroes and white men not disfranchised, and its ac-
tual ratification by their vote; fifth, the submission of the State consti-
tution to Congress for examination and approval, and the actual approval
of it by that body; sixth, the adoption of a certain amendment to the
Federal Constitution by a vote of the legislature elected under the new
constitution; seventh, the adoption of said amendment by a sufficient
number of other States to make it a part of the Constitution of the United
States. All these conditions must be fulfilled before the people of any
of these States can be relieved from the bondage of military domination;
but when they are fulfilled, then immediately the pains and penalties of
the bill are to cease, no matter whether there be peace and order or not,
and without any reference to the security of life or property. The
excuse given for the bill in the preamble is admitted by the bill itself
not to be real. The military rule which it establishes is plainly to be
used, not for any purpose of order or for the prevention of crime, but
solely as a means of coercing the people into the adoption of principles
and measures to which it is known that they are opposed, and upon which
they have an undeniable right to exercise their own judgment.
I submit to Congress whether this measure is not in its whole charac-
ter, scope, and object without precedent and without authority, in palpa-
ble conflict with the plainest provisions of the Constitution, and utterly
destructive to those great principles of liberty and humanity for which
our ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic have shed so much blood
and expended so much treasure.
The ten States named in the bill are divided into five districts. For
each district an officer of the Army, not below the rank of a brigadier-
general, is to be appointed to rule over the people; and he is to be sup-
ported with an efficient military force to enable him to perform his duties
and enforce his authority. Those duties and that authority, as defined
by the third section of the bill, are * ' to protect all persons in their rights
of person and property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence,
and to punish or cause to be punished all disturbers of the public peace
or criminals. ' ' The power thus given to the commanding officer over all
the people of each district is that of an absolute monarch. His mere will
is to take the place of all law. The law of the States is now the only rule
applicable to the subjects placed under his control, and that is completely
displaced by the clause which declares all interference of State authority
to be null and void. He alone is permitted to determine what are rights
of person or property, and he may protect them in such way as in his
discretion may seem proper. It places at his free disposal all the lands
and goods in his district, and he may distribute them without let or hin-
drance to whom he pleases. Being bound by no State law, and there
being no other law to regulate the subject, he may make a criminal code
of his own; and he can make it as bloody as any recorded in history,
or he can reserve the privilege of acting upon the impulse of his private
Andrezv Johnson 501
passions in each case that arises. He is bound by no rules of evidence;
there is, indeed, no provision by which he is authorized or required to take
any evidence at all. Everything is a crime which he chooses to call so,
and all persons are condemned whom he pronounces to be guilty. He is
not bound to keep any record or make any report of his proceedings. He
may arrest his victims wherever he finds them, without warrant, accusa-
tion, or proof of probable cause. If he gives them a trial before he inflicts
the punishment, he gives it of his grace and mercy, not because he is
commanded so to do.
To a casual reader of the bill it might seem that some kind of trial was
secured by it to persons accused of crime, but such is not the case. The
officer **may allow local civil tribunals to \xy offenders," but of course
this does not require that he shall do so. If any State or Federal court
presumes to exercise its legal jurisdiction by the trial of a malefactor
without his special permission, he can break it up and punish the judges
and jurors as being themselves malefactors. He can save his friends
from justice, and despoil his enemies contrary to justice.
It is also provided that ' ' he shall have power to organize military com-
missions or tribunals;" but this power he is not commanded to exercise.
It is merely permissive, and is to be used only "when in his judgment it
may be necessary for the trial of offenders. ' ' Even if the sentence of a
commission were made a prerequisite to the punishment of a party, it
would be scarcely the slightest check upon the officer, who has authority
to organize it as he pleases, prescribe its mode of proceeding, appoint its
members from his own subordinates, and revise all its decisions. Instead
of mitigating the harshness of his single rule, such a tribunal would be
used much more probably to divide the responsibility of making it more
cruel and unjust.
Several provisions dictated by the humanity of Congress have been
inserted in the bill, apparently to restrain the power of the commanding
officer; but it seems to me that they are of no avail for that purpose.
The fourth section provides: First. That trials shall not be unnecessarily
delayed; but I think I have shown that the power is given to punish
without trial; and if so, this provision is practically inoperative. Second.
Cruel or unusual punishment is not to be inflicted; but who is to decide
what is cruel and what is unusual? The words have acquired a legal
meaning by long use in the courts. Can it be expected that military
officers will understand or follow a rule expressed in language so purely
technical and not pertaining in the least degree to their profession? If
not, then each officer may define cruelty according to his own temper, and
if it is not usual he will make it usual. Corporal punishment, imprison-
ment, the gag, the ball and chain, and all the almost insupportable forms
of torture invented for military punishment lie within the range of choice.
Third. The sentence of a commission is not to be executed without being
approved by the commander, if it affects life or liberty, and a sentence of
502 Messages and Papers of. the Presidents
death must be approved by the President. This applies to cases in which
there has been a trial and sentence. I take it to be clear, under this bill,
that the military commander may condemn to death without even the
form of a trial by a military commission, so that the life of the condemned
may depend upon the will of two men instead of one.
It is plain that the authority here given to the military officer amounts
to absolute despotism. But to make it still more unendurable, the bill
provides that it may be delegated to as many subordinates as he chooses
to appoint, for it declares that he shall ' ' punish or cause to be punished. ' '
Such a power has not been wielded by any monarch in England for more
than five hundred years. In all that time no people who speak the
English language have borne such servitude. It reduces the whole pop-
ulation of the ten States — all persons, of every color, sex, and condition,
and every stranger within their limits — to the most abject and degrad-
ing slavery. No master ever had a control so absolute over the slaves
as this bill gives to the military officers over both white and colored
persons.
It may be answered to this that the officers of the Army are too mag-
nanimous, just, and humane to oppress and trample upon a subjugated
people. I do not doubt that army officers are as well entitled to this
kind of confidence as any other class of men. But the history of the
world has been written in vain if it does not teach us that unrestrained
authority can never be safely trusted in human hands. It is almost sure
to be more or less abused under any circumstances, and it has always
resulted in gross tyranny where the rulers who exercise it are stran-
gers to their subjects and come among them as the representatives of a
distant power, and more especially when the power that sends them is
unfriendly. Governments closely resembling that here proposed have
been fairly tried in Hungary and Poland, and the suffering endured by
those people roused the sympathies of the entire world. It was tried
in Ireland, and, though tempered at first by principles of English law,
it gave birth to cruelties so atrocious that they are never recounted
without just indignation. The French Convention armed its deputies
with this power and sent them to the southern departments of the
Republic. The massacres, murders, and other atrocities which they com-
mitted show what the passions of the ablest men in the most civilized
society will tempt them to do when wholly unrestrained by law.
The men of our race in every age have struggled to tie up the hands
of their governments and keep them within the law, because their own
experience of all mankind taught them that rulers could not be relied on
to concede those rights which they were not legally bound to respect.
The head of a great empire has sometimes governed it with a mild and
paternal sway, but the kindness of an irresponsible deputy never yields
what the law does not extort from him. Between such a master and the
people subjected to his domination there can be nothing but enmity;
Andrew Johnson 503
he punishes them if they resist his authority, and if they submit to it he
hates them for their servility.
I come now to a question which is, if possible, still more important.
Have we the power to establish and carry into execution a measure like
this? I answer. Certainly not, if we derive our authority from the Con-
stitution and if we are bound hy the limitations which it imposes.
This proposition is perfectly clear, that no branch of the Federal Gov-
ernment— executive, legislative, or judicial — can have any just powers
except those which it derives through and exercises under the organic
law of the Union. Outside of the Constitution we have no legal author-
ity more thaij private citizens, and within it we have only so much as
that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions
and applies to all subjects. It protects not only the citizens of States
which are within the Union, but it shields every human being who comes
or is brought under our jurisdiction. We have no right to do in one
place more than in another that which the Constitution says we shall not
do at all. If, therefore, the Southern States were in truth out of the
Union, we could not treat their people in a way which the fundamental
law forbids.
Some persons assume that the success of our arms in crushing the
opposition which was made in some of the States to the execution of
the Federal laws reduced those States and all their people — the innocent
as well as the guilty — to the condition of vassalage and gave us a power
over them which the Constitution does not bestow or define or limit.
No fallacy can be more transparent than this. Our victories subjected
the insurgents to legal obedience, not to the yoke of an arbitrary des-
potism. When an absolute sovereign reduces his rebellious subjects,
he may deal with them according to his pleasure, because he had that
power before. But when a limited monarch puts down an insurrection,
he must still govern according to law. If an insurrection should take
place in one of our States against the authority of the State government
and end in the overthrow of those who planned it, would that take away
the rights of all the people of the counties where it was favored by a
part or a majority of the population? Could they for such a reason be
wholly outlawed and deprived of their representation in the legislature?
I have always contended that the Government of the United States was
sovereign within its constitutional sphere; that it executed its laws, like
the States themselves, by applying its coercive power directly to indi-
viduals, and that it could put down insurrection with the same effect as
a State and no other. The opposite doctrine is the worst heresy of those
who advocated secession, and can not be agreed to without admitting
that heresy to be right.
Invasion, insurrection, rebellion, and domestic violence were antici-
pated when the Government was framed, and the means of repelling and
suppressing them were wisely provided for in the Constitution; but it
504 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
was not thought necessary to declare that the States in which they
might occur should be expelled from the Union. Rebellions, which
were invariably suppressed, occurred prior to that out of which these
questions grow; but the States continued to exist and the Union re-
mained unbroken. In Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania, in Rhode Island,
and in New York, at different periods in our history, violent and armed
opposition to the United States was carried on; but the relations of those
States with the Federal Government were not supposed to be interrupted
or changed thereby after the rebellious portions of their population were
defeated and put down. It is true that in these earlier cases there was
no formal expression of a determination to withdraw from the Union,
but it is also true that in the Southern States the ordinances of secession
were treated by all the friends of the Union as mere nullities and are
now acknowledged to be so by the States themselves. If we admit that
they had any force or validity or that they did in fact take the States in
which they were passed out of the Union, we sweep from under our feet
all the grounds upon which we stand in justifying the use of Federal
force to maintain the integrity of the Government.
This is a bill passed by Congress in time of peace. There is not in
any one of the States brought under its operation either war or insurrec-
tion. The laws of the States and of the Federal Government are all in
undisturbed and harmonious operation. The courts. State and Federal,
are open and in the full exercise of their proper authority. Over every
State comprised in these five military districts, life, liberty, and property
are secured by State laws and Federal laws, and the National Constitution
is everywhere in force and everywhere obeyed. What, then, is the ground
on which this bill proceeds? The title of the bill announces that it is
intended "for the more efficient government" of these ten States. It
is recited by way of preamble that no legal State governments * * nor ade-
quate protection for life or property " exist in those States, and that peace
and good order should be thus enforced. The first thing which arrests
attention upon these recitals, which prepare the way for martial law, is
this, that the only foundation upon which martial law can exist under
our form of government is not stated or so much as pretended. Actual
war, foreign invasion, domestic insurrection — none of these appear; and
none of these, in fact, exist. It is not even recited that any sort of war
or insurrection is threatened. I^et us pause here to consider, upon this
question of constitutional law and the power of Congress, a recent deci-
sion of the Supreme Court of the United States in ex parte Milligan.
I will first quote from the opinion of the majority of the court:
Martial law can not arise from a threatened invasion. The necessity must be actual
and present, the invasion real, such as effectually closes the courts and deposes the
civil administration.
We see that martial law comes in only when actual war closes the courts
and deposes the civil authority; but this bill, in time of peace, makes
Andrew Johnson 505
martial law operate as though we were in -actual war, and becomes the cause
instead of the consequence of the abrogation of civil authority. One more
quotation:
It follows from what has been said on this subject that there are occasions when
martial law can be properly applied. If in foreign invasion or civil war the courts
are actually closed, and it is impo.ssible to administer criminal justice according to law,
then, on the theater of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is
a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority thus overthrown, to preserve
the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is
allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course.
I now quote from the opinion of the minority of the court, delivered
by Chief Justice Chase:
We by no means assert that Congress can establish and apply the laws of war
where no war has been declared or exists. Where peace exists, the laws of peace
must prevail.
This is sufficiently explicit. Peace exists in all the territory to which
this bill applies. It asserts a power in Congress, in time of peace, to set
aside the laws of peace and to substitute the laws of war. The minority,
concurring with the majority, declares that Congress does not possess
that power. Again, and, if possible, more emphatically, the Chief Jus-
tice, with remarkable clearness and condensation, sums up the whole
matter as follows:
There are under the Constitution three kinds of military jurisdiction— one to be
exercised both in peace and war; another to be exercised in time of foreign war with-
out the boundaries of the United States, or in time of rebellion and civil war within
States or districts occupied by rebels treated as belligerents; and a third to be exer-
cised in time of invasion or insurrection within the limits of the United States, or
during rebellion within the limits of the States maintaining adhesion to the National
Government, when the public danger requires its exercise. The first of these may
be called jurisdiction under military law, and is found in acts of Congress prescrib-
ing rules and articles of war or otherwise providing for the government of the na-
tional forces; the second may be distinguished as military government, superseding
as far as may be deemed expedient the local law, and exercised by the military com-
mander under the direction of the President, with the express or implied sanction of
Congress; while the third may be denominated martial law proper, and is called into
action by Congress, or temporarily, when the action of Congress can not be invited,
and in the case of justifying or excusing peril, by the President, in times of insurrec-
tion or invasion or of civil or foreign war, within districts or localities where ordinary
law no longer adequately secures public safety and private rights.
It will be observed that of the three kinds of military jurisdiction which
can be exercised or created under our Constitution there is but one that
can prevail in time of peace, and that is the code of laws enacted by Con-
gress for the government of the national forces. That body of military
law has no application to the citizen, nor even to the citizen soldier enrolled
in the militia in time of peace. But this bill is not a part of that sort of
military law, for that applies only to the soldier and not to the citizen,
whilst, contrariwise, the military law provided by this bill applies only to
the citizen and not to the soldier.
5o6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
I need not say to the representatives of the American people that their
Constitution forbids the exercise of judicial power in any way but one —
that is, by the ordained and established courts. It is equally well known
that in all criminal cases a trial by jury is made indispensable by the
express words of that instrument. I will not enlarge on the inestimable
value of the right thus secured to every freeman or speak of the danger to
public liberty in all parts of the country which must ensue from a denial
of it anywhere or upon any pretense. A very recent decision of the
Supreme Court has traced the history, vindicated the dignity, and made
known the value of this great privilege so clearly that nothing more is
needed. To what extent a violation of it might be excused in time of
war or public danger may admit of discussion, but we are providing now
for a time of profound peace, when there is' not an armed soldier within
our borders except those who are in the service of the Government.
It is in such a condition of things that an act of Congress is proposed
which, if carried out, would deny a trial by the lawful courts and juries to
9,000,000 American citizens and to their posterity for an indefinite pe-
riod. It seems to be scarcely possible that anyone should seriously believe
this consistent with a Constitution which declares in simple, plain, and
unambiguous language that all persons shall have that right and that no
person shall ever in any case be deprived of it. The Constitution also
forbids the arrest of the citizen without judicial warrant, founded on prob-
able cause. This bill authorizes an arrest without warrant, at the pleasure
of a military commander. The Constitution declares that "no person
shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless
on presentment by a grand jury." This bill holds every person not a
soldier answerable for all crimes and all charges without any presentment.
The Constitution declares that ' ' no person shall be deprived of life, lib-
erty, or property without due process of law. ' ' This bill sets aside all
process of law, and makes the citizen answerable in his person and prop-
erty to the will of one man, and as to his life to the will of two. Finally,
the Constitution declares that * ' the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus
shall not be suspended unless when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the
public safety may require it;" whereas this bill declares martial law (which
of itself suspends this great writ) in time of peace, and authorizes the
military to make the arrest, and gives to the prisoner only one privilege,
and that is a trial ' ' without unnecessary delay. ' ' He has no hope of
release from custody, except the hope, such as it is, of release by acquit-
tal before a military commission.
The United States are bound to guarantee to each State a republican
form of government. Can it be pretended that this obligation is not pal-
pably broken if we carry out a measure like this, which wipes away every
vestige of republican government in ten States and puts the life, property,
liberty, and honor of all the people in each of them under the domination
of a single person clothed with unlimited authority ?
Andrew Johnson 507
The Parliament of England, exercising the omnipotent power which
it claimed, was accustomed to pavSS bills of attainder; that is to say, it
would convict men of treason and other crimes by legislative enactment.
The person accused had a hearing, sometimes a patient and fair one, but
generally party prejudice prevailed instead of justice. It often became
necessary for Parliament to acknowledge its error and reverse its own
action. The fathers of our country determined that no such thing should
occur here. They withheld the power from Congress, and thus forbade
its exercise by that body, and they provided in the Constitution that no
State should pass any bill of attainder. It is therefore impossible for
any person in this country to be constitutionally convicted or punished for
any crime by a legislative proceeding of any sort. Nevertheless, here is
a bill of attainder against 9,000,000 people at once. It is based upon an
accusation so vague as to be scarcely intelligible and found to be true
upon no credible evidence. Not one of the 9,000,000 was heard in his
own defense. The representatives of the doomed parties were excluded
from all participation in the trial. The conviction is to be followed by
the most ignominious punishment ever inflicted on large masses of men.
It disfranchises them by hundreds of thousands and degrades them all,
even those who are admitted to be guiltless, from the rank of freemen to
the condition of slaves.
The purpose and object of the bill — the general intent which pervades
it from beginning to end — is to change the entire structure and character
of the State governments and to compel them by force to the adoption of
organic laws and regulations which they are unwilling to accept if left
to themselves. The negroes have not asked for the privilege of voting;
the vast majority of them have no idea what it means. This bill not only
thrusts it into their hands, but compels them, as well as the whites, to use
it in a particular way. If they do not form a constitution with prescribed
articles in it and afterwards elect a legislature which will act upon certain
measures in a prescribed way, neither blacks nor whites can be relieved
from the slavery which the bill imposes upon them. Without paus-
ing here to consider the policy or impolicy of Africanizing the southern
part of our territory, I would simply ask the attention of Congress to
that manifest, well-known, and universally acknowledged rule of consti-
tutional law which declares that the Federal Government has no juris-
diction, authority, or power to regulate such subjects for any State. To
force the right of suffrage out of the hands of the white people and into
the hands of the negroes is an arbitrary violation of this principle.
This bill imposes martial law at once, and its operations will begin so
soon as the general and his troops can be put in place. The dread alterna-
tive between its harsh rule and compliance with the terms of this measure
is not suspended, nor are the people afforded any time for free deliberation.
The bill says to them, take martial law first, then deliberate. And when
they have done all that this measure requires them to do other conditions
5o8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
and contingencies over which they have no control yet remain to be
fulfilled before they can be relieved from martial law. Another Con-
gress must first approve the Constitution made in conformity w4th the
will of this Congress and must declare these States entitled to represen-
tation in both Houses. The whole question thus remains open and
unsettled and must again occupy the attention of Congress; and in the
meantime the agitation which now prevails will continue to disturb all
portions of the people.
The bill also denies the legality of the governments of ten of the States
which participated in the ratification of the amendment to the Federal
Constitution abolishing slavery forever within the jurisdiction of the
United States and practically excludes them from the Union. If this
assumption of the bill be correct, their concurrence can pot be considered
as having been legally given, and the important fact is made to appear
that the consent of three-fourths of the States — the requisite number —
has not been constitutionally obtained to the ratification of that amend-
ment, thus leaving the question of slavery w^here it stood before the
amendment was officially declared to have become a part of the Consti-
tution.
That the measure proposed by this bill does violate the Constitution
in the particulars mentioned and in many other ways which I forbear
to enumerate is too clear to admit of the least doubt. It only remains toj
consider whether the injunctions of that instrument ought to be obeyed'
or not. I think they ought to be obeyed, for reasons which I will pro-
ceed to give as briefly as possible.
In the first place, it is the only system of free government which we,
can hope to have as a nation. When it ceases to be the rule of our con-
duct, we may perhaps take our choice between complete anarchy, a consoli-
dated despotism, and a total dissolution of the Union; but national liberty'
regulated by law will have passed beyond our reach.
It is the best frame of government the world ever saw. No other isj
or can be so well adapted to the genius, habits, or wants of the American
people. Combining the strength of a great empire with unspeakable
blessings of local self-government, having a central power to defend the]
general interests, and recognizing the authority of the States as the guard-
ians of industrial rights, it is " the sheet anchor of our safety abroad
and our peace at home." It was ordained "to form a more perfect
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, promote the gen-
eral welfare, provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and to our posterity. ' ' These great ends have been
attained heretofore, and will be again by faithful obedience to it; but
they are certain to be lost if we treat with disregard its sacred obligations.
It was to punish the gross crime of defying the Constitution and to
vindicate its supreme authorit}^ that we carried on a bloody war of four
years' duration, Shall we now acknowledge that we sacrificed a million
Andrew Johnson 509
of lives and expended billions of treasure to enforce a Constitution which
is not worthy of respect and preservation?
Those who advocated the right of secession alleged in their own justi-
fication that we had no regard for law and that their rights of property,
life, and liberty would not be safe under the Constitution as administered
by us. If we now verify their assertion, we prove that they were in
truth and in fact fighting for their liberty, and instead of branding their
leaders with the dishonoring name of traitors against a righteous and
legal government we elevate them in history to the rank of self-sacrifi-
cing patriots, consecrate them to the admiration of the world, and place
them by the side of Washington, Hampden, and Sidney. No; let us
leave them to the infamy they deserve, punish them as they should be
punished, according to law, and take upon ourselves no share of the odium
which they should bear alone.
It is a part of our public history which can never be forgotten that
both Houses of Congress, in July, 1861, declared in the form of a solemn
resolution that the war was and should be carried on for no purpose of
subjugation, but solely to enforce the Constitution and laws, and that
when this was yielded by the parties in rebellion the contest should cease,
with the constitutional rights of the States and of individuals unimpaired.
This resolution was adopted and sent forth to the world unanimously by
the Senate and with only two dissenting voices in the House. It was
accepted by the friends of the Union in the South as well as in the North
as expressing honest Jy and truly the object of the war. On the faith of
it many thousands of persons in both sections gave their Hves and their
fortunes to the cause. To repudig,te it now by refusing to the States and
to the individuals within them the rights which the Constitution and* laws
of the Union would secure to them is a breach of our plighted honor for
which I can imagine no excuse and to which I can iiot voluntarily become
a party.
The evils which spring from the unsettled state of our Government will
be acknowledged by all. Commercial intercourse is impeded, capital is
in constant peril, public securities fluctuate in value, peace itself is not
secure, and the sense of moral and political duty is impaired. To avert
these calamities from our country it is imperatively required that we
should immediately decide upon some course of administration which can
be steadfastly adhered to. I am thoroughly convinced that any settle-
ment or compromise or plan of action which is inconsistent with the princi-
ples of the Constitution will not only be unavailing, but mischievous; that
it will but multiply the present evils, instead of removing them. The
Constitution, in its whole integrity and vigor, throughout the length and
breadth of the land, is the best of all compromises. Besides, our duty does
not, in my judgment, leave us a choice between that and any other. I
believe that it contains the remedy that is so much needed, and that if the
coordinate branches of the Government would unite upon its provisions
5IO Messages and Papers of the Presidents
they would be found broad enough and strong enough to sustain in
time of peace the nation which they bore safely through the ordeal of
a protracted civil war. Among the most sacred guaranties of that in-
strument are those which declare that "each State shall have at least
one Representative," and that "no State, without its consent, shall be
deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. ' ' Each House is made the
"judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members,"
and may, ' ' with the concturence of two- thirds, expel a member. ' ' Thus,
as heretofore urged, "in the admission of Senators and Representatives
from any and all of the States there can be no just ground of apprehen-
sion that persons who are disloyal will be clothed wdth the powers of
legislation, for this could not happen when the Constitution and the laws
are enforced by a vigilant and faithful Congress. " " When a Senator
or Representative presents his certificate of election, he may at once be
admitted or rejected; or, should there be any question as to his eligibility,
his credentials may be referred for investigation to the appropriate com-
mittee. If admitted to a seat, it must be upon evidence satisfactory^ to
the House of which he thus becomes a member that he possesses the
requisite constitutional and legal qualifications. If refused admission as
a member for want of due allegiance to the Government, and returned
to his constituents, they are admonished that none but persons loyal to
the United States will be allowed a voice in the legislative councils of the
nation, and the political power and moral influence of Congress are thus
effectively exerted in the interests of loyalty to the Government and
fidelity to the Union. ' ' And is it not far better that the work of restora-
tion should be accomplished by simple compliance with the plain require-
ments of the Constitution than by a recourse to measiues which in effect
destroy the States and threaten the subversion of the General Govern-
ment? All that is necessary to settle this simple but important question
without further agitation or delay is a willingness on the part of all to
sustain the Constitution and carry its provisions into practical operation.
If to-morrow either branch of Congress would declare that upon the
presentation of their credentials members constitutionally elected and
loyal to the General Government would be admitted to seats in Congress,
while all others would be excluded and their places remain vacant until the
selection by the people of loyal and qualified persons, and if at the same
time assurance were given that this policy would be continued until
all the States were represented in Congress, it would send a thrill of joy
throughout the entire land, as indicating the inauguration of a system
which must speedily bring tranquillity to the public mind.
While we are legislating upon subjects which are of great importance
to the whole people, and which must affect all parts of the country, not
only during the life of the present generation, but for ages to come, we
should remember that all men are entitled at least to a hearing in the
councils which decide upon the destiny of themselves and their children.
I
A ndrew Johnson 511
At present ten States are denied representation, and when the Fortieth
Congress assembles on the 4th day of the present month sixteen States
will be without a voice in the House of Representatives. This grave
fact, with the important questions before us, should induce us to pause in
a course of legislation which, looking solely to the attainment of political
ends, fails to consider the rights it transgresses, the law which it violates,
or the institutions which it imperils. ANDREW JOHNSON.
PROCLAMATIONS.
Andrkw Johnson, Prksidknt of thk United States of America.
To all whom it may concern:
Whereas exequaturs were heretofore issued to the following-named
persons at the dates mentioned and for the places specified, recognizing
them as consular officers, respectively, of the Kingdom of Hanover, of the
Electorate of Hesse, of the Duchy of Nassau, and of the city of Frank-
fort, and declaring them free to exercise and enjoy functions, powers,
and privileges under the said exequaturs, viz:
FOR THE KINGDOM OF HANOVER.
Julius Frederich, consul at Galveston, Tex., July 28, 1848.
Otto Frank, consul at San Francisco, Cal., July 9, 1850.
Augustus Reichard, consul at New Orleans, La., January 22, 1853.
KaufTmann H. Muller, consul at Savannah, Ga., June 28, 1854.
G. C. Baurmeister, consul at Charleston, S. C, April 21, 1856.
Adolph GosHng, consul-general at New York, November 7, 1859.
G. W. Hennings, vice-consul at New York, July 2, i860.
George Papendiek, consul at Boston, November 3, 1863.
Francis A. Hoffmann, consul at Chicago, July 26, 1864.
Carl C. Schottler, consul at Philadelphia, Pa. , September 23, 1864.
A. Rettberg, consul at Cleveland, Ohio, September 27, 1864.
A. C. Wilmaus, consul at Milwaukee, Wis,, October 7, 1864.
Adolph Meier, consul at St. Louis, Mo., October 7, 1864.
Theodor Schwartz, consul at Louisville, Ky., October 12, 1864.
Carl F. Adae, consul at Cincinnati, Ohio, October 20, 1864.
Werner Dresel, consul at Baltimore, Md., July 25, 1866.
FOR THE El,ECTORATE OF HESSE.
Theodor Wagner, consul at Galveston, Tex., March 7, 1857.
Clamor Friedrich Hagedorn, consul at Philadelphia, February 14, 1862.
Werner Dresel, consul at Baltimore, Md., September 26, 1864.
Friedrich Kuhne, consul at New York, September 30, 1864.
Richard Thiele, consul at New Orleans, La., October 18, 1864.
Carl Adae, consul at Cincinnati, Ohio, October 20, 1864.
Robert Barth, consul at St, Louis, Mo., April 11, 1865.
C. F. Mebius, consul at San Francisco, Cal., May 3, 1865.
512 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
FOR THE DUCHY OF NASSAU.
"Wilhelm A. Kobbe, consul-general for the United States at New York, November
19, 1846.
Friedrich Wilhelm Freudenthal, consul for lyouisiana at New Orleans, January 22,
1852.
Franz Moureau, consul for the western half of Texas at New Braunfels, April 6,
1857.
Carl C. Finkler, consul for California at San Francisco, May 21, 1864.
Ludwig von Baumbach, consul for Wisconsin, September 27, 1864.
Otto Cuntz, consul for Massachusetts at Boston, October 7, 1864.
Friedrich Kuhne, consul at New York, September 30, 1864.
Carl F. Adae, consul for the State of Ohio, October 20, 1864.
Robert Barth, consul for Missouri, April 18, 1865.
FOR THE CITY OF FRANKFORT.
John H. Harjes, consul at Philadelphia, Pa. , September 27, 1864.
F. A. Reuss, consul at St. Louis, Mo. , September 30, 1864.
A. C. Wilmanns, consul for Wisconsin at Milwaukee, October 7, 1864.
Francis A. Hoffmann, consul for Chicago, 111., October 12, 1864.
Carl F. Adae, consul for Ohio and Indiana, October 20, 1864.
Jacob Julius de Neufville, consul in New York, July 3, 1866.
And whereas the said countries, namely, the Kingdom of Hanover,
the Electorate of Hesse, the Duchy of Nassau, and the city of Frank-
fort, have, in consequence of the late war between Prussia and Austria,
been united to the Crown of Prussia; and
Whereas His Majesty the King of Prussia has requested of the Presi-
dent of the United States that the aforesaid exequaturs may, in conse-
quence of the before-recited premises, be revoked:
Now, therefore, these presents do declare that the above-named consu-
lar officers are no longer recognized, and that the exequaturs heretofore
granted to them are hereby declared to be absolutely null and void from
this day forward.
In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent
and the seal of the United States of America to be hereunto
affixed.
[SKAI<.] Given under my hand at the city of Washington, this 19th
day of December, A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the ninety-first.
By the President: ANDREW JOHNSON.
W11.1.IAM H. S:ewARD, Secretary of State.
Andrkw Johnson, Prksidknt of the United States of America.
To all whoTti it may concern:
An exequatur, bearing date the 2 2d day of March, 1866, having been
issued to Gerhard Janssen, recognizing him as consul of Oldenburg for
New York and declaring him free to exercise and enjoy such functions,
Andrew Johnson 513
powers, and privileges as are allowed to consuls by the law of nations or
by the laws of the United States and existing treaty stipulations between
the Government of Oldenburg and the United States, and the said Jans-
sen having refused to appear in the supreme court of the State of New
York to answer in a suit there pending against himself and others on the
plea that he is a consular officer of Oldenburg, thus seeking to use his
official position to defeat the ends of justice, it is deemed advisable that
the said Gerhard Janssen should no longer be permitted to continue in the
exercise of said functions, powers, and privileges.
• These are therefore to declare that I no longer recognize the said
Gerhard Janssen as consul of Oldenburg for New York and will not per-
mit him to exercise or enjoy any of the functions, powers, or privileges
allowed to consuls of that nation; and that I do hereby wholly revoke
and annul the said exequatur heretofore given and do declare the same
to be absolutely null and void from this day forward.
In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent
and the seal of the United States of America to be hereunto
affixed.
[SKAI,.] Given under my hand at Washington, this 26th day of
December, A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the ninety-first.
By the President: ANDREW JOHNSON.
Wii<i.iAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidknt of thb UnaTkd States of America.
A PROCIyAMATlON.
Whereas satisfactory evidence has been received by me from His
Imperial Majesty the Emperor of France, through the Marquis de Mon-
tholon, his envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, that vessels
belonging to citizens of the United States entering any port of France
or of its dependencies on or after the ist day of January, 1867, will not
be subjected to the payment of higher duties on tonnage than are levied
upon vessels belonging to citizens of France entering the said ports:
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States
of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by an act of Con-
gress of the 7th day of January, 1824, entitled "An act concerning dis-
criminating duties of tonnage and impost," and by an act in addition
thereto of the 24th day of May, 1828, do hereby declare and proclaim
that on and after the said ist day of January, 1867, so long as vessels of
the United States shall be admitted to French ports on the terms afore-
said, French vessels entering ports of the United States will be subject
to no higher rates of duty on tonnage than are levied upon vessels of the
United States in the ports thereof.
M P— voiy VI — 33
514 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 28th day of December,
A. D. 1866, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninety-first. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii.i<iAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By th^ President op the Unitkd States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas, in virtue of the power conferred by the act of Congress
approved June 22, i860, sections 15 and 24 of which act were designed
by proper provisions to secure the strict neutrality of citizens of the
United States residing in or visiting the Empires of China and Japan,
a notification was issued on the 4th of August last by the legation of the
United States in Japan, through the consulates of the open ports of that
Empire, requesting American shipmasters not to approach the coasts of
Suwo and Nagato pending the then contemplated hostilities between the
Tycoon of Japan and the Daimio of the said Provinces; and
Whereas authentic information having been received by the said lega-
tion that such hostilities had actually commenced, a regulation in further-
ance of the aforesaid notification and pursuant to the act referred to was
issued by the minister resident of the United States in Japan forbidding
American merchant vessels from stopping or anchoring at any port or
roadstead in that country except the three opened ports, viz, Kanagawa
(Yokohama), Nagasaki, and Hakodate, unless in distress or forced by
stress of weather, as provided by treaty, and giving notice that masters
of vessels committing a breach of the regulation would thereby render
themselves liable to prosecution and punishment and also to forfeiture
of the protection of the United States if the visit to such nonopened port
or roadstead should either involve a breach of treaty or be construed as
an act in aid of insurrection or rebellion:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States of America, with a view to prevent acts which might injuri-
ously affect the relations existing between the Government of the United
States and that of Japan, do hereby call public attention to the aforesaid
notification and regulation, which are hereby sanctioned and confirmed.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 12th day of January,
A. D. 1867, and of the Independence of the United States the
T, t ^^^^.^J"^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
William H. Seward, Secretary of State,
Andrew Johnson 515
By THE) Prksidknt of thk Unitkd States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas by an act of the Congress of the United States of the 24th of
May, 1828, entitled ''An act in addition to an act entitled 'An act con-
cerning discriminating duties of tonnage and impost ' and to equalize the
duties on Prussian vessels and their cargoes," it is provided that, upon
satisfactory evidence being given to the President of the United States
by the government of any foreign nation that no discriminating duties
of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the said nation
upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon
the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from
the United States or from any foreign country, the President is thereby
authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discrimi-
nating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and
shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the
said foreign nation and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise im-
ported into the United States in the same from the said foreign nation
or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from
the time of such notification being given to the President of the United
States and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels
belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid,
shall be continued, and no longer; and
Whereas satisfactory evidence has lately been received by me from His
Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, through an official communi-
cation of His Majesty's minister of foreign relations under date of the
loth of December, 1866, that no other or higher duties of tonnage and
impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the Hawaiian Islands upon
vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States and upon the
produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the
United States and from any foreign country whatever than are levied
on Hawaiian ships and their cargoes in the same ports under like circum-
stances:
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States of
America, do hereby declare and proclaim that so much of the several
acts imposing discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the
United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as
respects the vessels of the Hawaiian Islands and the produce, manu-
factures, and merchandise imported into the United States in the same
from the dominions of the Hawaiian Islands and from any other foreign
country whatever, the said suspension to take effect from the said loth
day of December and to continue thenceforward so long as the recipro-
cal exemption of the vessels of the United States and the produce, manu-
factures, and merchandise imported into the dominions of the Hawaiian
5i6 Messages a7id Papers of the Presidents
Islands in the same, as aforesaid, shall be continued on the part of the
Government of His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands.
, In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed.
J- -, Done at the city of Washington, the 29th day of January,
A. D. 1867, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninety-first.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidbnt of the; Unit:bd States of Amkrica.
A proclamation.
Whereas the Congress of the United States did by an act approved
on the 19th day of April, 1864, authorize the people of the Territory of
Nebraska to form a constitution and State government and for the ad-
mission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the origi-
nal States upon certain conditions in said act specified; and
Whereas said people did adopt a constitution conforming to the pro-
visions and conditions of said act and ask admission into the Union; and
Whereas the Congress of the United States did on the 8th and 9th
days of February, 1867, in mode prescribed by the Constitution, pass a
further act for the admission of the State of Nebraska into the Union, in
which last-named act it was provided that it should not take effect ex-
cept upon the fundamental condition that within the State of Nebraska
there should be no denial of the elective franchise or of any other right
to any person by reason of race or color, excepting Indians not taxed,
and upon the further fundamental condition that the legislature of said
State, by a solemn public act, should declare the assent of said State to
the said fundamental condition and should transmit to the President
of the United States an authenticated copy of said act of the legisla-
ture of said State, upon receipt whereof the President, by proclamation,
should forthwith announce the fact, whereupon said fundamental con-
dition should be held as a part of the organic law of the State, and
thereupon, and without any further proceeding on the part of Congress,
the admission of said State into the Union should be considered as com-
plete; and
Whereas within the time prescribed by said act of Congress of the 8th
and 9th of February, 1867, the legislature of the State of Nebraska did
pass an act ratifying the said act of Congress of the 8th and 9th of Feb-
ruary, 1867, and declaring that the aforenamed provisions of the third
Andrew Johnson 517
section of said last-named act of Congress should be a part of the organic
law of the State of Nebraska; and
Whereas a duly authenticated copy of said act of the legislature of the
State of Nebraska has been received by me:
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States of
America, do, in accordance with the provisions of the act of Congress
last herein named, declare and proclaim the fact that the fundamental
conditions imposed by Congress on the State of Nebraska to entitle that
State to admission to the Union have been ratified and accepted and
that the admission of the said State into the Union is now complete.
In testimony whereof I have hereto set my hand and have caused the
seal of the United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this ist day of March,
A. D. 1867, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninety-first.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
[NoTK.— The Fortieth Congress, first session, met March 4, 1867, in
accordance with the act of January 22, 1867, and on March 30, in accord-
ance with the concurrent resolution of March 29, adjourned to July 3.
The Senate met in special session April i, in conformity to the procla-
mation of the President of the United States of March 30, and on April
20 adjourned without day. The Fortieth Congress, first session, again
met July 3, and on July 20, in accordance with the concurrent resolution
of the latter date, adjourned to November 21; again met November 21,
and on December 2, 1867, in accordance with the concurrent resolution of
November 26, adjourned without day.]
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
March ii, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 28th of
July last, a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying docu-
ments.*
ANDREW JOHNSON.
♦Correspondence since March 4, 1857, touching the claim to military service asserted by France
and Prussia in reference to persons born in those countries, but who have since become citizens of
the United States.
5i8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington City, March zj, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded this day between the United States and the chiefs and
headmen of the Kickapoo tribe of Indians.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior and a copy of a letter of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs, explanatory of said treaty, are also here-
with transmitted. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, D. C,
To the Senate of the United States: ^''''^^ ^^' ^^^^•
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded in this city on the 15th instant [ultimo] between the
United States and the Stockbridge and Munsee tribes of Indians.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 25th instant [ultimo]
and a copy of a communication from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
of the 19th instant [ultimo] , explanatory of the said treaty, are also here-
with transmitted. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, D. C,
To the Senate of the United States: ^"""^^^ ^^' ^^^^•
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded in this city on the 23d instant [ultimo] between the
United States and the following tribes of Indians, viz: The Senecas,
the confederated Senecas and Shawnees, the Quapaws, the Ottawas, the
confederated Peorias, Kaskaskias, Weas and Piankeshaws, and the Miamis.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 26th instant [ultimo]
and a copy of a letter of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 25th
instant [ultimo] , explanatory of said treaty, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, D. C,
To the Senate of the United States: ^'^''^^ ^^' ^'^^''•
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded on the 2d March, 1866, between the United States and
the Shawnee tribe of Indians of Kansas.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 6th instant and a copy
of a communication from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 2d
instant, explanatory of the said treaty, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
I
Andrew Johnson 519
Washington City, D. C,
To the Senate of the United States: ^^^^^ ^^' ^^^7-
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded on the 27th instant [ultimo] between the United States
and the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 28th instant [ultimo]
and a copy of a communication from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
of the 27th instant [ultimo] , explanatory of the said treaty, are also here-
with transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, D. C,
To the Senate 0/ the United States: ^"^^^^ ^^' ^^^7*
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon
a treaty concluded in this city on the 13th instant [ultimo] between the
United States and the Kansas or Kaw tribe of Indians.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 25 th instant [ultimo]
and a copy of a communication of the 19th instant [ultimo] from the Com-
missioner of Indian Affairs, explanatory of said treaty, are also herewith
transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, March 13, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty this day concluded between the United States and the Cherokee
Nation of Indians, providing for the sale of their lands in Kansas, known
as the * ' Cherokee neutral lands. ' '
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior and accompanying copy of a
letter fro^i the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of this date, in relation to
the treaty, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 14., i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in further
answer to the resolution* of the House of Representatives of the 24th of
January last.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Requesting information "in relation to a removal of the Protestant Church or religious assembly
meeting at the American embassy from the city of Rome by an order of that Government."
520 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, March 75, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
. I transmit to the Senate, in further answer to their resolution of the
31st of January last, a report from the Secretary of State, with accom-
panying documents.* ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 20, i86y.
To the House of Rep7'esentatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolu-
tion of the 1 8th instant, a report f from the Secretary of State, with its
accompanying papers. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 20, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolu-
tion of the 1 8th instant, a report J from the Secretary of State, with an
accompanying paper. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 20, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 15th
instant, reports § from the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the
Treasury, with accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 20, 1867.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 7th
instant, relative to the arrest, imprisonment, and treatment of American
citizens in Great Britain or its Provinces, I transmit a report from the
Secretary of State on the subject. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, March 21, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded on the 19th of March, 1867, between the United
States and the Chippewa tribe of Indians of the Mississippi.
♦Dispatch from the United States consul at Geneva, with an inclosure, refuting charges against
his moral character, etc.
t Relating to trials in Canada of citizens of the United States for complicity in the Fenian inva-
sion of that country.
X Relating to the withdrawal of French troops from the Mexican Republic.
g Relating to the fees of consular agents within the districts of salaried consuls, etc.
Andrew Johnson 521
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior and a copy of a letter of Hon.
Lewis V. Bogy, special commissioner, of the 20th instant, explanatory of
the said treaty, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, March jo, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
In giving my approval to the joint resolution providing for the expenses
of carrying into full effect an act entitled "An act to provide for the more
efficient government of the rebel States," I am moved to do so for the
following reason: The seventh section of the act supplementary to the act
for the more efficient government of the rebel States provides that the
expenses incurred under or by virtue of that act shall be paid out of any
moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated. This provision is
wholly unlimited as to the amount to be expended, whereas the resolu-
tion now before me limits the appropriation to $500,000. I consider this
limitation as a very necessary check against unlimited expenditure and
liabilities. Yielding to that consideration, I feel bound to approve this
resolution, without modifying in any manner any objections heretofore
stated against the original and supplemental acts.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March jo, 186^,
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a treaty between the United States and His Majesty the Emperor
of all the Russias upon the subject of a cession of territory by the latter to
the former, which treaty was this day signed in this city by the pleni-
potentiaries of the parties. ANDREW JOHNSON.
PROCLAMATION.
By thk Presidknt of thk United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas objects of interest to the United States require that the Sen-
ate should be convened at 12 o'clock on Monday, the ist day of April
next, to receive and act upon such communications as may be made to
it on the part of the Executive:
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
522 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
have considered it to be my duty to issue this my proclamation, declaring
that an extraordinary occasion requires the Senate of the United States
to convene for the transaction of business at the Capitol, in the city of
Washington, on Monday, the ist day of April next, at 12 o'clock on that
day, of which all who shall at that time be entitled to act as members
of that body are hereby required to take notice.
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at Washing-
r -I ton, the 30th daj^ of March, A. D. 1867, and of the Independ-
ence of the United States of America the ninety-first.
By the President: " ANDREW JOHNSON.
WlI^IylAM H, Skward,
Secretary of State,
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
[The following messages were sent to the special session of the Senate.]
Washington, March 28, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 20th
instant, a report* from the Secretary of State, with accompanying docu-
°^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April 12, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the loth
instant, calling for information relative to privSoners of war taken by bel-
ligerents in the Mexican Republic, a report from the Secretary of State,
with accompanying papers. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April ij, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 28th of January
last, requesting certain information in regard to governors, secretaries,
and judges of Territories, I transmit herewith reports f from the Secre-
tary of State, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Attorney- General.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Relating to the exequatur of the consul of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg residing at New
York,
t Relating to the absence of Territorial officers from their posts of duty.
»
Andrew Johnson 523
Washington, April 75, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 13th
instant, a report* from the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April 16, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith reports from the heads of the several Executive
Departments, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the nth in-
stant, requesting "copies of any official opinions which may have been
given by the Attorney- General, the Solicitor of the Treasury, or by any
other officer of the Government on the interpretation of the act of Con-
gress regulating the tenure of office, and especially with regard to appoint-
ments by the President during the recess of Congress. ' '
ANDREW JOHNSON.
[The following messages were sent to the Fortieth Congress, first session.]
Washington, July 5, iSSy.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention for commercial reciprocity between the United States
and His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, which convention
was signed by the plenipotentiaries of the parties in the city of San
Francisco on the 21st day of May last.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, July 5, 186"/.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a convention between the United States
and the Republic of Venezuela for the adjustment of claims of citizens of
the United States on the Government of that Republic, The ratifica-
tions of this convention were exchanged at Caracas on the loth of April
last. As its first article stipulates that the commissioners shall meet in
that city within four months from that date, the expediency of passing
the usual act for the purpose of carrying the convention into effect will,
of course, engage the attention of Congress.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Relating to the absence of Governor Alexander Gumming from the Territory of Colorado since
his appointment as governor.
524 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, //^/y 6, i86y.
To the Senate and House of Represeyitatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a treaty between the United States
and His Majesty the Kmperor of all the Russias, the ratifications of which
were exchanged in this city on the 20th day of June last.
This instrument provides for a cession of territory to the United States
in consideration of the payment of $7,200,000 in gold. The attention of
Congress is invited to the subject of an appropriation for this payment,
and also to that of proper legislation for the occupation and government
of the territory as a part of the dominion of the United States.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington,. /?//)/ 6, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
1 transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention between the United States, Great Britain, France, the
Netherlands, and Japan, concluded at Yedo on the 25th of June, 1866.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the House of Representatives: Washington, futy 8, 1867.
I transmit herewith a report from the Attorney- General, additional to
the reports submitted by him December 31, 1866, and March 2, 1867, in
reply to a resolution of the House of Representatives of December 10,
1866, requesting "a list of names of all persons engaged in the late rebel-
lion against the United States Government who have been pardoned by
the President from April 15, 1865, to this date; that said list shall also
state the rank of each person who has been so pardoned, if he has been
engaged in the military service of the so-called Confederate government,
and the position if he shall have held any civil ofiice under said so-called
Confederate 'government; and .shall also further state whether such penson
has at any time prior to April 14, 1861, held any office under the United
States Government, and, if so, what office, together with the reasons for
granting such pardon, and also the names of the person or persons at
whose solicitation such pardon was granted. ' '
ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the House of Representatives. ^J y v^ /•
In compHance with the resolution of the House of Representatives
of the 5th of July, requesting the President "to inform the House what
States have ratified the amendment to the Constitution of the United
States proposed by concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress,
June 16, 1866," I transmit a report from the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson ^25
To the House of Representatives: Washington, July 10, 1867.
In compliance with so much of the resolution of the House of Repre-
sentatives of the 8th instant as requests information in regard to certain
agreements said to have been entered into between the United States,
European and West Virginia Land and Mining Company and certain
reputed agents of the Republic of Mexico, I transmit a report from the
Secretary of State and the papers accompanying it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the House of Representatives: Washington, July 11, 1867,
In comphance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 3d instant, requesting me to transmit all the official correspondence
between the Department of State and the Hon. Lewis D. Campbell, late
minister to Mexico, and also that with his successor, I communicate a
report from the Secretary of State and the papers accompanying it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /«/j/ 12, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 8th instant,
requesting me to transmit ' * all the official correspondence between the
Department of State and the Hon. Lewis D. Campbell, late minister of
the United States to the Republic of Mexico, from the time of his appoint-
ment, also the correspondence of the Department with his successor," I
communicate herewith a report on the subject from the Secretary of
State, from which it appears that the correspondence called for by the
Senate has already been communicated to the House of Representatives.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , July 7-5, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith reports from the Secretary of War and the Attorney-
General, containing the information called for by the resolution of the
Senate of the 3d instant, requesting the President * * to communicate to
the Senate copies of all orders, instructions, circular letters, or letters of
advice issued to the respective military officers assigned to the command
of the several military districts under the act passed March 2, 1867,
entitled 'An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel
States,' and the act supplementary thereto, passed March 23, 1867; also
copies of all opinions given to him by the Attorney- General of the United
States touching the construction and interpretation of said acts, and of
all correspondence relating to the operation, construction, or execution
526 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of said acts that may have taken place between himself and any of said
commanders, or between him and the General of the Army, or between
the latter and any of said commanders, touching the salAe subjects; also
copies of all orders issued by any of said commanders in carrying out the
provisions of said acts or either of them ; also that lie inform the Senate
what progress has been made in the matter of registration under said
acts, and whether the sum of money heretofore appropriated for carrying
them out is probably sufficient."
In answer to that portion of the resolution which inquires whether the
sum of money heretofore appropriated for carrying these acts into effect
is probably sufficient, reference is made to the accompanying report of
the Secretary of War. It will be seen from that report that the appro-
priation of $500,000 made in the act approved March 30, 1867, for the
purpose of carrying into effect the ''Act to provide for the more efiicient
government of the rebel States," passed March 2, 1867, and the act sup-
plementary thereto, passed March 23, 1867, has already been expended
by the commanders of the several military districts, and that, in addition,
the sum of $1,648,277 is required for present purposes.
It is exceedingly difficult at the present time to estimate the probable
expense of carrying into full effect the two acts of March last and the
bill which passed the two Houses of Congress on the 13th instant. If
the existing governments of ten States of the Union are to be deposed
and their entire machinery is to be placed under the exclusive control
and authority of the respective district commanders, all the expenditures
incident to the administration of such governments must necessarily be
incurred by the Federal Government. It is believed that, in addition to
the $2,100,000 already expended or estimated for, the sum which would
be required for this purpose would not be less than $14,000,000 — the
aggregate amount expended prior to the rebellion in the administration
of their respective governments by the ten States embraced in the provi-
sions of these acts. This sum would no doubt be considerably augmented
if the machinery of these States is to be operated by the Federal Govern-
ment, and would be largely increased if the United States, by abolishing
the existing State governments, should become responsible for liabilities
incurred by them before the rebellion in laudable efforts to develop their
resources, and in no wise created for insurrectionary or revolutionary pur-
poses. The debts of these States, thus legitimately incurred, when accu-
rately ascertained will, it is believed, approximate $100,000,000; ^nd they
are held not only by our own citizens, among whom are residents of por-
tions of the country which have ever remained loyal to the Union, but by
persons who are the subjects of foreign governments. It is worthy the
consideration of Congress and the country whether, if the Federal Gov-
ernment by its action were to assume such obligations, so large an addi-
tion to our public expenditures would not seriously impair the credit of
the nation, or, on the other hand, whether the refusal of Congress to
Andrew Johnson " ^37
guarantee the payment of the debts of these States, after having displaced
or abohshed their State governments, would not be viewed as a violation
of good faith and a repudiation by the national legislature of liabilities
which these States had justly and legally incurred.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /«/>/ 18, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 8th instant,
requesting me to furnish to that body copies of any correspondence on the
files of the Department of State relating to any recent events in Mexico,
I communicate a report from the Secretary of State, with the papers
accompanying it. ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the House of Representatives: Washington, July 18, 1867.
In compliance with that part of the resolution of the House of Repre-
sentatives of the 8th instant which requests me to transmit to the House of
Representatives any official correspondence or other information relating
to the capture and execution of MaximiUan and the arrest and reported
execution of Santa Anna in Mexico, I inclose herewith a report from
the Secretary of State, from which it appears that the correspondence
called for by the House of Representatives has already been communi-
cated to the Senate of the tJnited States,
ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the House of Representatives: Washington, July 20, 1867.
I have received a resolution adopted by the House of Representatives
on the 8th instant, inquiring "whether the publication which appeared
in the National Intelligencer and other public prints on the 21st of June
last, and which contained a statement of the proceedings of the President
and Cabinet in respect to an interpretation of the acts of Congress com-
monly known as the reconstruction acts, was made by the authority of
the President or with his knowledge and consent, ' ' and ' * whether the full
and complete record or minute of all the proceedings, conclusions, and
determinations of the President and Cabinet relating to said acts of Con-
gress and their interpretation is embraced or given in said publication,"*
and also requesting that ' ' a true copy of the full and complete record or
minute of vSUch proceedings, conclusions, and determinations in regard to
the interpretation of said reconstruction acts ' ' be furnished to the House.
In compliance with the request of the House of Representatives, I have
to state that the publication to which the resolution refers was made by-
proper authority, and that it comprises the proceedings in Cabinet relating
528 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
to the acts of Congress mentioned in the inquiry, upon which, after tak-
ing the opinions of the heads of the several Executive Departments of
the Government, I had announced my own conclusions. Other questions
arising from these acts have been under consideration, upon which, how-
ever, no final conclusion has been reached. No publication in reference
to them has, therefore, been authorized by me; but should it at any time
be- deemed proper and advantageous to the interests of the country to
make public those or any other proceedings of the Cabinet, authority for
their promulgation will be given by the President.
A correct copy of the record of the proceedings, published in the
National Intelligencer and other newspapers on the 21st ultimo, is here-
with transmitted, together with a copy of the instructions based upon the
conclusions of the President and Cabinet and sent to the commanders of
the several military districts created by act of Congress of March 2, 1867.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
In CabinK'T, June 18, 1867.
Present: The President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the
Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, the Postmaster-General, the Attorney-
General, the Acting Secretary of the Interior.
The President announced that he had under consideration the two opinions from
the Attorney-General as to the legal questions arising upon the acts of Congress com-
monly known as the reconstruction acts, and that iji view of the great magnitude
of the subject and of the various interests involved he deemed it proper to have it
considered fully in the Cabinet and to avail himself of all the light which could be
afforded by the opinions and advice of the members of the Cabinet, to enable him
to see that these laws be faithfully executed and to decide what orders and instruc-
tions are necessary and expedient to be given to the military commanders.
The President said further that the branch of the subject that seemed to him first
in order for consideration was as to the instructions to be sent to the military com-
manders for their guidance and for the guidance of persons offering for registration.
The instructions proposed by the Attorney-General, as set forth in the summary con-
tained in his last opinion, will therefore be now considered.
The summary was then read at length.
The reading of the summary having been concluded, each section was then con-
sidered, discussed, and voted upon as follows:
1. The oath prescribed in the supplemental act defines all the qualifications re-
quired, and every person who can take that oath is entitled to have his name entered
upon the list of voters.
All vote * ' aye ' ' except the Secretary of War, who votes ' ' nay, ' '
2. The board of registration have no authority to administer any other oath to the
person applying for registration than this prescribed oath, nor to administer any
oath to any other person touching the qualifications of the applicant or the falsity
of the oath so taken by him.
No provision is made for challenging the qualifications of the applicant or enter-
ing upon any trial or investigation of his qualifications, either by witnesses or any
other form of proof.
All vote "aye" except the Secretary of War, who votes "nay."
3. As to citizenship and residence:
The applicant for registration must be a citizen of the State and of the United
Andrew Johnson 529
States, and must be a resident of a county or parish included in the election district.
He may be registered if he has been such citizen for a period less than twelve months
at the time he applies for registration, but he can not vote at any election unless his
citizenship has then extended to the full term of one year. As to such a person, the
exact length of his citizenship should be noted opposite his name on the list, so that
it may appear on the day of election, upon reference to the list, whether the full term
has then been accomplished.
Concurred in unanimously.
4. An unnaturalized person can not take this oath, but an alien who has been nat-
uralized can take it, and no other proof of naturalization can be required from him.
All vote * ' aye ' ' except the Secretary of War, who votes ' ' nay. ' '
5. No one who is not 21 years of age at the time of registration can take the oath,
for he must swear that he has then attained that age.
Concurred in unanimously.
6. No one who has been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion against
the United States or for felony committed against the laws of any State or of the
United States can take this oath.
The actual participation in a rebellion or the actual commission of a felony does
not amount to disfranchisement. The sort of disfranchisement here meant is that
which is declared by law passed by competent authority, or which has been fixed
upon the criminal by the sentence of the court which tried him for the crime.
No law of the United States has declared the penalty of disfranchisement for par-
ticipation in rebellion alone; nor is it known that any such law exists in either of
these ten States, except, perhaps, Virginia, as to which State special instructions will
be given.
All vote * ' aye ' ' except the Secretary of War, who dissents as to the second and
third paragraphs.
7. As to disfranchisement arising from having held office followed by participation
in rebellion:
This is the most important part of the oath, and requires strict attention to arrive
at its meaning. The applicant must swear or affirm as follows:
"That I have never been a member of any State legislatm-e, nor held any executive
or judicial office in any State, and afterwards engaged in an insurrection or rebellion
against the United States or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I have
never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States, or as an officer of
the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judi-
cial officer of any State,' to support the Constitution of the United States, and after-
wards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid or
comfort to the enemies thereof. ' '
Two elements must concur in order to disqualify a person under these clauses:
First, the office and official oath to support the Constitution of the United States;
second, engaging afterwards in rebellion. Both must exist to work disqualification,
and must happen in the order of time mentioned.
A person who has held an office and taken the oath to support the Federal Consti-
tution and has not afterwards engaged in rebellion is not disqualified. So, too, a
person who has engaged in rebellion, but has not theretofore held an office and taken
that oath, is not disqualified.
All vote *'aye" except the Secretary of War, who votes "nay."
8. Officers of the United States:
As to these the language is without limitation. The person who has at any time
prior to the rebellion held any office, civil or military, under the United States, and
has taken an official oath to support the Constitution of the United States, is subject
to disqualification.
Concurred in unanimously.
M P — vol, VI— 34
530 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
9. Militia officers of any State prior to the rebellion are not subject to disqualifi-
cation.
All vote * ' aye ' ' except the Secretary of War, who votes ' ' nay. ' '
- 10. Municipal officers — that is to say, officers of incorporated cities, towns, and vil-
lages, such as mayors, aldermen, town council, police, and other city or town officers —
are not subject to disqualification.
Concurred in unanimously.
11. Persons who have prior to the rebellion been members of the Congress of the
United States or members of a State legislature are subject to disqualification, but
those who have been members of conventions framing or amending the constitution
of a State prior to the rebellion are not subject to disqualification.
Concurred in unanimously.
12. All the executive or judicial officers of any State who took an oath to support
the Constitution of the United States are subject to disqualification, including county
officers. They are subject to disqualification if they were required to take as a part
of their official oath the oath to support the Constitution of the United States.
Concurred in unanimously.
13. Persons who exercised mere employments under State authority are not dis-
qualified; such as commissioners to lay out roads, commissioners of public works,
visitors of State institutions, directors of State institutions, examiners of banks, no-
taries public, commissioners to take acknowledgments of deeds.
Concurred in unanimously; but the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treas-
ury, and the Secretary of War express the opinion that lawyers are such officers as
are disqualified if they participated in the rebellion. Two things must exist as to
any person to disqualify him from voting: First, the office held prior to the rebel-
lion, and, afterwards, participation in the rebellion.
14. An act to fix upon a person the offense of engaging in rebellion under this law
must be an overt and voluntary act, done with the intent of aiding or furthering the
common unlawful purpose. A person forced into the rebel service by conscription
or under a paramount authority which he could not safely disobey, and who would
not have entered such service if left to the free exercise of his own will, can not be
held to be disqualified from voting.
All vote ' ' aye ' ' except the Secretary of War, who votes ' ' nay ' ' as the proposition
is stated.
15. Mere acts of charity, where the intent is to relieve the wants of the object of
such charity, and not done in aid of the cause in which he may have been engaged,
do not disqualify; but organized contributions of food and clothing for the general
relief of persons engaged in the rebellion, and not of a merely sanitary character, but
contributed to enable them to perform their unlawful object, maybe classed with acts
which do disqualify. Forced contributions to the rebel cause in the form of taxes
or military assessments, which a person was compelled to pay or contribute, do not
disqualify; but voluntary contributions to the rebel cause, even such indirect con-
tributions as arise from the voluntary loan of money to the rebel authorities or pur-
chase of bonds or securities created to afford the means of carrying on the rebellion,
will work disqualification.
Concurred in unanimously.
16. All those who in legislative or other official capacity were engaged in the fur-
therance of the common unlawful purpose, where the duties of the office necessarily
had relation to the support of the rebellion, such as members of the rebel conven-
tions, congresses, and legislatures, diplomatic agents of the rebel Confederacy, and
other officials whose offices were created for the purpose of more effectually carrying
on hostilities or whose duties appertained to the support of the rebel cause , must be
held to be disqualified; but officers who during the rebellion discharged official duties
not incident to war, but only such duties as belong even to a state of peace and were
Andrew Johnson 531
necessary to the preservation of order and the administration of law, are not to be
considered as thereby engaging in rebellion or as disqualified. Disloyal sentiments,
opinions, or sympathies would not disqualify, but where a person has by speech or
writing incited others to engage in rebellion he must come under the disqualification.
All vote " aye " except the Secretary of War, who dissents to the second paragraph,
with the exception of the words ' ' where a person has by speech or by writing incited
others to engage in rebellion he must come under the disqualification."
17. The duties of the board appointed to superintend the elections.
This board, having the custody of the list of registered voters in the district for
which it is constituted, must see that the name of the person offering to vote is found
upon the registration list, and if such proves to be the fact it is the duty of the board
to receive his vote if then qualified by residence. They can not receive the vote of
any person whose name is not upon the list, though he may be ready to take the regis-
tration oath, and although he may satisfy them that he was unable to have his name
registered at the proper time, in consequence of absence, sickness, or other cause.
The board can not enter into any inquiry as to the qualifications of any per-
son whose name is not on the registration list, or as to the qualifications of any
person whose name is on that list.
Concurred in unanimously.
18. The mode of voting is provided in the act to be by ballot. The board will
keep a record and poll book of the election, showing the votes, list of voters, and the
persons elected by a plurality of the votes cast at the election, and make returns of
these to the commanding general of the district.
Concurred in unanimously.
19. The board appointed for registration and for superintending the elections must
take the oath prescribed by the act of Congress approved July 2, 1862, entitled "An
act to prescribe an oath of office. ' '
Concurred in unanimously.
In Cabinet, June 20, 1867.
Present: The same Cabinet officers as on the i8th, except the Acting Secretary of
the Interior.
The President announced to the Cabinet that after full deliberation he concurred
with the majority upon the sections of the summary upon which the Secretary of
War expressed his dissent, and that he concurred with the Cabinet upon those sec-
tions approved by unanimous vote; that as it appeared the military commanders
entertained doubts upon the points covered by the summary, and as their action
hitherto had not been uniform, he deemed it proper, without further delay, to com-
municate in a general order* to the respective commanders the points set forth in
the summary.
VETO MESSAGES.
Washington, March 23, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I have considered the bill entitled ' *An act supplementary to an act
entitled 'An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel
States,' passed March 2, 1867, and to facilitate restoration," and now
return it to the House of Representatives with my objections.
This bill provides for elections in the ten States brought under the
operation of the original act to which it is supplementary. Its details are
*See Executive order of June 20, 1867, pp. 552-556.
532 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
principally directed to the elections for the formation of the State con-
stitutions, but by the sixth section of the bill ' * all elections ' ' in these
States occurring while the original act remains in force are brought
within its purview. Referring to these details, it will be found that, first
of all, there is to be a registration of the voters. No one whose name
has not been admitted on the list is to be allowed to vote at any of these
elections. To ascertain who is entitled to registration, reference is made
necessary, by the express language of the supplement, to the original act
and to the pending bill. The fifth section of the original act provides,
as to voters, that they shall be * ' male citizens of the State, 2 1 years old
and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have
been residents of said State for one year. ' ' This is the general qualifica-
tion, followed, however, by many exceptions. No one can be registered,
according to the original act, * ' who may be disfranchised for participa-
tion in the rebellion" — a provision which left undetermined the question
as to what amounted to disfranchisement, and whether without a judi-
cial sentence the act itself produced that effect. This supplemental bill
superadds an oath, to be taken by every person before his name can be
admitted upon the i^gistration, that he has * * not been disfranchised for
participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States." It
thus imposes upon every person the necessity and responsibility of decid-
ing for himself, under the peril of punishment by a military commission
if he makes a mistake, what works disfranchisement by participation in
rebellion and what amounts to such participation. Almost every man —
the negro as well as the white — above 2 1 years of age who was resident
in these ten States during the rebellion, voluntarily or involuntarily, at
some time and in some way did participate in resistance to the lawful
authority of the General Government. The question with the citizen to
whom this oath is to be proposed must be a fearful one, for while the bill
does not declare that perjury may be assigned for such false swearing
nor fix any penalty for the offense, we must not forget that martial law
prevails; that every person is answerable to a military commission, with-
out previous presentment by a grand jury, for any charge that may be
made against him, and that the supreme authority of the military com-
mander determines the question as to what is an offense and what is to
be the measure of punishment.
The fourth section of the bill provides ' ' that the commanding general
of each district shall appoint as many boards of registration as may be
necessary, consisting of three loyal officers or persons. " The only quali-
fication stated for these officers is that they must be "loyal." They
may be persons in the military service or civilians, residents of the State
or strangers. Yet these persons are to exercise most important duties
and are vested with unlimited discretion. They are to decide what names
shall be placed upon the register and from their decision there is to be
no appeal. They are to superintend the elections and to decide all ques-
Andrew Johnson 533
tions which may arise. The}^ are to have the custody of the ballots and
to make return of the persons elected. Whatever frauds or errors they
may commit must pass without redress. All that is left for the com-
manding general is to receive the returns of the elections, open the same,
and ascertain who are chosen ' ' according to the returns of the officers
who conducted said elections." By such means and with this sort of
agency are the conventions of delegates to be constituted.
As the delegates are to speak for the people, common justice would
seem to require that they should have authority from the people them-
selves. No convention so constituted will in any sense represent the
wishes of the inhabitants of these States, for under the all-embracing
exceptions of these laws, by a construction which the uncertainty of
the clause as to disfranchisement leaves open to the board of officers, the
great body of the people may be excluded from the polls and from all
opportunity of expressing their own wishes or voting for delegates who
will faithfully reflect their sentiments.
I do not deem it necessary further to investigate the details of this bill.
No consideration could induce me to give my approval to such an elec-
tion law for any purpose, and especially for the great purpose of framing
the constitution of a State. If ever the American citizen should be left
to the free exercise of his own judgment it is when he is engaged in
the work of forming the fundamental law under which he is to live.
That work is his work, and it can not properly be taken out of his hands.
All this legislation proceeds upon the contrary assumption that the
people of each of these States shall have no constitution except such as
may be arbitrarily dictated by Congress and formed under the restraint
of military rule. A plain statement of facts makes this evident.
In all these States there are existing constitutions, framed in the
accustomed way by the people. Congress, however, declares that these
constitutions are not ''loyal and republican," and requires the people to
form them anew. What, then, in the opinion of Congress, is necessary
to make the constitution of a State ' ' loyal and republican ' ' ? The origi-
nal act answers the question: It is universal negro suffrage — a question
which the Federal Constitution leaves exclusively to the States them-
selves. All this legislative machinery of martial law, military coercion,
and political disfranchisement is avowedly for that purpose and none
other. The existing constitutions of the ten States conform to the
acknowledged standards of loyalty and republicanism. Indeed, if there
are degrees in republican forms of government, their constitutions are
more republican now than when these States, four of which were mem-
bers of the original thirteen, first became members of the Union.
Congress does not now demand that a single provision of their constitu-
tions be changed except such as confine suffrage to the white population.
It is apparent, therefore, that these provisions do not conform to the
standard of republicanism which Congress seeks to establish. That
534 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
there may be no mistake, it is only necessary that reference should be
made to the original act, which declares "such constitution shall provide
that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have
the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates." What class of
persons is here meant clearly appears in the same section; that is to say,
"the male citizens of said State 21 years old and upward, of whatever
race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State
for one year previous to the day of such election."
Without these provisions no constitution which can be framed in any
one of the ten States wdll be of any avail wdth Congress. This, then, is
the test of what the constitution of a State of this Union must contain
to make it republican. Measured by such a standard, how few of the
States now composing the Union have republican constitutions! If in
the exercise of the constitutional guaranty that Congress shall secure to
every State a republican form of government universal suffrage for blacks
as well as whites is a sine qua non, the work of reconstruction may as
well begin in Ohio as in Virginia, in Pennsylvania as in North Carolina.
When I contemplate the millions of our fellow-citizens of the South
with no alternative left but to impose upon themselves this fearful and
untried experiment of complete negro enfranchisement — and white dis-
franchisement, it may be, almost as complete — or submit indefinitely to
the rigor of martial law, without a single attribute of freemen, deprived
of all the sacred guaranties of our Federal Constitution, and threatened
with even worse wrongs, if any worse are possible, it seems to me their
condition is the most deplorable to which any people can be reduced.
It is true that they have been engaged in rebellion and that their object
being a separation of the States and a dissolution of the Union there was
an obligation resting upon every loyal citizen to treat them as enemies
and to wage war against their cause.
Inflexibly opposed to any movement imperiling the integrity of the
Government, I did not hesitate to urge the adoption of all measures
necessary for the suppression of the insurrection. After a long and ter-
rible struggle the efforts of the Government were triumphantly success-
ful, and the people of the South, submitting to the stern arbitrament,
yielded forever the issues of the contest. HostiHties terminated soon
after it became my duty to assume the responsibilities of the chief execu-
tive officer of the Republic, and I at once endeavored to repress and con-
trol the passions which our civil strife had engendered, and, no longer
regarding these erring millions as enemies, again acknowledged them as
our friends and our countrymen. The war had accomplished its objects.
The nation was saved and that seminal principle of mischief which from
the birth of the Government had gradually but inevitably brought on the
rebellion was totally eradicated. Then, it seemed to me, was the aus-
picious time to commence the work of reconciliation; then, when these
people sought once more our friendship and protection, I considered
Andrew Joh7tso7i 53^
it our duty generously to meet them in the spirit of charity and for-
giveness and to conquer them even more effectually by the magnanim-
ity of the nation than by the force of its arms. I yet believe that if the
policy of reconciliation then inaugurated, and which contemplated an
early restoration of these people to all their political rights, had received
the support of Congress, every one of these ten States and all their peo-
ple would at this moment be fast anchored in the Union and the great
work which gave the war all its sanction and made it just and holy would
have been accomplished. Then over all the vast and fruitful regions
of the South peace and its blessings would have prevailed, while now
millions are deprived of rights guaranteed by the Constitution to every
citizen and after nearly two years of legislation find themselves placed
under an absolute military despotism. "A military republic, a govern-
ment founded on mock elections and supported only by the sword,"
was nearly a quarter of a century since pronounced by Daniel Webster,
when speaking of the South American States, as " a movement, indeed,
but a retrograde and disastrous movement, from the regular and old-
fashioned monarchical systems; " and he added:
If men would enjoy the blessings of republican government, they must govern
themselves by reason, by mutual counsel and consultation, by a sense and feeling of
general interest, and by the acquiescence of the minority in the will of the major-
ity, properly expressed; and, above all, the military must be kept, according to the
language of our bill of rights, in strict subordination to the civil authority. Wher-
ever this lesson is not both learned and practiced there can be no political freedom.
Absurd, preposterous is it, a scoff and a satire on free forms of constitutional liberty,
for frames of government to be prescribed by military leaders and the right of suf-
frage to be exercised at the point of the sword.
I confidently believe that a time will come when these States will again
occupy their true positions in the Union. The barriers which now seem
so obstinate must yield to the force of an enlightened and just public
opinion, and sooner or later unconstitutional and oppressive legislation
will be effaced from our statute books. When this shall have been con-
summated, I pray God that the errors of the past may be forgotten and
that once more we shall be a happy, united, and prosperous people, and that
at last, after the bitter and eventful experience through which the nation
has passed, we shall all come to know that our only safety is in the pres-
ervation of our Federal Constitution and in according to every American
citizen and to every State the rights which that Constitution secures,
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, April 10, 186 j.^
The first session of the Fortieth Congress adjourned on the 30th day of
March, 1867. This bill,t which was passed during that session, was not
* Pocket veto. Was never sent to Congress, but was deposited in the Department of State,
t" Joint resolution placing certain troops of Missouri on an equal footing with others as to
bounties."
536 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
presented for my approval by the Hon. Edmund G. Ross, of the Senate of
the United States, and a member of the Committee on Enrolled Bills, until
Monday, the ist day of April, 1867, two days after the adjournment. It
is not believed that the approval of any bill after the adjournment of Con-
gress, whether presented before or after such adjournment, is authorized by
the Constitution of the United States, that instrument expressly declaring
that no bill shall become a law the return of which may have been pre-
vented by the adjournment of Congress. To concede that under the Con-
stitution the President, after the adjournment of Congress, may, without
limitation in respect to time, exercise the power of approval, and thus
determine at his discretion whether or not bills shall become laws, might
subject the executive and legislative departments of the Government to
influences most pernicious to correct legislation and sound public morals,
and — with a single exception, occurring during the prevalence of civil
war — ^would be contrary to the established practice of the Government
from its inauguration to the present time. This bill will therefore be
filed in the office of the Secretary of State without my approval.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. Q-.,July ig, i86y.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I return herewith the bill entitled "An act supplementary to an act
entitled 'An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel
States,' passed on the 2d day of March, 1867, and the act supplementary
thereto, passed on the 23d day of March, 1867," and will state as briefly
as possible some of the reasons which prevent me from giving it my
approval.
This is one of a series of measures passed by Congress during the last
four months on the subject of reconstruction. The message returning
the act of the 2d of March last states at length my objections to the pas-
sage of that measure. They apply equally well to the bill now before
me, and I am content merely to refer to them and to reiterate my convic-
tion that they are sound and unanswerable.
There are some points peculiar to this bill, which I will proceed at once
to consider.
The first section purports to declare "the true intent and meaning,"
in some particulars, of the two prior acts upon this subject.
It is declared that the intent of those acts was, first, that the existing
governments in the ten "rebel States" "were not legal State govern-
ments," and, second, "that thereafter said governments, if continued,
were to be continued subject in all respects to the miHtary commanders
of the respective districts and to the paramount authority of CongrCvSS. ' '
Congress may by a declaratory act fix upon a prior act a construction
altogether at variance with its apparent meaning, and from the time, at
Andrezv Johnson ^37
least, when such a construction is fjxed the original act will be construed
to mean exactly what it is stated to mean by the declaratory statute.
There will be, then, from the time this bill may become a law no doubt,
no question, as to the relation in which the "existing governments" in
those States, called in the original act "the provisional governments,"
stand toward the military authority. As those relations stood before
the declaratory act, these "governments," it is true, were made subject
to absolute military authority in many important respects, but not in all,
the language of the act being "subject to the military authority of the
United States, as hereinafter prescribed. ' ' By the sixth section of the
original act these governments were made "in all respects subject to
the paramount authority of the United States."
Now by this declaratory act it appears that Congress. did not by the
original act inter d to limit the military authority to any particulars or
subjects therein "prescribed," but meant to make it universal. Thus
over all of these ten States this military government is now declared to
have unlimited authority. It is no longer confined to the preservation
of the public peace, the administration of criminal law, the registration
of voters, and the superintendence of elections, but * ' in all respects' ' is
asserted to be paramount to the existing civil governments.
It is impossible to conceive any state of society more intolerable than
this; and yet it is to this condition that 12,000,000 American citizens
are reduced by the Congress of the United States. Over every foot of
the immense territory occupied by these American citizens the Constitu-
tion of the United States is theoretically in full operation. It binds all
the people there and should protect them; yet they are denied every one
of its sacred guaranties.
Of what avail will it be to any one of these Southern people when
seized by a file of soldiers to ask for the cause of arrest or for the pro-
duction of the warrant? Of what avail to ask for the privilege of bail
when in military custody, which knows no such thing as bail? Of what
avail to demand a trial by jury, process for witnesses, a copy of the
indictment, the privilege of counsel, or that greater privilege, the writ of
habeas corpus f
The veto of the original bill of the 2d of March was based on two dis-
tinct grounds — the interference of Congress in matters strictly appertain-
ing to the reserved powers of the States and the establishment of military
tribunals for the trial of citizens in time of peace. The impartial reader
of that message will understand that all that it contains with respect to
military despotism and martial law has reference especially to the fearful
power conferred on the district commanders to displace the criminal
courts and assume jurisdiction to try and to punish by military boards;
that, potentially, the suspension of the habeas corpus was martial law and
military despotism. The act now before me not only declares that the
\ntent was to confer such military authority, but also to confer unlimited
538 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
military authority over all the other courts of the State and over all the
officers of the State — legislative, executive, and judicial. Not content with
the general grant of power, Congress, in the second section of this bill,
specifically gives to each military commander the power ' * to suspend or
remove from office, or from the performance of official duties and the
exercise of official powers, any officer or person holding or exercising, or
professing to hold or exercise, any civil or military office or duty in such
district under any power, election, appointment, or authority derived
from, or granted by, or claimed under any so-called State, or the gov-
ernment thereof, or any municipal or other division thereof. ' '
A power that hitherto all the departments of the Federal Govern-
ment, acting in concert or separately, have not dared to exercise is here
attempted to be conferred on a subordinate military officer. To him, as a
military officer of the Federal Government, is given the power, supported
by ' a sufficient military force," to remove every civil officer of the State.
What next? The district commander, who has thus displaced the civil
officer, is authorized to fill the vacancy by the detail of an officer or sol-
dier of the Army, or by the appointment of " some other person."
This military appointee, whether an officer, a soldier, or ' ' some other
person," is to perform "the duties of such officer or person so suspended
or removed." In other words, an officer or soldier of the Army is thus
transformed into a civil officer. He may be made a governor, a legislator,
or a judge. However unfit he may deem himself for such civil duties,
he must obey the order. The officer of the Army must, if ' ' detailed, ' ' go
upon the supreme bench of the State with the same prompt obedience as
if he were detailed to go upon a court-martial. The soldier, if detailed to
act as a justice of the peace, must obey as quickly as if he were detailed
for picket duty.
What is the character of such a military civil officer ? This bill declares
that he shall perform the duties of the civil office to which he is detailed.
It is clear, however, that he does not lose his position in the military
service. He is still an officer or soldier of the Army; he is still subject
to the rules and regulations which govern it, and must yield due defer-
ence, respect, and obedience toward his superiors.
The clear intent of this section is that the officer or soldier detailed to
fill a civil office must execute its duties according to the laws of the State.
If he is appointed a governor of a State, he is to execute the duties as
provided by the laws of that State, and for the time being his military
character is to be suspended in his new civil capacity. If he is appointed
a State treasurer, he must at once assume the custody and disbursement
of the funds of the State, and must perform those duties precisely accord-
ing to the laws of the State, for he is intrusted with no other official duty
or other official power. Holding the office of treasurer and intrusted
with funds, it happens that he is required by the State laws to enter into
bond with security and to take an oath of office; yet from the beginning
I
I
Andrew Johnson 539
of the bill to the end there is no provision for any bond or oath of office,
or for any single qualification required under the State law, such as resi-
dence, citizenship, or anything else. The only oath is that provided for
in the ninth section, by the terms of which everyone detailed or appointed
to any civil ofiice in the State is required ' ' to take and to subscribe the
oath of office prescribed by law for officers of the United States. ' ' Thus
an officer of the Army of the United States detailed to fill a civil ofiice in
one of these States gives no official bond and takes no official oath for the
performance of his new duties, but as a civil officer of the State only
takes the same oath which he had already taken as a military officer
of the United States. He is, at last, a military officer performing civil
duties, and the authority under which he acts is Federal authority only;
and the inevitable result is that the Federal Government, by the agency
of its own sworn officers, in effect assumes the civil government of the
State.
A singular contradiction is apparent here. Congress declares these
local State governments to be illegal governments, and then provides
that these illegal governments shall be carried on by Federal officers,
who are to perform the very duties imposed on its own officers by this
illegal State authority. It certainly would be a novel spectacle if Con-
gress should attempt to carry on a legal State government by the agency
of its own officers. It is yet more strange that Congress attempts to
sustain and carry on an illegal State government by the same Federal
agency.
In this connection I must call attention to the tenth and eleventh sec-
tions of the bill, which provide that none of the officers or appointees of
these military commanders ' ' shall be bound in his action by any opinion
of any civil officer of the United States," and that all the provisions of
the act "shall be construed liberally, to the end that all the intents
thereof may be fully and perfectly carried out."
It seems Congress supposed that this bill might require construction,
and they fix, therefore, the rule to be applied. But where is the con-
struction to come from? Certainly no one can be more in want of
instruction than a soldier or an officer of the Army detailed for a civil
service, perhaps the most important in a State, with the duties of which
he is altogether unfamiliar. This bill says he shall not be bound in his
action by the opinion of any civil officer of the United States. The duties
of the office are altogether civil, but when he asks for an opinion he can
only ask the opinion of another military officer, who, perhaps, under-
stands as little of his duties as he does himself; and as to his "action,"
he is answerable to the military authority, and to the military authority
alone. Strictly, no opinion of any civil officer other than a judge has a
binding force.
But these military appointees would not be bound even by a judicial
opinion. They might very well say, even when their action is in conflict
540 Messages mid Papers of the Presidents
with the Supreme Court of the United States, "That court is composed
of civil officers of the United States, and we are not bound to conform
our action to any opinion of any such authority."
This bill and the acts to which it is supplementary are all founded
upon the assumption that these ten communities are not States and that
their existing governments are not legal. Throughout the legislation
upon this subject they are called "rebel States," and in this particular
bill they are denominated "so-called States," and the vice of illegality
is declared to pervade all of them. The obligations of consistency bind
a legislative body as well as the individuals who compose it. It is now
too late to say that these ten political communities are not States of
this Union. Declarations to the contrary made in these three acts are
contradicted again and again by repeated acts of legislation enacted by
Congress from the year 1861 to the year 1867.
During that period, while these States were in actual rebellion, and
after that rebellion was brought to a close, they have been again and
again recognized as States of the Union. Representation has been ap-
portioned to them as States. They have been divided into judicial dis-
tricts for the holding of district and circuit courts of the United States,
as States of the Union only can be districted. The last act on this sub-
ject was passed July 23, 1866, by which every one of these ten States was
arranged into districts and circuits.
They have been called upon by Congress to act through their legisla-
tures upon at least two amendments to the Constitution of the United
States. As States they have ratified one amendment, which required the
vote of twenty-seven States of the thirty-six then composing the Union.
When the requisite twenty-seven votes were given in favor of that amend-
ment— seven of which votes were given by seven of these ten States — it
was proclaimed to be a part of the Constitution of the United States, and
slavery was declared no longer to exist within the United States or any
place subject to their jurisdiction. If these seven States were not legal
States of the Union, it follows as an inevitable consequence that in some
of the States slavery yet exists. It does not exist in these seven States,
for they have abolished it also in their State constitutions; but Kentucky
not having done so, it would still remain in that State. But, in truth,
if this assumption that these States have no legal State governments be
true, then the abolition of slavery by these illegal governments binds no
one, for Congress now denies to these States the power to abolish slavery
by denying to them the power to elect a legal State legislature, or to frame
a constitution for any purpose, even for such a purpose as the abolition of
slavery.
As to the other constitutional amendment, having reference to suffrage,
it happens that these States have not accepted it. The consequence is
that it has never been proclaimed or understood, even by Congress, to be
a part of the Constitution of the United States. The Senate of the United
Andrew Johnson 541
States has repeatedly given its sanction to the appointment of judges, dis-
trict attorneys, and marshals for every one of these States; yet, if they are
not legal States, not one of these judges is authorized to hold a court.
So, too, both Houses of Congress have passed appropriation bills to pay
all these judges, attorneys, and officers of the United States for exercising
their functions in these States. Again, in the machinery of the internal-
revenue laws all these States are districted, not as ' ' Territories, ' ' but as
"States."
So much for continuous legislative recognition. The instances cited,
however, fall far short of all that might be enumerated. Executive rec-
ognition, as is well known, has been frequent and unwavering. The same
may be said as to judicial recognition through the Supreme Court of the
United States. That august tribunal, from first to last, in the adminis-
tration of its duties in banc and upon the circuit, has never failed to rec-
ognize these ten communities as legal States of the Union. The cases
depending in that court upon appeal and writ of error from these States
when the rebellion began have not been dismissed upon any idea of the
cessation of jurisdiction. They were .carefully continued from term to
term until the rebellion was entirely subdued and peace reestablished, and
then they were called for argument and consideration as if no insurrection
had intervened. New cases, occurring since the rebellion, have come
from these States before that court by writ of error and appeal, and even
by original suit, where only ' * a State ' ' can bring such a suit. These cases
are entertained by that tribunal in the exercise of its acknowledged juris-
diction, which could not attach to them, if they had come from any political
body other than a State of the Union. Finally, in the allotment of their
circuits made by the judges at the December term, 1865, every one of these
States is put on the same footing of legality with all the other States of the
Union. Virginia and North Carolina, being a part of the fourth circuit,
are allotted to the Chief Justice. South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, and Florida constitute the fifth circuit, and are allotted to the
late Mr. Justice Wayne. Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas are allotted to
the sixth judicial circuit, as to which there is a vacancy on the bench.
The Chief Justice, in the exercise of his circuit duties, has recently
held a circuit court in the State of North Carolina. If North Carolina
is not a State of this Union, the Chief Justice had no authority to hold a
court there, and every order, judgment, and decree rendered by him in
that court were coram non judice and void.
Another ground on which these reconstruction acts are attempted to
be sustained is this: That these ten States are conquered territory; that
the constitutional relation in which they stood as States toward the Fed-
eral Government prior to the rebellion has given place to a new relation;
that their territory is a conquered country and their citizens a conquered
people, and that in this new relation Congress can govern them by mili-
tary power.
542 • Messages and Papers of the Presidents
A title by conquest stands on clear ground; it is a new title acquired by
war; it applies only to territory; for goods or movable things regularly
captured in war are called "booty," or, if taken by individual soldiers,
* * plunder. ' '
There is not a foot of the land in any one of these ten States which the
United States holds by conquest, save only such land as did not belong
to either of these States or to any individual owner. I mean such lands
as did belong to the pretended government called the Confederate States.
These lands we may claim to hold by conquest. As to all other land or
territory, whether belonging to the States or to individuals, the Federal
Government has now no more title or right to it than it had before the
rebellion. Our own forts, arsenals, navy-yards, custom-houses, and other
Federal property situate in those States we now hold, not by the title of
conquest, but by our old title, acquired by purchase or condemnation for
public use, with compensation to former owners. We have not conquered
these places, but have simply * * repossessed ' ' them.
If we require more sites for forts, custom-houses, or other public use,
we must acquire the title to them by purchase or appropriation in the reg-
ular mode. At this moment the United States, in the acquisition of sites
for national cemeteries in these States, acquires title in the same way.
The Federal courts sit in court-houses owned or leased by the United
States, not in the court-houses of the States. The United States pays
each of these States for the use of its jails. Finally, the United States
levies its direct taxes and its internal revenue upon the property in these
States, including the productions of the lands within their territorial lim-
its, not by way of levy and contribution in the character of a conqueror,
but in the regular way of taxation, under the same laws which apply to
all the other States of the Union.
From first to last, during the rebellion and since, the title of each of
these States to the lands and public buildings owned by them has never
been disturbed, and not a foot of it has ever been acquired by the United
States, even under a title by confiscation, and not a foot of it has ever been
taxed under Federal law.
In conclusion I must respectfully ask the attention of Congress to the
consideration of one more question arising under this bill. It vests in
the military commander, subject only to the approval of the General of the
Army of the United States, an unlimited power to remove from office any
civil or military officer in each of these ten States, and the further power,
subject to the same approval, to detail or appoint any military officer or
soldier of the United States to perform the duties of the officer so removed,
and to fill all vacancies occurring in those States by death, resignation, or
otherwise.
The military appointee thus required to perform the duties of a civil
office according to the laws of the State, and, as such, required to take
an oath, is for the time being a civil officer. What is his character? Is
Andrew Johnson ^43
he a civil officer of the State or a civil officer of the United States? If
he is a civil officer of the State, where is the Federal power under our
Constitution which authorizes his appointment by any Federal officer?
If, however, he is to be considered a civil officer of the United States, as
his appointment and oath would seem to indicate, where is the authority
for his appointment vested by the Constitution ? The power of appoint-
ment of all officers of the United States, civil or military, where not pro-
vided for in the Constitution, is vested in the President, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate, with this exception, that Congress
' * may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think
proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of
Departments. " But this bill, if these are to be considered inferior officers
within the meaning of the Constitution, does not provide for their appoint-
ment by the President alone, or by the courts of law, or by the heads of
Departments, but vests the appointment in one subordinate executive
officer, subject to the approval of another subordinate executive officer.
So that, if we put this question and fix the character of this military
appointee either way. this provision of the bill is equally opposed to the
Constitution.
Take the case of a soldier or officer appointed to perform the office of
judge in one of these States, and, as such, to administer the proper laws
of the State. Where is the authority to be found in the Constitution for
vesting in a military or an executive officer strict judicial functions to be
exercised under State law? It has been again and again decided by the
Supreme Court of the United States that acts of Congress which have
attempted to vest executive powers in Xho^ judicial courts or judges of the
United States are not warranted by the Constitution. If Congress can
not clothe a judge with merely executive duties, how can they clothe
ayi officer or soldier of the Army with judicial duties over citizens of the
United States who are not in the military or naval service? So, too, it
has been repeatedly decided that Congress can not require a State officer,
executive or judicial, to perform any duty enjoined upon him by a law
of the United States. How, then, can Congress confer power upon an
executive officer of the United States to perform such duties in a State?
If Congress could not vest in a judge of one of these States any jud'icial
authority under the United States by direct enactment, how can it accom-
plish the same thing indirectly, by removing the State judge and putting
an officer of the United States in his place?
To me these considerations are conclusive of the unconstitutionality of
this part of the bill now before me, and I earnestly commend their con-
sideration to the deliberate judgment of Congress.
Within a period less than a year the legislation of Congress has at-
tempted to strip the executive department of the Government of some
of its essential powers. The Constitution and the oath provided in it
devolve upon the President the power and duty to see that the laws are
544 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
faithfully executed. The Constitution, in order to carry out this power,
gives him the choice of the agents, and makes them subject to his con-
trol and supervision. But in the execution of these laws the constitu-
tional obligation upon the President remains, but the power to exercise
that constitutional duty is effectually taken away. The military com-
mander is as to the power of appointment made to take the place of
the President, and the General of the Army the place of the Senate; and
any attempt on the part of the President to assert his own constitutional
power may, under pretense of law, be met by official insubordination.
It is to be feared that these military officers, looking to the authority
given by these laws rather than to the letter of the Constitution, will rec-
ognize no authority but the commander of the district and the General
of the Army.
If there were no other objection than this to this proposed legislation,
it would be sufficient. Whilst I hold the chief executive authority of ,
the United States, whilst the obligation rests upon me to see that all the i
laws are faithfully executed, I can never willingly surrender that trust or i
the powers given for its execution. I can never give my assent to bej
made responsible for the faithful execution of laws, and at the same time
surrender that trust and the powers which accompany it to any other
executive officer, high or low, or to any number of executive officers. If
this executive trust, vested by the Constitution in the President, is to
be taken from him and vested in a subordinate officer, the responsibility
will be with Congress in clothing the subordinate with unconstitutional]
power and with the officer who assumes its exercise.
This interference with the constitutional authority of the executive
department is an evil that will inevitably sap the foundations of our fed-j
eral system; but it is not the worst evil of this legislation. It is a great
public wrong to take from the President powers conferred on him alone^
by the Constitution, but the wrong is more flagrant and more dangerous
when the powers so taken from the President are conferred upon sub-
ordinate executive officers, and especially upon military officers. Over
nearly one-third of the States of the Union military power, regulated by
no fixed law, rules supreme. Bach one of the five district commanders,
though not chosen by the people or responsible to them, exercises at this
hour more executive power, military and civil, than the people have ever
been willing to confer upon the head of the executive department, though
chosen by and responsible to themselves. The remedy must come from
the people themselves. They know what it is and how it is to be applied.
At the present time they can not, according to the forms of the Consti-
tution, repeal these laws; they can not remove or contfol this military
despotism. The remedy is, nevertheless, in their hands; it is to be found
in the ballot, and is a sure one if not controlled by fraud, overawed by
arbitrary power, or, from apathy on their part, too long delayed. With
abiding confidence in their patriotism, wisdom, and integrity, I am still
Andrew Johnson 545
hopeful of the future, and that in the end the rod of despotism will be
broken, the armed heel of power lifted from the necks of the people, and
the principles of a violated Constitution preserved.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , July 19, 1867,
To the House oj Representatives:
For reasons heretofore stated in my several veto messages to Congress
upon the subject of reconstruction, I return without my approval the
' ' Joint resolution to carry into effect the several acts providing for the
more efficient government of the rebel States," and appropriating for
that purpose the sum of $1,000,000. ANDREW JOHNSON.
PROCLAMATIONS.
By thk Prkside^nt of thb United Statks.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas by the Constitution of the United States the executive power
is vested in a President of the United States of America, who is bound
by solemn oath faithfully to execute the office of President and to the
best of his ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of
the United States, and is by the same instrument made Commander in
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States and is required to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed; and
Whereas by the same Constitution it is provided that the said Consti-
tution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursu-
ance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in
every State shall be bound thereby; and
Whereas in and by the same Constitution the judicial power of the
United States is vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts
as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish, and the afore-
said judicial power is declared to extend to all cases in law and equity
arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and the
treaties which shall be made under their authority; and
Whereas all officers, civil and military, are bound by oath that they
will support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and
domestic, and will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and
Whereas all officers of the Army and Navy of the United States, in
accepting their commissions under the laws of Congress and the Rules
and Articles of War, incur an obligation to observe, obey, and follow such
directions as they shall from time to time receive from the President or
the General or other superior officers set over them according to the rules
and discipHne of war; and
Whereas it is provided by law that whenever, by reason of unlawful
M P— vol. VI— 35
54^ Messages and Papers of the Presidents
obstructions, combinations, or assemblages of persons or rebellion against
the authority of the Government of the United States, it shall become
impracticable, in the judgment of the President of the United States, to
enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings the laws of the
United States within any State or Territory, the Executive in that case
is authorized and required to secure their faithful execution by the em-
ployment of the land and naval forces; and
Whereas impediments and obstructions, serious in their character, have
recently been interposed in the States of North Carolina and South Caro-
lina, hindering and preventing for a time a proper enforcement there of
the laws of the United States and of the judgments and decrees of a law-
ful court thereof, in disregard of the command of the President of the
United States; and
Whereas reasonable and well-founded apprehensions exist that such
ill-advised and unlawful proceedings may be again attempted there or
elsewhere:
Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do
hereby warn all persons against obstructing or hindering in any manner
whatsoever the faithful execution of the Constitution and the laws; and
I do solemnly enjoin and command all officers of the Government, civil
and military, to render due submission and obedience to said laws and
to the judgments and decrees of the courts of the United States, and to
give all the aid in their power necessary to the prompt enforcement and
execution of such laws, decrees, judgments, and processes.
And I do hereby enjoin upon the officers of the Army and Navy to
assist and sustain the courts and other civil authorities of the United
States in a faithful administration of the laws thereof and in the judg-
ments, decrees, mandates, and processes of the courts of the United States;
and I call upon all good and well-disposed citizens of the United States to
remember that upon the said Constitution and laws, and upon the judg-
ments, decrees, and processes of the courts made in accordance with the
same, depend the protection of the lives, liberty, property, and happiness
of the people. And I exhort them everywhere to testify their devotion
to their country, their pride in its prosperity and greatness, and their
determination to uphold its free institutions by a hearty cooperation in
the efforts of the Government to sustain the authority of the law, to
maintain the supremacy of the Federal Constitution, and to preserve
unimpaired the integrity of the National Union.
In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
affixed to these presents and sign the same with my hand.
[SKAi,.] Done at the city of Washington, the 3d day of September,
in the year 1867. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.1AM K. Skward,
Secretary of State.
Andrew Johnson 547
By the President op the United States of America,
a proclamation.
Whereas in the month of July, A. D. 1861, the two Houses of Con-
gress, with extraordinary unanimity, solemnly declared that the war then
existing was not waged on the part of the Government in any spirit of
oppression nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose
of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions
of the States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitu-
tion and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights
of the several States unimpaired, and that as soon as these objects should
be accomplished the war ought to cease; and
Whereas the President of the United States, on the 8th day of Decem-
ber, A. D. 1863, and on the 26th day of March, A. D. 1864, did, with
the objects of suppressing the then existing rebellion, of inducing all
persons to return to their loyalty, and of restoring the authority of the
United States, issue proclamations offering amnesty and pardon to all
persons who had, directly or indirectly, participated in the then existing
rebellion, except as in those proclamations was specified and reserved; and
Whereas the President of the United States did on the 29th day of May,
A. D. 1865, issue a further proclamation, with the same objects before
mentioned, and to the end that the authority of the Government of the
United States might be restored and that peace, order, and freedom
might be established, and the President did by the said last-mentioned
proclamation proclaim and declare that he thereby granted to all persons
who had, directly or indirectly, participated in the then existing rebellion,
except as therein excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all
rights of property, except as to slaves, and except in certain cases where
legal proceedings had been instituted, but upon condition that such per-
sons should take and subscribe an oath therein prescribed, which oath
1 1 should be registered for permanent preservation; and
Whereas in and by the said last-mentioned proclamation of the 29th
day of May, A. D. 1865, fourteen extensive classes of persons therein
specially described were altogether excepted and excluded from the bene-
fits thereof; and
Whereas the President of the United States did, on the 2d day of
April, A. D. 1866, issue a proclamation declaring that the insurrection
was at an end and was thenceforth to be so regarded; and
Whereas there now exists no organized armed resistance of misguided
citizens or others to the authority of the United States in the States of
Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama,
Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, and the laws can
be sustained and enforced therein by the proper civil authority. State or
Federal, and the people of said States are well and loyally disposed, and
548 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
have contormed, or, if permitted to do so, will conform in their legisla-
tion to the condition of affairs growing out of the amendment to the
Constitution of the United States prohibiting slavery within the limits
and jurisdiction of the United States; and
Whereas there no longer exists any reasonable ground to apprehend
within the States which were involved in the late rebellion any renewal
thereof or any unlawful resistance by the people of said States to the Con-
stitution and laws of the United States; and
Whereas large standing armies, military occupation, martial law, mili-
tary tribunals, and the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus and the right of trial by jury are in time of peace dangerous to
public liberty, incompatible with the individual rights of the citizen,
contrary to the genius and spirit of our free institutions, and exhaustive
of the national resources, and ought not, therefore, to be sanctioned or
allowed except in cases of actual necessity for repelling invasion or sup-
pressing insurrection or rebellion; and
Whereas a retaliatory or vindictive policy, attended by unnecessary
disqualifications, pains, penalties, confiscations, and disfranchisements,
now, as always, could only tend to hinder reconciliation among the peo-
ple and national restoration, while it must seriously embarrass, obstruct,
and repress popular energies and national industry and enterprise; and
Whereas for these reasons it is now deemed essential to the public
welfare and to the more perfect restoration of constitutional law and
order that the said last-mentioned proclamation so as aforesaid issued on
the 29th day of May, A. D. 1865, should be modified, and that the full
and beneficent pardon conceded thereby should be opened and further
extended to a large number of the persons who by its aforesaid excep-
tions have been hitherto excluded from Executive clemency:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of
the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare that the full pardon
described in the said proclamation of the 29th day of May, A. D. 1865,
shall henceforth be opened and extended to all persons who, directly
or indirectly, participated in the late rebellion, with the restoration of all
privileges, immunities, and rights of property, except as to property
with regard to slaves, and except in cases of legal proceedings under the
laws of the United States; but upon this condition, nevertheless, that
every such person who shall seek to avail himself of this proclamation
shall take and subscribe the following oath and shall cause the same to
be registered for permanent preservation in the same manner and with
the same effect as with the oath prescribed in the said proclamation
of the 29th day of May, 1865, iiamely:
I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm), in presence of Almighty God, that
I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the
United States and the Union of the States thereunder, and that I will in like man-
Andrew Johnson ^4q
ner abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been
made during the late rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves. So
help me God.
The following persons, and no others, are excluded from the benefits
of this proclamation and of the said proclamation of the 29th day of
May, 1865, namely:
First. The chief or pretended chief executive officers, including the
President, the Vice-President, and all heads of departments of the pre-
tended Confederate or rebel government, and all who were agents thereof
in foreign states and countries, and all who held or pretended to hold in
the service of the said pretended Confederate government a military
rank or title above the grade of brigadier- general or naval rank or title
above that of captain, and all who were or pretended to be governors of
States while maintaining, aiding, abetting, or submitting to and acqui-
escing in the rebellion.
Second. All persons who in any way treated otherwise than as lawful
prisoners of war persons who in any capacity were employed or engaged
in the military or naval service of the United States.
Third. All persons who at the time they may seek to obtain the bene-
fits of this proclamation are actually in civil, military, or naval confine-
ment or custody, or legally held to bail, either before or after conviction,
and all persons who were engaged, directly or indirectly, in the assassina-
tion of the late President of the United States or in any plot or con-
spiracy in any manner therewith connected.
In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and
have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto
affixed.
[SSAI,.] Done at the city of Washington, the 7th day of September,
A. D. 1867, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninety-second.
By the President: ANDREW JOHNSON.
Wii^iviAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas it has been ascertained that in the nineteenth paragraph
of the proclamation of the President of the United States of the 20th of
August, 1866, declaring the insurrection at an end which had theretofore
existed in the State of Texas, the previous proclamation of the 13th of
June, 1865, instead of that of the 2d day of April, 1866, was referred to:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do hereby declare and proclaim that the said words " 13th
550 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of June, 1865," are to be regarded as erroneous in the paragraph adverted
to, and that the words "2d day of April, 1866," are to be considered as
substituted therefor.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 7th day of October,
A. D. 1867, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninety-second.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President*
WiiyiyiAM H. Seward,
Secretary of State.
By the Prksidknt of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
In conformity with a recent custom that may now be regarded as
established on national consent and approval, I, Andrew Johnson, Presi-
dent of the United States, do hereby recommend to my fellow-citizens
that Thursday, the 28th day of November next, be set apart and observed
throughout the Republic as a day of national thanksgiving and praise to
the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with whom are dominion and fear, who
maketh peace in His high places.
Resting and refraining from secular labors on that day, let us rever-
ently and devoutly give thanks to our Heavenly Father for the mercies
and blessings with which He has crowned the now closing year. Espe-
cially let us remember that He has covered our land through all its
extent with greatly needed and very abundant harvests; that He has
caused industry to prosper, not only in our fields, but also in our work-
shops, in our mines, and in our forests. He has permitted us to multiply
ships upon our lakes and rivers and upon the high seas, and at the same
time to extend our iron roads so far into the secluded places of the con-
tinent as to guarantee speedy overland intercourse between the two
oceans. He has inclined our hearts to turn away from domestic con-
tentions and commotions consequent upon a distracting and desolating
civil war, and to walk more and more in the ancient ways of loyalty,
conciliation, and brotherly love. He has blessed the peaceful efforts
with which we have established new and important commercial treaties
with foreign nations, while we have at the same time strengthened our
national defenses and greatly enlarged our national borders.
While thus rendering the unanimous and heartfelt tribute of national
praise and thanksgiving which is so justly due to Almighty God, let us
not fail to implore Him that the same divine protection and care which
Andrew Johnson ^^i
we have hitherto so undeservedly and yet so constantly enjoyed may
be continued to our country and our people throughout all their genera-
tions forever.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed,
r 1 Done at the city of Washington, this 26th day of October,
A. D. 1867, and of the Independence of the United States the
ninety-second.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
WlIylylAM H. Skward,
Secretary of State.
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
Genkrai, Orders, No. 10.
Headquarters of the Army,
Adjutant- GeneraIv's Office,
Washington, March 11, i86y.
II. In pursuance of the act of Congress entitled "An act to provide
for the more efficient government of the rebel States," the President
directs the following assignments to be made:
First District, State of Virginia, to be commanded by Brevet Major-
General J. M. Schofield. Headquarters, Richmond, Va.
Second District, consisting of North Carolina and South Carolina, to be
commanded by Major-General D. B. Sickles. Headquarters, Columbia,
S. C.
Third District, consisting of the States of Georgia, Florida, and Ala-
bama, to be commanded by Major-General G. H. Thomas. Headquar-
ters, Montgomery, Ala.
Fourth District, consisting of the States of Mississippi, and Arkansas,
to be commanded by Brevet Major-General B. O. C. Ord. Headquarters,
Vicksburg, Miss.
Fifth District, consisting of the States of Louisiana and Texas, to
be commanded by Major-General P. H. Sheridan. Headquarters, New
Orleans, La.
The powers of departmental commanders are hereby delegated to the
above-named district commanders.
By command of General Grant:
B. D. TOWNSBND,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
552 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Gknbrai^ Orders, No. i8.
Hkadquartkrs of thk Army,
Adjutant-Gknkrai.'s Office,
Washington^ March z^, i86j.
The President directs that the following change be made, at the re-
quest of Major- General Thomas, in the assignment announced in General
Orders, No. lo, of March ii, 1867, of commanders of districts, under the
act of Congress entitled "An act to provide for the more efficient gov-
ernment of the rebel States, ' ' and of the Department of the Cumberland,
created in General Orders, No. 14, of March 12, 1867:
Brevet Major- General John Pope to command the Third District, con-
sisting of the States of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama; and Major- Gen-
eral George H. Thomas to command the Department of the Cumberland.
By command of General Grant: ^ ^ TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
War Department,
Adjutant- Genbrai^'s Office,
Washington, June 20, 18 6y.
Whereas several commanders of military districts created by the acts
of Congress known as the reconstruction acts have expressed doubts as
to the proper construction thereof and in respect to some of their powers
and duties under said acts, and have applied to the Executive for infor-
mation in relation thereto; and
Whereas the said acts of Congress have been referred to the Attorney-
General for his opinion thereon, and the said acts and the opinion of the
Attorney- General have been fully and carefully considered by the Presi-
dent in conference with the heads of the respective Departments:
The President accepts the following as a practical interpretation of the
aforesaid acts of Congress on the points therein presented, and directs
the same to be transmitted to the respective military commanders for
their information, in order that there may be uniformity in the execution
of said acts:
1 . The oath prescribed in the supplemental act defines all the qualifi-
cations required, and every person who can take that oath is entitled to
have his name entered upon the list of voters.
2. The board of registration have no authority to administer any other
oath to the person applying for registration than this prescribed oath,
nor to administer an oath to any other person touching the qualifications
of the applicant or the falsity of the oath so taken by him. The act, to
guard against falsity in the oath, provides that if false the person taking
it shall be tried and punished for perjury.
I
Andrew Johnson 553
No provision is made for challenging the qualifications of the appli-
cant or entering upon any trial or investigation of his qualifications,
either by witnesses or any other form of proof.
3. As to citizenship and residence:
The applicant for registration must be a citizen of the State and of the
United States, and must be a resident of a county or parish included in
the election district. He may be registered if he has been such citizen
for a period less than twelve months at the time he applies for registra-
tion, but he can not vote at any election unless his citizenship has then
extended to the full term of one year. As to such a person, the exact
length of his citizenship should be noted opposite his name on the list,
so that it may appear on the day of election, upon reference to the list,
whether the full term has then been accomplished.
4. An unnaturalized person can not take this oath, but an alien who
has been naturalized can take it, and no other proof of naturalization can
be required from him.
5. No one who is not 21 years of age at the time of registration can
take the oath, for he must swear that he has then attained that age.
6. No one who has been disfranchised for participation in any rebel-
lion against the United States or for felony committed against the laws
of any State or of the United States can take this oath.
The actual participation in a rebellion or the actual commission of a
felony does not amount to disfranchisement. The sort of disfranchise-
ment here meant is that which is declared by law passed by competent
authority, or which has been fixed upon the criminal by the sentence of
the court which tried him for the crime.
No law of the United States has declared the penalty of disfranchise-
ment for participation in rebellion alone; nor is it known that any such
law exists in either of these ten States, except, perhaps, Virginia, as to
which State special instructions will be given.
7. As to disfranchisement arising from having held office followed by
participation in rebellion:
This is the most important part of the oath, and requires strict atten-
tion to arrive at its meaning. The applicant must swear or affirm as
follows:
I That I have never been a member of any State legislature, nor held any executive
or judicial office in any State, and afterwards engaged in an insurrection or rebellion
against the United States or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I have
never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States, or as an officer
of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or
judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, and
afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given
aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
Two elements must concur in order to disqualify a person under these
[clauses: First, the office and official oath to support the Constitution of
554 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the United States; second, engaging afterwards in rebellion. Both must
exist to work disqualification, and must happen in the order of time men-
tioned.
A person who has held an office and taken the oath to support the
Federal Constitution and has not afterwards engaged in rebellion is not
disqualified. So, too, a person who has engaged in rebellion, but has
not theretofore held an office and taken that oath, is not disqualified.
8. Officers of the United States:
As to these the language is without limitation. The person who has
at any time prior to the rebellion held an office, civil or military, under
the United States, and has taken an official oath to support the Constitu-
tion of the United States, is subject to disqualification.
9. Militia officers of any State prior to the rebellion are not subject to
disqualification .
10. Municipal officers — that is to say, officers of incorporated cities,
towns, and villages, such as mayors, aldermen, town council, police, and
other city or town officers — are not subject to disqualification.
1 1 . Persons who have prior to the rebellion been members of the Con-
gress of the United States or members of a State legislature are subject
to disqualification, but those who have been members of conventions
framing or amending the Constitution of a State prior to the rebelHon
are not subject to disqualification.
12. All the executive or judicial officers of any State who took an oath
to support the Constitution of the United States are subject to disquali-
fication, including county officers. They are subject to disqualification
if they were required to take as a part of their official oath the oath to
support the Constitution of the United States.
13. Persons who exercised mere employment under State authority
are not disqualified; such as commissioners to lay out roads, commission-
ers of public works, visitors of State institutions, directors of State insti-
tutions, examiners of banks, notaries public, and commissioners to take
acknowledgments of deeds.
ENGAGING IN RKBKI.I.ION.
Having specified what offices held by anyone prior to the rebellion
come within the meaning of the law, it is necessary next to set forth
what subsequent conduct fixes upon such person the offense of engaging
in rebellion. Two things ipust exist as to any person to disqualify him
from voting: First, the office held prior to the rebellion, and, afterwards,
participation in the rebellion.
14. An act to fix upon a person the offense of engaging in the rebel-
lion under this law must be an overt and voluntary act, done with the
intent of aiding or furthering the common unlawful purpose. A person
forced into the rebel service by conscription or under a paramount author-
ity which he could not safely disobey, and who would not have entered
Andrew Johnson 555
such service if left to the free exercise of his own will, can not be held to
be disqualified from voting.
15. Mere acts of charity, where the intent is to relieve the wants of
the object of such charity, and not done in aid of the cause in which he
may have been engaged, do not disqualify; but organized contributions of
food and clothing for the general relief of persons engaged in the rebel-
lion, and not of a merely sanitary character, but contributed to enable
them to perform their unlawful object, may be classed with acts which
do disqualify.
Forced contributions to the rebel cause in the form of taxes or mili-
tary assessments, which a person was compelled to pay or contribute, do
not disqualify; but voluntary contributions to the rebel cause, even such
indirect contributions as arise from the voluntary loan of money to rebel
authorities or purchase of bonds or securities created to afford the means
of carrying on the rebellion, will work disqualification.
16. All those who in legislative or other official capacity were engaged
in the furtherance of the common unlawful purpose, where the duties of
the office necessarily had relation to the support of the rebellion, such as
members of the rebel conventions, congresses, and legislatures, diplomatic
agents of the rebel Confederacy, and other officials whose offices were cre-
ated for the purpose of more effectually carrying on hostilities or whose
duties appertained to the support of the rebel cause, must be held to be
disqualified.
But officers who during the rebellion discharged official duties not inci-
dent to war, but only such duties as belong even to a state of peace and
were necessary to the preservation of order and the administration of law,
are not to be considered as thereby engaging in rebellion or as disquali-
fied. Disloyal sentiments, opinions, or sympathies would not disqualify,
but where a person has by speech or by writing incited others to engage
in rebellion he must come under the disqualification.
17. The duties of the board appointed to superintend the elections:
This board, having the custody of the list of registered voters in the
district for which it is constituted, must see that the name of the person
offering to vote is found upon the registration list, and if such proves to
be the fact it is the duty of the board to receive his vote if then qualified
by residence. They can not receive the vote of any person whose name
is not upon the list, though he may be ready to take the registration oath,
and although he may satisfy them that he was unable to have his name
registered at the proper time, in consequence of absence, sickness, or other
cause.
The board can not enter into any inquiry as to the qualifications of ^ny
person whose name is not on the registration Hst, or as to the qualifica-
tions of any person whose name is on the list.
18. The mode of voting is provided in the act to be by ballot. The
board will keep a record and poll book of the election, showing the votes,
556 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
list of voters, and the persons elected by a plurality of the votes cast at
the election, and make returns of these to the commanding general of the
district.
19. The board appointed for registration and for superintending the
elections must take the oath prescribed by the act of Congress approved
July 2, 1862, entitled "An act to prescribe an oath of office."
By order of the President: ^ ^ TOWNSEND,
A ssistant A djutant- General.
ExKcuTivE^ Mansion,
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Washington, August 12, 1867.
Secretary of War,
Sir: By virtue of the power and authority vested in me as President
by the Constitution and laws of the United States, you are. hereby sus-
pended from office as Secretary of War, and will cease to exercise any
and all functions pertaining to the same.
You will at once transfer to General Ulysses S. Grant, who has this day
been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War ad interim^
all records, books, and other property now in your custody and charge.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, August 12, i86y.
General U1.YSSKS S. Grant,
Washington, D. C.
Sir: The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having been this day suspended
as Secretary of War, you are hereby authorized and empowered to act as
Secretary of War ad interim, and will at once enter upon the discharge
of the duties of the office.
The Secretary of War has been instructed to transfer to you all the
records, books, papers, and other public property now in his custody and
^^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, August 77, i86y.
Major- General George H. Thomas is hereby assigned to the command
of the Fifth MiUtary District, created by the act of Congress passed on
the 2d day of March, 1867.
Major-General P. H. Sheridan is hereby assigned to the command of
the Department of the Missouri.
Andrew Johnson ^^y
Major- General Winfield S. Hancock is hereby assigned to the com-
mand of the Department of the Cumberland.
The Secretary of War ad interim will give the necessary instructions
to carry this order into effect. ANDREW JOHNSON.
BxBcuTivB Mansion,
General U. S. Grant, Washington, D. C, August 26, 1867.
Secretary of War ad interim.
Sir: In consequence of the unfavorable condition of the health of
Major- General George H. Thomas, as reported to you in Surgeon Has-
son's dispatch of the 21st instant, my order dated August 17, 1867, is
hereby modified so as to assign Major- General Winfield S. Hancock to
the command of the Fifth Military District, created by the act of Con-
gress passed March 2, 1867, and of the military department comprising
the States of lyouisiana and Texas. On being relieved from the com-
mand of the Department of the Missouri by Major- General P. H. Sheri-
dan, Major-General Hancock will proceed directly to New Orleans, I<a.,
and, assuming the command to which he is hereby assigned, will, when
necessary to a faithful execution of the laws, exercivSe any and all powers
conferred by acts of Congress upon district commanders and any and all
authority pertaining to officers in command of military departments.
Major-General P. H. Sheridan will at once turn over his present com-
mand to the ofiicer next in rank to himself, and, proceeding without
delay to Fort I^eavenworth, Kans., will relieve Major-General Hancock
of the command of the Department of the Missouri.
Major-General George H. Thomas will until further orders remain in
command of the Department of the Cumberland.
Very respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
KxKCUTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, August 26, i86y.
Brevet Major-General Edward R. S. Canby is hereby assigned to the
command of the Second Military District, created by the act of Congress
of March 2, 1867, and of the Military Department of the South, embra-
cing the States of North Carolina and South Carolina. He will, as soon
as practicable, relieve Major-General Daniel K. Sickles, and, on assuming
the command to which he is hereby assigned, will, when necessary to a
faithful execution of the laws, exercise any and all powers conferred by
acts of Congress upon district commanders and any and all authority
pertaining to officers in command of military departments.
Major-General Daniel B. Sickles is hereby relieved from the command
of the Second Military District.
558 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
The Secretary of War ad interim will give the necessary instructions
to carry this order into effect. ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExBcuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, September ^, 186 j.
The heads of the several Executive Departments of the Government
are instructed to furnish each person holding an appointment in their
respective Departments with an official copy of the proclamation of the
President bearing date the 3d instant, with directions strictly to observe
its requirements for an earnest support of the Constitution of the United
States and a faithful execution of the laws which have been made in pur-
suance thereof. ANDREW JOHNSON.
[Note. — The Fortieth Congress, second session, met December 2, 1867,
in conformity to the Constitution of the United States, and on July 27,
1868, in accordance with the concurrent resolution of July 24, adjourned
to September 21; again met September 21, and adjourned to October 16;
again met October 16, and adjourned to November 10; again met No-
vember 10 and adjourned to December 7, 1868; the latter meetings and
adjournments being in accordance with the concurrent resolution of
September 21.]
THIRD ANNUAL MESSAGE.
Washington, December j, i86y.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
The continued disorganization of the Union, to which the President
has so often called the attention of Congress, is yet a subject of profound
and patriotic concern. We may, however, find some relief from that anx-
iety in the reflection that the painful political situation, although before
untried by ourselves, is not new in the experience of nations. Political
science, perhaps as highly perfected in our own time and country as in
any other, has not yet disclosed any means by which civil wars can be
absolutely prevented. An enlightened nation, however, with a wise and
beneficent constitution of free government, may diminish their frequency
and mitigate their severity by directing all its proceedings in accordance
with its fundamental law.
When a civil war has been brought to a close, it is manifestly the first
interest and duty of the state to repair the injuries which the war has
inflicted, and to secure the benefit of the lessons it teaches as fully and
Andrew Johnson 559
as speedily as possible. This duty was, upon the termination of the rebel-
lion, promptly accepted, not only by the executive department, but by
the insurrectionary States themselves, and restoration in the first moment
of peace was believed to be as easy and certain as it was indispensable.
The expectations, however, then so reasonably and confidently enter-
tained were disappointed by legislation from which I felt constrained by
my obligations to the Constitution to withhold my assent.
It is therefore a source of profound regret that in complying with
the obligation imposed upon the President by the Constitution to give
to Congress from time to time information of the state of the Union I
am unable to communicate any definitive adjustment, satisfactory to the
American people, of the questions which since the close of the rebellion
have agitated the public mind. On the contrary, candor compels me to
declare that at this time there is no Union as our fathers understood the
term, and as they meant it to be understood by us. The Union which
they established can exist only where all the States are represented in
both Houses of Congress; where one State is as free as another to regu-
late its internal concerns according to its own will, and where the laws of
the central Government, strictly confined to matters of national jurisdic-
tion, apply with equal force to all the people of every section. That such
is not the present ' ' state of the Union " is a melancholy fact, and we must
all acknowledge that the restoration of the States to their proper legal
relations with the Federal Government and with one another, according
to the terms of the original compact, would be the greatest temporal bless-
ing which God, in His kindest providence, could bestow upon this nation.
It becomes our imperative duty to consider whether or not it is impossible
to effect this most desirable consummation.
The Union and the Constitution are inseparable. As long as one is
obeyed by all parties, the other will be preserved; and if one is destroyed,
both must perish together. The destruction of the Constitution will be
followed by other and still greater calamities. It was ordained not only
to form a more perfect union between the States, but to " establish jus-
tice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, pro-
mote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity." Nothing but implicit obedience to its requirements
in all parts of the country will accomplish these great ends. Without
that obedience we can look forward only to continual outrages upon indi-
^vidual rights, incessant breaches of the public peace, national weakness,
inancial dishonor, the total loss of our prosperity, the general corruption
)f morals, and the final extinction of popular freedom. To save our
)untry from evils so appalling as these, we should renew our efforts
igain and again.
To me the process of restoration seems perfectly plain and simple. It
consists merely in a faithful application of the Constitution and laws.
^he execution of the laws is not now obstructed or opposed by physical
560 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
force. There is no military or other necessity, real or pretended, which
can prevent obedience to the Constitution, either North or South. All the
rights and all the obligations of States and individuals can be protected
and enforced by means perfectly consistent with the fundamental law.
The courts may be everywhere open, and if open their process would be
unimpeded. Crimes against the United States can be prevented or pun-
ished by the proper judicial authorities in a manner entirely practicable
and legal. There is therefore no reason why the Constitution should
not be obeyed, unless those who exercise its powers have determined
that it shall be disregarded and violated. The mere naked will of this
Government, or of some one or more of its branches, is the only obstacle
that can exist to a perfect union of all the States.
On this momentous question and some of the measures growing out of
it I have had the misfortune to differ from Congress, and have expressed
my convictions without reserve, though with becoming deference to the
opinion of the legislative department. Those convictions are not only
unchanged, but strengthened by subsequent events arid further reflection.
The transcendent importance of the subject will be a sufficient excuse for
calling your attention to some of the reasons which have so strongly
influenced my own judgment. The hope that we may all finally concur
in a mode of settlement consistent at once with our true interests and with
our sworn duties to the Constitution is too naturgl and too just to be
easily relinquished.
It is clear co my apprehension that the States latel)^ in rebellion are still
members of the National Union. When did they cease to be so? The
"ordinances of secession" adopted by a portion (in most of them a very
small portion) of their citizens were mere nullities. If we admit now that
they were valid and effectual for the purpose intended by their authors,
we sweep from under our feet the whole ground upon which we justified
the war. Were those States afterwards expelled from the Union by the
war? The direct contrary was averred by this Government to be its pur-
pose, and was so understood by all those who gave their blood and treasure
to aid in its prosecution. It can not be that a successful war, waged for
the preservation of the Union, had the legal effect of dissolving it. The
victory of the nation's arms was not the disgrace of her policy; the defeat
of secCvSsion on the battlefield was not the triumph of its lawless principle.
Nor could Congress, with or without the consent of the Executive, do any-
thing which would have the effect, directly or indirectly, of separating the
States from each other. To dissolve the Union is to repeal the Constitu-
tion which holds it together, and that is a power which does not belong to
any department of this Government, or to all of them united.
This is so plain that it has been acknowledged by all branches of the
Federal Government. The Executive (my predecessor as well as myself)
and the heads of all the Departments have uniformly acted upon the prin-
ciple that the Union is not only undissolved, but indissoluble. Congress
I
Andrew Johnson 561
submitted an amendment of the Constitution to be ratified by the Southern
States, and accepted their acts of ratification as a necessary and lawful
exercise of their highest function. If they were not States, or were States
out of the Union, their consent to a change in the fundamental law of the
Union would have been nugatory, and Congress in asking it committed
a political absurdity. The judiciary has also given the solemn sanction
of its authority to the same view of the case. The judges of the Supreme
Court have included the Southern States in their circuits, and they are
constantly, in banc and elsewhere, exercising jurisdiction which does not
belong to them unless those States are States of the Union.
If the Southern States are component parts of the Union, the Con-
stitution is the supreme law for them, as it is for all the other States.
They are bound to obey it, and so are we. The right of the Federal
Government, which is clear and unquestionable, to enforce the Constitu-
tion upon them implies the correlative obligation on our part to observe
its limitations and execute its guaranties. Without the Constitution
we are nothing; by, through, and under the Constitution we are what it
makes us. We may doubt the wisdom of the law, we may not approve
of its provisions, but we can not violate it merely because it seems to
confine our powers within limits narrower than we could wish. It is
not a question of individual or class or sectional interest, much less of
party predominance, but of duty — of high and sacred duty — ^which we
are all sworn to perform. If we can not support the Constitution with
the cheerful alacrity of those who love and believe in it, we must give
to it at least the fidelity of public servants who act under solemn obli-
gations and commands which they dare not disregard.
The constitutional duty is not the only one which requires the States
to be restored. There is another consideration which, though of minor
importance, is yet of great weight. On the 2 2d day of July, 1861, Con-
gress declared by an almost unanimous vote of both Houses that the war
should be conducted solely for the purpose of preserving the Union and
maintaining the supremacy of the Federal Constitution and laws, without
impairing the dignity, equality, and rights of the States or of individuals,
and that when this was done the war should cease. I do not say that
this declaration is personally binding on those who joined in making it,
any more than individual members of Congress are personally bound to
pay a public debt created under a law for which they voted. But it was
a solemn, public, official pledge of the national honor, and I can not
imagine upon what grounds the repudiation of it is to be justified. If it
be said that we are not bound to keep faith with rebels, let it be remem-
bered that this promise was not made to rebels only. Thousands of true
men in the South were drawn to our standard by it, and hundreds of
thousands in the North gave their lives in the belief that it would be
carried out. It was made on the day after the first great battle of the
war had been fought and lost. All patriotic and intelligent men then
M P— vol, VI— 36
562 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
saw the necessity of giving such an assurance, and beHeved that without it
the war would end in disaster to our cause. Having given that assurance
in the extremity of our peril, the violation of it now, in the day of our
power, would be a rude rending of that good faith which holds the moral
world together; our country would cease to have any claim upon the con-
fidence of men; it would make the war not only a failure, but a fraud.
Being sincerely convinced that these views are correct, I would be
unfaithful to my duty if I did not recommend the repeal of the acts of
Congress which place ten of the Southern States under the domination
of military masters. If calm reflection shall satisfy a majority of your
honorable bodies that the acts referred to are not only a violation of the
national faith, but in direct conflict with the Constitution, I dare not
permit myself to doubt that you will immediately strike them from the
statute book.
To demonstrate the unconstitutional character of those acts I need do
no more than refer to their general provisions. It must be seen at once
that they are not authorized. To dictate what alterations shall be made
in the constitutions of the several States; to control the elections of State
legislators and State ofiicers, members of Congress and electors of Presi-
dent and Vice-President, by arbitrarily declaring who shall vote and who
shall be excluded from that privilege; to dissolve State legislatures or
prevent them from assembling; to dismiss judges and other civil func-
tionaries of the State and appoint others without regard to State law; to
organize and operate all the political machinery of the States; to regu-
late the whole administration of their domestic and local affairs according
to the mere will of strange and irresponsible agents, sent among them
for that purpose — these are powers not granted to the Federal Govern-
ment or to any one of its branches. Not being granted, we violate our
trust by assuming them as palpably as we would by acting in the face of
a positive interdict; for the Constitution forbids us to do whatever it does
not affirmatively authorize, either by express words or by clear implica-
tion. If the authority we desire to use does not come to us through the
Constitution, we can exercise it only by usurpation, and usurpation is
the most dangerous of political crimes. By that crime the enemies of
free government in all ages have worked out their designs against public
liberty and private right. It leads directly and immediately to the estab-
lishment of absolute rule, for undelegated power is always unlimited and
unrestrained.
The acts of Congress in question are not only objectionable for their
assumption of ungranted power, but many of their provisions are in con-
flict with the direct prohibitions of the Constitution. The Constitution
commands that a republican form of government shall be guaranteed to
all the States; that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or prop-
erty without due process of law, arrested without a judicial warrant, or
punished without a fair trial before an impartial jury; that the privilege
Andrew Johnson 563
of habeas corpus shall not be denied in time of peace, and that no bill of
attainder shall be passed even against a single individual. Yet the system
of measures established by these acts of Congress does totally subvert
and destroy the form as well as the substance of republican government
in the ten States to which they apply. It binds them hand and foot in
absolute slavery, and subjects them to a strange and hostile power, more
unlimited and more likely to be abused than any other now known among
civilized men. It tramples down all those rights in which the essence
of liberty consists, and which a free government is always most careful
to protect. It denies the habeas corpus and the trial by jury. Personal
freedom, property, and life, if assailed by the passion, the prejudice, or
the rapacity of the ruler, have no security whatever. It has the effect
of a bill of attainder or bill of pains and penalties, not upon a few indi-
viduals, but upon whole masses, including the millions who inhabit the
subject States, and even their unborn children. These wrongs, being
expressly forbidden, can not be constitutionally inflicted upon any por-
tion of our people, no matter how they may have come within our juris-
diction, and no matter whether they live in States, Territories, or districts.
I have no desire to save from the proper and just consequences of their
great crime those who engaged in rebellion against the Government, but
as a mode of punishment the measures under consideration are the most
unreasonable that could be invented. Many of those people are per-
fectly innocent; many kept their fidelity to the Union untainted to the
last; many were incapable of any legal offense; a large proportion even
of the persons able to bear arms were forced into rebellion against their
will, and of those who are guilty with their own consent the degrees of
guilt are as various as the shades of their character and temper. But
these acts of Congress confound them all together in one common doom.
Indiscriminate vengeance upon classes, sects, and parties, or upon whole
communities, for offenses committed by a portion of them against the
governments to which they owed obedience was common in the barba-
rous ages of the world; but Christianity and civilization have made such
progress that recourse to a punishment so cruel and unjust would meet
with the condemnation of all unprejudiced and right-minded men. The
punitive justice of this age, and especially of this country, does not con-
sist in stripping whole States of their liberties and reducing all their
people, without distinction, to the condition of slavery. It deals sepa-
rately with each individual, confines itself to the forms of law, and vin-
dicates its own purity by an impartial examination of every case before a
competent judicial tribunal. If this does not satisfy all our desires with
regard to Southern rebels, let us console ourselves by reflecting that a
free Constitution, triumphant in war and unbroken in peace, is worth far
more to us and our children than the gratification of any present feeling.
I am aware it is assumed that this system of government for the South-
ern States is not to be perpetual. It is true this military government is
564 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
to be only provisional, but it is through this temporary evil that a greater
evil is to be made perpetual. If the guaranties of the Constitution can
be broken provisionally to serve a temporary purpose, and in a part only
of the country, we can destroy them everywhere and for all time. Arbi-
trary measures often change, but they generally change for the worse.
It is the curse of despotism that it has no halting place. The intermitted
exercise of its power brings no sense of security to its subjects, for they
can never know what more they will be called to endure when its red
right hand is armed to plague them again. Nor is it possible to conjec-
ture how or where power, unrestrained by law, may seek its next victims.
The States that are still free may be enslaved at any moment; for if the
Constitution does not protect all, it protects none.
It is manifestly and avowedly the object of these laws to confer upon
negroes the privilege of voting and to disfranchise such a number of white
citizens as will give the former a clear majority at all elections in the
Southern States. This, to the minds of some persons, is so important
that a violation of the Constitution is justified as a means of bringing
it about. The morality is always false which excuses a wrong because it
proposes to accomplish a desirable end. We are not permitted to do evil
that good may come. But in this case the end itself is evil, as well as the
means. The subjugation of the States to negro domination would be
worse than the military despotism under which they are now suffering.
It was believed beforehand that the people would endure any amount of
military oppression for any length of time rather than degrade themselves
by subjection to the negro race. Therefore they haye been left without
a choice. Negro suffrage was established by act of Congress, and the
military officers were commanded to superintend the process of clothing
the negro race with the political privileges torn from white men.
The blacks in the South are entitled to be well and humanely governed,
and to have the protection of just laws for all their rights of person and
property. If it were practicable at this time to give them a Government
exclusively their own, under which they might manage their own affairs
in their own way, it would becom.e a grave question whether we ought to
do so, or whether common humanity would not require us to save them
from themselves. But under the circumstances this is only a specula-
tive point. It is not proposed merely that they shall govern themselves,
but that they shall rule the white race, make and administer State laws,
elect Presidents and members of Congress, and sRape to a greater or less
extent the future destiny of the whole country. Would such a trust and
power be safe in such hands?
The peculiar qualities which should characterize any people who are
fit to decide upon the management of public affairs for a great state have
seldom been combined. It is the glory of white men to know that they
have had these qualities in sufficient measure to build upon this continent
a great oolitical fabric and to preserve its stability for more than ninety
Andrew Johnson rgc
years, while in every other part of the world all similar experiments have
failed. But if anything can be proved by known facts, if all reasoning
upon evidence is not abandoned, it must be acknowledged that in the
progress of nations negroes have shown less capacity for government
than any other race of people. No independent government of any form
has ever been successful in their hands. On the contrary, wherever they
have been left to their own devices they have shown a constant tendency
to relapse into barbarism. In the Southern States, however. Congress
has undertaken to confer upon them the privilege of the ballot. Just
released from slavery, it may be doubted whether as a class they know
more than their ancestors how to organize and regulate civil society.
Indeed, it is admitted that the blacks of the South are not only regard-
less of the rights of property, but so utterly ignorant of public aifairs that
their voting can consist in nothing more than carrying a ballot to the
place where they are directed to deposit it. I need not remind you that
the exercise of the elective franchise is the highest attribute of an Amer-
ican citizen, and that when guided by virtue, intelligence, patriotism, and
a proper appreciation of our free institutions it constitutes the true basis
of a democratic form of government, in which the sovereign power is
lodged in the body of the people. A trust artificially created, not for its
own sake, but solely as a means of promoting the general welfare, its
influence for good must necessarily depend upon the elevated character
and true allegiance of the elector. It ought, therefore, to be reposed in
none except those who are fitted morally and mentally to administer it
well; for if conferred upon persons who do not justly estimate its value
and who are indifferent as to its results, it will only serve as a means of
placing power in the hands of the unprincipled and ambitious, and must
eventuate in the complete destruction of that liberty of which it should
be the most powerful conservator. I have therefore heretofore urged
upon your attention, the great danger —
to Jbe apprehended from an untimely extension of the elective franchise to any new
class in our country, especially when the large majority of that class, in wielding the
power thus placed in their hands, can not be expected correctly to comprehend the
duties and responsibilities which pertain to suffrage. Yesterday, as it were, 4,000,000
persons were held in a condition of slavery that had existed for generations; to-day
they are freemen and are assumed by law to be citizens. It can not be presumed, from
their previous condition of servitude, that as a class they are as well informed as to
the nature of our Government as the intelligent foreigner who makes our land the
home of his choice. In the case of the latter neither a residence of five years and
the knowledge of our institutions which it gives nor attachment to the principles
of the Constitution are the only conditions upon which he can be admitted to citizen-
ship; he must prove in addition a good moral character, and thus give reasonable
ground for the belief that he will be faithful to the obligations which he assumes as
a citizen of the Republic. Where a people — the source of all political power — speak
by their suffrages through the instrumentality of the ballot box, it must be carefully
guarded against the control of those who are corrupt in principle and enemies of free
institutions, for it can only become to our political and social system a safe conductor
566 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of healthy popular sentiment when kept free from demoralizing influences. Con-
trolled through fraud and usurpation by the designing, anarchy and despotism must
inevitably follow. In the hands of the patriotic and worthy our Government will
be preserved upon the principles of the Constitution inherited from our fathers. It
follows, therefore, that in admitting to the ballot box a new class of voters not quali-
fied for the exercise of the elective franchise we weaken our system of government
instead of adding to its strength and durability.
•X- * * -x- * -x- *
I yield to no one in attachment to that rule of general suffrage which distinguishes
our policy as a nation. But there is a limit, wisely observed hitherto, which makes
the ballot a privilege and a trust, and which requires of some classes a time suitable for
probation and preparation. To give it indiscriminately to a new class, wholly unpre-
pared by previous habits and opportunities to perform the trust which it demands, is
to degrade it, and finally to destroy its power, for it may be safely assumed that no
political truth is better established than that such indiscriminate and all-embracing
extension of popular suffrage must end at last in its destruction.
I repeat the expression of my willingness to join in any plan within the
scope of our constitutional authority which promises to better the condi-
tion of the negroes in the South, by encouraging them in industry, enlight-
ening their minds, improving their morals, and giving protection to all
their just rights as freedmen. But the transfer of our political inherit-
ance to them would, in my opinion, be an abandonment of a duty which
we owe alike to the memory of our fathers and the rights of our children.
The plan of putting the Southern States wholly and the General Gov-
ernment partially into the hands of negroes is proposed at a time peculiarly
unpropitious. The foundations of society have been broken up by civil
war. Industry must be reorganized, justice reestablished, public credit
maintained, and order brought out of confusion. To accomplish these
ends would require all the wisdom and virtue of the great men who
formed our institutions originally. I confidently believe that their de-
scendants will be equal to the arduous task before them, but it is worse
than madness to expect that negroes will perform it for us. Certainly we
ought not to ask their assistance till we despair of our own competency.
The great difference between the two races in physical, mental, and
moral characteristics will prevent an amalgamation or fusion of them
together in one homogeneous mass. If the inferior obtains the ascend-
ency over the other, it will govern with reference only to its own inter-
ests— for it will recognize no common interest — and create such a tyranny
as this continent has never yet witnessed. Already the negroes are
influenced by promises of confiscation and plunder. They are taught to
regard as an enemy every white man who has any respect for the rights
of his own race. If this continues it must become worse and worse, until
all order will be subverted, all industry cease, and the fertile fields of the
South grow up into a wilderness. Of all the dangers which our nation
has yet encountered, none are equal to those which must result from the
success of the effort now making to Africanize the half of our country.
I would not put considerations of money in competition with justice
and right; but the expenses incident to ''reconstruction" under the
Andrew Johnson k^Sj
system adopted by Congress aggravate what I regard as the intrinsic
wrong of the measure itself. It has cost uncounted miUions aheady, and
if persisted in will add largely to the weight of taxation, already too
oppressive to be borne without just complaint, and may finally reduce
the Treasury of the nation to a condition of bankruptcy. We must not
delude ourselves. It will require a strong standing army and probably
more tl;an $200,000,000 per annum to maintain the supremacy of negro
governments after they are established. The sum thus thrown away
would, if properly used, form a sinking fund large enough to pay the
whole national debt in less than fifteen years. It is vain to hope that
negroes will maintain their ascendency themselves. Without military
power they are wholly incapable of holding in subjection the white peo-
ple of the South.
I submit to the judgment of Congress whether the public credit may
not be injuriously affected by a system of measures like this. With our
debt and the vast private interests which are complicated with it, we can
not be too cautious of a policy which might by possibility impair the con-
fidence of the world in our Government. That confidence can only be
retained by carefully inculcating the principles of justice and honor on
the popular mind and by the most scrupulous fidelity to all our engage-
ments of every sort. Any serious breach of the organic law, persisted in
for a considerable time, can not but create fears for the stability of our
institutions. Habitual violation of prescribed rules, which we bind our-
selves to observe, must demoralize the people. Our only standard of
civil duty being set at naught, the sheet anchor of our political morality
is lost, the public conscience swings from its moorings and yields to every
impulse of passion and interest. If we repudiate the Constitution, we
will not be expected to care much for mere pecuniary obligations. The
violation of such a pledge as we made on the 2 2d day of July, 1861, will
assuredly diminish the market value of our other promivSes. Besides, if we
acknowledge that the national debt was created, not to hold the States in
the Union, as the taxpayers were led to suppose, but to expel them from
it and hand them over to be governed by negroes, the moral duty to pay
it may seem much less clear. I say it may seem so, for I do not admit
that this or any other argument in favor of repudiation can be enter-
tained as sound; but its influence on some classes of minds may well be
apprehended. The financial honor of a great commercial nation, largely
indebted and with a republican form of government administered by
agents of the popular choice, is a thing of such delicate texture and the
destruction of it would be followed by such unspeakable calamity that
every true patriot must desire to avoid whatever might expose it to the
slightest danger.
The great interests of the country require immediate relief from these
enactments. Business in the South is paralyzed by a sense of general in-
security, by the terror of confiscation, and the dread of negro supremacy.
568 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
The Southern trade, from which the North would have derived so great
a profit under a government of law, still languishes, and can never be
revived until it ceases to be fettered by the arbitrary power which makes
all its operations unsafe. That rich country — the richest in natural re-
sources the world ever saw — is worse than lost if it be not soon placed
under the protection of a free constitution. Instead of being, as it ought
to be, a source of wealth and power, it will become an intolerable burden
upon the rest of tlje nation.
Another reason for retracing our steps will doubtless be seen by Con-
gress in the late manifestations of public opinion upon this subject. We
live in a country where the popular will always enforces obedience to
it§elf , sooner or later. It is vain to think of opposing it with anything
short of legal authority backed by overwhelming force. It can not have
escaped your attention that from the day on which Congress fairly and
formally presented ttie proposition to govern the Southern States by mili-
tary force, with a view to the ultimate establishment of negro supremacy,
everj^ expression of the general sentiment has been more or less adverse to
it. The affections of this generation can ^ot be detached from the insti-
tutions of their ancestors. Their determination to preserve the inljerit-
ance of free government in their own hands and transmit it undivided
and unimpaired to tjieir own posterity is too strong to be successfully
opposed. Every weaker passion will disappear before that love of lib-
erty and law for which the American people are distinguished above all
others in the world.
How far the duty of the President ''to preserve, protect, and defend
the Constitution" requires him to go in opposing an unconstitutional
act of Congress is a veji^y serious and important question, on which I
have deliberated much and felt extremely anxious to reach a proper
conclusion. Where an act has been passed according to the forms of
the Constitution by the supreme legislative authority, and is regularly
enrolled among the public statutes of the country. Executive resistance
to it, especially in times of high party excitement, would be likely to
produce violent collision between the respective adherents of the two
branches of the Government. This would be simpjy civil war, and civil
war must be resorted to only as the last remedy for the worst of evils.
Whatever might tend to provoke it should be most carefully avoided.
A faithful and conscientious magistrate will concede very much to hon-
est error, and something even to perverse malice, before he will endanger
the public peace; and he will not adopt forcible measures, or such as
might lead to force, as long as those which are peaceable remain open to
him or to his constituents. It is true that cases may occur in which the'
Executive would be compelled to stand on its rights, and maintain them
regardless of all consequences. If Congress should pass an act. which is
not only in palpable conflict with the Constitution, but will certainly, if
carried out, produce immediate and irreparable injury to the organic
I
I
A^idrew Johnson 569
structure of the Government, and if there be neither judicial remedy for
the wrongs it inflicts nor power in the people to protect themselves with-
out the official aid of their elected defender — if, for instance, the legisla-
tive department should pass an act even through all the forms of law to
abolish a coordinate department of the Government — in such a case the
President must take the high responsibilities of his office and save the life
of the nation at all hazards. The so-called reconstruction acts, though as
plainly unconstitutional as any that can be imagined, were not believed
to be within the class last mentioned. The people were not wholly dis-
armed of the power of self-defense. In all the Northern States they still
held in their hands the sacred right of the ballot, and it was safe to
believe that in due time tljey would come to the rescue of their own
institutions. It gives me pleasure to add that the appeal to our common
constituents was not taken in vain, and that my confidence in their wis-
dom and virtue seems not to have been misplaced.
It is well and publicly known that enormous frauds have been perpe-
trated on the Treasury and that colossal fortunes have been made at the
public expense. This species of corruption has increased, is increasing,
and if not diminished will soon bring us into total ruin and disgrace.
The public creditors and the taxpayers are alike interested in an honest
administration of the finances, and neither class will long endure the
large-handed robberies of the recent past. For this discreditable state of
things there are several causes. Some of the taxes are so laid as to pre-
sent an irresistible temptation to evade payment. The great sums which
officers may win by connivance at fraud create a pressure which is more
than the virtue of many can withstand, and there can be no doubt that
the open disregard of constitutional obligations avowed by some of the
highest and most influential men in the country has greatly weakened
the moral sense of those who serve in subordinate places. The expenses
of the United States, including interest on the public debt, are more than
six times as much as they were seven years ago. To collect and dis-
burse this vast amount requires carefuj supervision as well as systematic
vigilance. The system, never perfected, was much disorganized by the
* * tenure-of- office bill, ' ' which has almost destroyed official accountability.
The President may be thoroughly convinced that an officer is incapable,
dishonest, or unfaithful to the Constitution, but under the law which I
have named the utmost he can do is to complain to the Senate and ask
the privilege of supplying his place with a better man. If the Senate be
regarded as personally or politically hostile to the President, it is natural,
and not altogether unreasonable, for the officer to expect that it will take
his part as far as possible, restore him to his place, and give him a triumph
over his Executive superior. The officer has other chances of impunity
arising from accidental defects of evidence, the mode of investigating it,
and the secrecy of the hearing. It is not wonderful that official malfea-
sance should become bold in proportion as the delinquents learn to think
570 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
themselves safe. I am entirely persuaded that under such a rule the
President can not perform the great duty assigned to him of seeing the
laws faithfully executed, and that it disables him most especially from
enforcing that rigid accountability which is necessary to the due execu-
tion of the revenue laws.
The Constitution invests the President with authority to decide whether
a removal should be made in any given case; the act of Congress declares
in substance that he shall only accuse such as he supposes to be unworthy
of their trust. The Constitution makes him soIq judge in the premises,
but the statute takes away his jurisdiction, transfers it to the Senate, and
leaves him nothing but the odious and sometimes impracticable duty of
becoming a prosecutor. The prosecution is to be conducted before a tri-
bunal whose members are not, like him, responsible to the whole people,
but to separate constituent bodies, and who may hear his accusation with
great disfavor. The Senate is absolutely without any known standard of
decision applicable to such a case. Its judgment can not be anticipated,
for it is not governed by any rule. The law does not define what shall be
deemed good cause for removal. It is impossible even to conjecture what
may or may not be so considered by the Senate. The nature of the sub-
ject forbids clear proof. If the charge be incapacity, what evidence will
support it? Fidelity to the Constitution may be understood or misun-
derstood in a thousand different ways, and by violent party men, in vio-
lent party times, unfaithfulness to the Constitution may even come to be
considered meritorious. If the officer be accused of dishonesty, how shall
it be made out? Will it be inferred from acts unconnected with pub-
lic duty, from private history, or from general reputation, or must the
President await the commission of an actual misdemeanor in office? Shall
he in the meantime risk the character and interest of the nation in the
hands of men to whom he can not give his confidence? Must he for-
bear his complaint until the mischief is done and can not be prevented?
If his zeal in the public service should impel him to anticipate the overt
act, must he move at the peril of being tried himself for the offense of
slandering his subordinate? In the present circumstances of the country
someone must be held responsible for official delinquency of every kind.
It is extremely difficult to say where that responsibility should be thrown
if it be not left where it has been placed by the Constitution. But all
just men will admit that the President ought to be entirely relieved from
such responsibility if he can not meet it by reason of restrictions placed
by law upon his action.
The unrestricted power of removal from office is a very great one to be
trusted even to a magistrate chosen by the general suffrage of the whole
people and accountable directly to them for his acts. It is undoubtedly
liable to abuse, and at some periods of our history perhaps has been
abused. If it be thought desirable and constitutional that it should be
so limited as to make the President merely a common informer against
Andrew Johnson 57 j
other public agents, he should at least be permitted to act in that capacity
before some open tribunal, independent of party politics, ready to inves-
tigate the merits of every case, furnished with the means of taking evi-
dence, and bound to decide according to established rules. This would
guarantee the safety of the accuser when he acts in good faith, and at
the same time secure the rights of the other party. I speak, of course,
with all proper respect for the present Senate, but it does not seem to me
that any legislative body can be so constituted as to insure its fitness for
these functions.
It is not the theory of this Government that public offices are the prop-
erty of those who hold them. They are given merely as a trust for the
public benefit, sometimes for a fixed period, sometimes during good behav-
ior, but generally they are liable to be terminated at the pleasure of the
appointing power, which represents the collective majesty and speaks
the will of the people. The forced retention in office of a single dishon-
est person may work great injury to the public interests. The danger
to the public service comes not from the power to remove, but from the
power to appoint. Therefore it was that the framers of the Constitution
left the power of removal unrestricted, while they gave the Senate a right
to reject all appointments w^hich in its opinion were not fit to be made.
A Httle reflection on this subject will probably satisfy all who have the
good of the country at heart that our best course is to take the Constitu-
tion for our guide, walk in the path marked out by the founders of the
Republic, and obey the rules made sacred by the observance of our great
predecessors.
The present condition of our finances and circulating medium is one to
which your early consideration is invited.
The proportion which the currency of any country should bear to the
whole value of the annual produce circulated by its means is a question
upon which political economists have not agreed. Nor can it be con-
trolled by legislation, but must be left to the irrevocable laws which
everywhere regulate commerce and trade. The circulating medium will
ever irresistibly flow to those points where it is in greatest demand. The
law of demand and supply is as unerring as that which regulates the tides
of the ocean; and, indeed, currency, like the tides, has its ebbs and flows
throughout the commercial world.
At the beginning of the rebellion the bank-note circulation of the
country amounted to not much more than $200,000,000; now the circu-
lation of national-bank notes and those known as "legal-tenders" is
nearly seven hundred millions. While it is urged by some that this
amount should be increased, others contend that a decided reduction is
absolutely essential to the best interests of the country. In view of these
diverse opinions, it may be well to ascertain the real value of our paper
issues when compared with a metallic or convertible currency. For this
purpose let us inquire how much gold and silver could be purchased by
572 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the seven hundred milHons of paper money now in circulation. Probably
not more than half the amount of the latter, vShowing that when our paper
currency is compared with gold and silver its commercial value is com-
pressed into three hundred and fifty millions. This striking fact makes
it the obvious duty of the Government, as early as may be consistent with
the principles of sound political economy, to take such measures as will
enable the holder of its notes and those of the national banks to convert
them without loss into specie or its equivalent. A reduction of our
paper circulating medium need not necessarily follow. This, however,
would depend upon the law of demand and supply, though it should be
borne in mind that by making legal-tender and bank notes convertible
into coin or its equivalent their present specie value in the hands of their
holders would be enhanced loo per cent.
Legislation for the accomplishment of a result so desirable is demanded
by the highest public considerations. The Constitution contemplates
that the circulating medium of the country shall be uniform in quality
and value. At the time of the formation of that instrument the coun-
try had just emerged from the War of the Revolution, and was suffering
from the effects of a redundant and worthless paper currency. The
sages of that period were anxious to protect their posterity from the evils
that they themselves had experienced. Hence in providing a circulat-
ing medium they conferred upon Congress the power to coin money and
regulate the value thereof, at the same time prohibiting the States from
making anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts.
The anomalous condition of our currency is in striking contrast with
that which was originally designed. Our circulation now embraces, first,
notes of the national banks, which are made receivable for all dues to
the Government, excluding imposts, and by all its creditors, excepting
in payment of interest upon its bonds and the securities themselves; sec-
ond, legal-tender notes, issued by the United States, and which the law
requires shall be received as well in payment of all debts between citizens
as of all Government dues, excepting imposts; and, third, gold and silver
coin. By the operation of our present system of finance, however, the
metallic currency, when collected, is reserved only for one class of Gov-
ernment creditors, who, holding its bonds, semiannually receive their
interest in coin from the National Treasury. They are thus made to
occupy an invidious position, which may be used to strengthen the argu-
ments of those who would bring into disrepute the obligations of the
nation. In the payment of all its debts the plighted faith of the Gov-
ernment should be inviolably maintained. But while it acts with fidelity
toward the bondholder who loaned his money that the integrity of the
Union might be preserved, it should at the same time observe good faith
with the great masses of the people, who, having rescued the Union from
the perils of rebellion, now bear the burdens of taxation, that the Gov-
ernment may be able to fulfill its engagements. There is no reason which
»
Andrew Johnson 573
will be accepted as satisfactory by the people why those who defend us
on the .land and protect us on the sea; the pensioner upon the gratitude
of the nation, bearing the scars and wounds received while in its service;
the public servants in the various Departments of the Government; the
farmer who supplies the soldiers of the Army and the sailors of the Navy;
the artisan who toils in the nation's workshops, or the mechanics and
laborers who build its edifices and construct its forts and vessels of war,
should, in payment of their just and hard-earned dues, receive depreciated
paper, while another class of their countrymen, no more deserving, are
paid in coin of gold and silver. Equal and exact justice requires that all
the creditors of the Government should be paid in a currency possessing
a uniform value. This can only be accomplished by the restoration of
the currency to the standard established by the Constitution; and by
this means we would remove a discrimination which may, if it has not
already done so, create a prejudice that may become deep rooted and
widespread and imperil the national credit.
The feasibility of making our currency correspond with the constitu-
tional standard may be seen by reference to a few facts derived from our
commercial statistics.
The production of precious metals in the United States from 1849 to
1857, inclusive, amounted to $579,000,000; from 1858 to i860, inclusive,
to $137,500,000, and from 1861 to 1867, inclusive, to $45 7, 500, 000 — mak-
ing the grand aggregate of products since 1849 $1,174,000,000. The
amount of specie coined from 1849 to 1857 inclusive, was $439,000,000;
from 1858 to i860, inclusive, $125,000,000, and from 1861 to 1867, inclu-
sive, $310,000,000 — making the total coinage since 1849 $874,000,000.
From 1849 to 1857, inclusive, the net exports of specie amounted to
$271,000,000; from 1858 to i860, inclusive, to $148,000,000, and from
1861 to 1867, inclusive, $322,000,000 — making the aggregate of net ex-
ports since 1849 $741,000,000. These figures show an excess of product
over net exports of $433 , 000, 000. There are in the Treasury $111, 000, 000
in coin, something more than $40,000,000 in circulation on the Pacific
Coast, and a few millions in the national and other banks — in all about
$160,000,000. This, however, taking into account the specie in the
country prior to 1849, leaves more than $300,000,000 which have not
been accounted for by exportation, and therefore may yet remain in the
country.
These are important facts and show how completely the inferior cur-
rency will supersede the better, forcing it from circulation among the
masses and causing it to be exported as a mere article of trade, to add to
the money capital of foreign lands. They show the necessity of retiring
our paper money, that the return of gold and silver to the avenues of trade
may be invited and a demand created which will cause the retention at
home of at least so much of the productions of our rich and inexhaustible
gold-bearing fields as may be sufficient for purposes of circulation. It is
574 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
unreasonable to expect a return to a sound currency so long as the Gov-
ernment by continuing to issue irredeemable notes fills the channels of
circulation with depreciated paper. Notwithstanding a coinage by our
mints, since 1849, of $874,000,000, the people are now strangers to the
currency which was designed for their use and benefit, and specimens of
the precious metals bearing the national device are seldom seen, except
when produced to gratify the interest excited by their novelty. If depre-
ciated paper is to be continued as the permanent currency of the country,
and all our coin is to become a mere article of traffic and speculation, to
the enhancement in price of all that is indispensable to the comfort of the
people, it would be wise economy to abolish our mints, thus saving the
nation the care and expense incident to such establishments, and let all our
precious metals be exported in bullion. The time has come, however,
when the Government and national banks should be required to take the
most efiicient steps and make all necessary arrangements for a resump-
tion of specie payments at the earliest practicable period. Specie pay-
ments having been once resumed by the Government and banks, all notes
or bills of paper issued by either of a less denomination than $20 should
by law be excluded from circulation, so that the people may have the
benefit and convenience of a gold and silver currency which in all their
business transactions will be uniform in value at home and abroad.
Every man of property or industry, every man who desires to preserve what he
honestly possesses or to obtain what he can honestly earn, has a direct interest in
maintaining a safe circulating medium — such a medium as shall be real and substan-
tial, not liable to vibrate with opinions, not subject to be blown up or blown down by
the breath of speculation, but to be made stable and secure. A disordered currency
is one of the greatest political evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the
support of the social system and encourages propensities destructive of its happiness;
it wars against industry, frugality, and economy, and it fosters the evil spirits of
extravagance and speculation.
It has been asserted by one of our profound and most gifted statesmen
that—
Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has
been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is the
most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's fields by the sweat of the poor
man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation— these bear lightly-
on the happiness of the mass of the community compared with a fraudulent cur-
rency and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has
recorded for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing
tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the virtuous and well dis-
posed of a degraded paper currency authorized by law or in any way countenanced
by government.
It is one of the most successful devices, in times of peace or war, expan-
sions or revulsions, to accomplish the transfer of all the precious metals
from the great mass of the people into the hands of the few, where they
are hoarded in secret places or deposited in strong boxes under bolts and
bars, while the people are left to endure all the inconvenience, sacrifice,
Andrew Joh7ison en r
and demoralization resulting from the use of a depreciated and worthless
paper money.
The condition of our finances and the operations of our revenue system
are set forth and fully explained in the able and instructive report of the
Secretary of the Treasury. On the 30th of June, 1866, the public debt
amounted to$2, 783,425,879; on the 30th of Junelast it was $2, 692, 199, 2 15,
showing a reduction during the fiscal year of $91,226,664. During the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1867, the receipts were $490,634,010 and the
expenditures $346,729, 129, leaving an available surplus of $143,904,880.
It is estimated that the receipts for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868,
will be $417,161,928 and that the expenditures will reach the sum of
$393^269,226, leaving in the Treasury a surplus of $23,892,702. For the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, it is estimated that the receipts will
amount to $381,000,000 and that the expenditures will be $372,000,000,
showing an excess of $9,000,000 in favor of the Government.
The attention of Congress is earnestly invited to the necessity of a
thorough revision of our revenue system. Our internal-revenue laws and
impost system should be so adjusted as to bear most heavily on articles
of luxury, leaving the necessaries of life as free from taxation as may be
consistent with the real wants of the Government, economically admin-
istered. Taxation would not then fall unduly on the man of moderate
means; and while none would be entirely exempt from assessment, all,
in proportion to their pecuniary abilities, would contribute toward the
support of the State. A modification of the internal-revenue system, by
a large reduction in the number of articles now subject to tax, would be
followed by results equally advantageous to the citizen and the Govern-
ment. It would render the execution of the law less expensive and more
certain, remove obstructions to industry, lessen the temptations to evade
the law, diminish the violations and frauds perpetrated upon its provi-
sions, make its operations less inquisitorial, and greatly reduce in numbers
the army of taxgatherers created by the system, who "take from the
mouth of honest labor the bread it has earned." Retrenchment, reform,
and economy should be carried into every branch of the public service,
that the expenditures of the Government may be reduced and the people
reheved from oppressive taxation; a sound currency should be restored,
and the public faith in regard to the national debt sacredly observed. The
accomplishment of these important results, together with the restoration
of the Union of the States upon the principles of the Constitution, would
inspire confidence at home and abroad in the stability of our institutions
and bring to the nation prosperity, peace, and good will.
The report of the Secretary of War ad interim exhibits the operations
of the Army and of the several bureaus of the War Department. The
ag^egate strength of our military force on the 30th of September last was
56,315. The total estimate for miHtary appropriations is $77,124,707,
including a deficiency in last year's appropriation of $13,600,000. The
576 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
payments at the Treasury on account of the service of the War Depart-
ment from January i to October 29, 1867 — a period of ten months —
amounted to $109,807,000. The expenses of the miUtary estabhshment,
as well as the numbers of the Army, are now three times as great as they
have ever been in time of peace, while the discretionary power is vested
in the Executive to add millions to this expenditure by an increase of
the Army to the maximum strength allowed by the law.
The comprehensive report of the Secretary of the Interior furnishes
interesting information in reference to the important branches of the
public service connected with his Department. The menacing attitude
of some of the warlike bands of Indians inhabiting the district of country
between the Arkansas and Platte rivers and portions of Dakota Terri-
tory required the presence of a large military force in that region. Insti-
gated by real or imaginary grievances, the Indians occasionally committed
acts of barbarous violence upon emigrants and our frontier settlements;
but a general Indian war has been providentially averted. The commis-
sioners under the act of 20th July, 1867, were invested with full power to
adjust existing difficulties, negotiate treaties with the disaffected bands,
and select for them reservations remote from the traveled routes between
the Mississippi and the Pacific. They entered without delay upon the
execution of their trust, but have not yet made any official report of
their proceedings. It is of vital importance that our distant Territories-
should be exempt from Indian outbreaks, and that the construction of
the Pacific Railroad, an object of national importance, should not be
interrupted by hostile tribes. These objects, as well as the material
interests and the moral and intellectual improvement of the Indians, can
be most effectually secured by concentrating them upon portions of
country set apart for their exclusive use and located at points remote
from our highways and encroaching white settlements.
Since the commencement of the second session of the Thirty-ninth
Congress 510 miles of road have been constructed on the main line and
branches of the Pacific Railway. The line from Omaha is rapidly ap-
proaching the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, while the terminus
of the last section of constructed road in California, accepted by the
Government on the 24th day of October last, was but 1 1 miles distant
from the summit of the Sierra Nevada. The remarkable energy evinced
by the companies offers the strongest assurance that the completion of
the road from Sacramento to Omaha will not be long deferred.
During the last fiscal year 7,041 , 1 14 acres of public land were disposed
of, and the cash receipts from sales and fees exceeded by one-half million
dollars the sum realized from those sources during the preceding year.
The amount paid to pensioners, including expenses of disbursements,
was $18,619,956, and 36,482 names were added to the rolls. The entire
number of pensioners on the 30th of June last was 155,474. Eleven
thousand six hundred and fifty-five patents and designs were issued
Andrew Johnson 577
during the year ending September 30, 1867, and at that date the balance
in the Treasury to the credit of the patent fund was $286,607.
The report of the Secretary of the Navy states that we have seven
squadrons actively and judiciously employed, under efficient and able
commanders, in protecting the persons and property of American citizens,
maintaining the dignity and power of the Government, and promoting
the commerce and business interests of our countrymen in every part of
the world. Of the 238 vessels composing the present Navy of the United
States, 56, carrying 507 guns, are in squadron service. During the year
the number of vessels in commission has been reduced 12, and there are
13 less on squadron duty than there were at the date of the last report.
A large number of vessels were commenced and in the course of con-
struction when the war terminated, and although Congress had made the
necessary appropriations for their completion, the Department has either
suspended work upon them or limited the slow completion of the steam
vessels, so as to meet the contracts for machinery made with private
establishments. The total expenditures of the Navy Department for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1867, were $31,034,011. No appropriations
have been made or required since the close of the war for the construc-
tion and repair of vessels, for steam machinery, ordnance, provisions and
clothing, fuel, hemp, etc., the balances under these several heads having
been more than sufficient for current expenditures. It should also be
stated to the credit of the Department that, besides asking no appropria-
tions for the above objects for the last two years, the Secretary of the
Navy, on the 30th of September last, in accordance with the act of May i,
1820, requested the Secretary of the Treasury to carry to the surplus fund
the sum of $65,000,000, being the amount received from the sales of ves-
sels and other war property and the remnants of former appropriations.
The report of the Postmaster- General shows the business of the Post-
Office Department and the condition of the postal service in a very
favorable light, and the attention of Congress is called to its practical
recommendations. The receipts of the Department for the year ending
June 30, 1867, including all special appropriations for sea and land serv-
ice and for free mail matter, were $19,978,693. The expenditures for all
purposes were $19,235,483, leaving an unexpended balance in favor of
the Department of $743,210, which can be applied toward the expenses
of the Department for the current year. The increase of postal revenue,
independent of specific appropriations, for the year 1867 over that of 1866
was $850,040. The increase of revenue from the sale of stamps and
stamped envelopes was $783,404. The increase of expenditures for 1867
over those of the previous year was owing chiefly to the extension of the
land and ocean mail service. During the past year new postal conven-
tions have been ratified and exchanged with the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the
North German Union, Italy, and the colonial government at Hong Kong,
M P — voi, VI — 37
578 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
reducing very largely the rates of ocean and land postages to and from
and within those countries.
The report of the Acting Commissioner of Agriculture concisely pre-
sents the condition, wants, and progress of an interest eminently worthy
the fostering care of Congress, and exhibits a large measure of useful
results achieved during the year to which it refers.
The reestablishment of peace at home and the resumption of extended
trade, travel, and commerce abroad have served to increase the number
and variety of questions in the Department for Foreign Affairs. None
of these questions, however, have seriously disturbed our relations with
other states.
The Republic of Mexico, having been relieved from foreign interven-
tion, is earnestly engaged in efforts to reestablish her constitutional sys-
tem of government. A good understanding continues to exist between
our Government and the Republics of Hayti and San Domingo, and our
cordial relations with the Central and South American States remain
unchanged. The tender, made in conformity with a resolution of Con-
gress, of the good offices of the Government with a view to an amicable
adjustment of peace between Brazil and her allies on one side and Para-
guay on the other, and between Chile and her allies on the one side and
Spain on the other, though kindly received, has in neither case been fully
accepted by the belligerents. The war in the valley of the Parana is still
vigorously maintained. On the other hand, actual hostilities between
the Pacific States and Spain have been more than a year suspended.
I shall, on any proper occasion that may occur, renew the conciliatory
recommendations which have been already made. Brazil, with enlight-
ened sagacity and comprehensive statesmanship, has opened the great
channels of the Amazon and its tributaries to universal commerce. One
thing more seems needful to assure a rapid and cheering progress in
South America. I refer to those peaceful habits without which states
and nations can not in this age well expect material prosperity or social
advancement.
The BxpOvSition of Universal Industry at Paris has passed, and seems
to have fully realized the high expectations of the French Government.
If due allowance be made for the recent political derangement of industry
here, the part which the United States has borne in this exhibition of
invention and art may be regarded with very high satisfaction. During
the exposition a conference was held of delegates from several nations, the
United States being one, in which the inconveniences of commerce and
social intercourse resulting from the diverse standards of money value
were very fully discussed, and plans were developed for establishing by
universal consent a common principle for the coinage of gold. These
conferences are expected to be renewed, with the attendance of many
foreign states not hitherto represented. A report of these interesting
proceedings will be submitted to Congress, which will, no doubt, justly
Andrew Johnson cyg
appreciate the great object and be ready to adopt any measure which may
tend to facilitate its ultimate accomplishment.
On the 25th of February, 1862, Congress declared by law that Treasury
notes, without interest, authorized by that act should be legal tender in
payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States. An
annual remittance of $30,000, less stipulated expenses, accrues to claim-
ants under the convention made with Spain in 1834. These remittances,
since the passage of that act, have been paid in vsuch notes. The claim-
ants insist that the Government ought to require payment in coin. The
subject may be deemed worthy of your attention.
No arrangement has yet been reached for the settlement of our claims
for British depredations upon the commerce of the United States. I have
felt it my duty to decline the proposition of arbitration made by Her
Majesty's Government, because it has hitherto been accompanied by
reservations and limitations incompatible with the rights, interest, and
honor of our country. It is not to be apprehended that Great Britain
will persist in her refusal to satisfy these just and reasonable claims,
which involve the sacred principle of nonintervention — a principle hence-
forth not more important to the United States than to all other commer-
cial nations.
The West India islands were settled and colonized by European States
simultaneously with the settlement and colonization of the American
continent. Most of the colonies planted here became independent na-
tions in the close of the last and the beginning of the present century.
Our own country embraces communities which at one period were col-
onies of Great Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Sweden, and Russia.
The people in the West Indies, with the exception of those of the island
of Hayti, have neither attained nor aspired to independence, nor have
they become prepared for self-defense. Although possessing consider-
able commercial value, they have been held by the several European
States which colonized or at some time conquered them, chiefly for pur-
poses of military and naval strategy in carrying out European policy and
designs in regard to this continent. In our Revolutionary War ports
and harbors in the West India islands were used by our enemy, to the
great injury and embarrassment of the United States. We had the same
experience in our second war with Great Britain. The same European
policy for a long time excluded us even from trade with the West Indies,
' while we were at peace with all nations. In our recent civil war the
rebels and their piratical and blockade-breaking allies found facilities in
the same ports for the work, which they too successfully accomplished,
of injuring and devastating the commerce which we are now engaged in
rebuilding. We labored especially under this disadvantage, that Euro-
pean steam vessels employed by our enemies found friendly shelter, pro-
tection, and supplies in West Indian ports, while our naval operations
were necessarily carried on from our own distant shores. There was
580 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
then a universal feeling of the want of an advanced naval outpost between
the Atlantic coast and Europe. The duty of obtaining such an out-
post peacefully and lawfully, while neither doing nor menacing injury to
other states, earnestly engaged the attention of the executive department
before the close of the war, and it has not been lost sight of since that time.
A not entirely dissimilar naval want revealed itself during the same
period on the Pacific coast. The required foothold there was fortunately
secured by our late treaty with the Bmperor of Russia, and it now seems
imperative that the more obvious necessities of the Atlantic coast should
not be less carefully provided for. A good and convenient port and har-
bor, capable of easy defense, will supply that want. With the possession
of such a station by the United States, neither we nor any other Ameri-
can nation need longer apprehend injury or offense from any trans-
atlantic enemy. I agree with our early statesmen that the West Indies
naturally gravitate to, and may be expected ultimately to be absorbed by,
the continental States, inclu4ing our own. I agree with them also that it
is wise to leave the question of such absorption to this process of natural
political gravitation. The islands of St. Thomas and St. John, which]
constitute a part of the group called the Virgin Islands, seemed to offer us
advantages immediately desirable, while their acquisition could be secured]
in harmony with the principles to which I have alluded. A treaty has
therefore been concluded with the King of Denmark for the cession of]
those islands, and will be submitted to the Senate for consideration.
It will hardly be necessary to call the attention of Congress to the sub-j
ject of providing for the payment to Russia of the sum stipulated in the)
treaty for the cession of Alaska. Possession having been formally deliv-
ered to our commissioner, the territory remains for the present in care of
a military force, awaiting such civil organization as shall be directed by|
Congress.
The annexation of many small German States to Prussia and the]
reorganization of that country under a new and liberal constitution have
induced me to renew the effort to obtain a just and prompt settlement of |
the long- vexed question concerning the claims of foreign states for mili-
tary service from their subjects naturalized in the United States.
In connection with this subject the attention of Congress is respect- 1
fully called to a singular and embarrassing conflict of laws. The execu-
tive department of this Government has hitherto uniformly held, as it now
holds, that naturalization in conformity with the Constitution and laws
of the United States absolves the recipient from his native allegiance.
The courts of Great Britain hold that allegiance to the British Crown is
indefeasible, and is not absolved by our laws of naturalization. British
judges cite courts and law authorities of the United States in support of
that theory against the position held by the executive authority of the
United States, This conflict perplexes the public mind concerning the
rights of naturalized citizens and impairs the national authority abroad.
Andrew Johnson cgx
I called attention to this subject in my last annual message, and now
again respectfully appeal to Congress to declare the national will unmis-
takably upon this important question.
The abuse of our laws by the clandestine prosecution of the African
slave trade from American ports or by American citizens has altogether
ceased, and under existing circumstances no apprehensions of its renewal
in this part of the world are entertained. Under these circumstances
it becomes a question whether we shall not propose to Her Majesty's
Government a suspension or discontinuance of the stipulations for main-
taining a naval force for the suppression of that trade.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, December j, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for consideration with a view to ratification, a treaty be-
tween the United States and His Majesty the King of Denmark, stipu-
lating for the cession of the islands of St. Thomas and St. John, in the
^^^ ^"'l'*"- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December j, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for consideration with a view to ratification, a treaty of
friendship, commerce, and navigation between the United States and the
Republic of Nicaragua, signed at the city of Managua on the 21st day of
June last. This instrument has been framed pursuant to the amend-
ments of the Senate of the United States to the previous treaty between
the parties of the i6th of March, 1859.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 4., i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a final report from the Attorney- General, addi-
tional to the reports submitted by him December 31, 1866, March 2, 1867,
and July 8, 1867, in reply to a resolution of the House of Representatives
December 10, 1866, requesting ' ' a list of the names of all persons engaged
in the late rebeUion against the United States Government who have been
pardoned by the President from April 15, 1865, to this date; that said list
shall also state the rank of each person who has been so pardoned, if
he has been engaged in the military service of the so-called Confed-
erate government, and the position if he shall have held any civil office
582 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
under said so-called Confederate government; and shall also state whether
such person has at anytime prior to April 14, 1861, held any office under
the United States Government, and, if so, what office, together with the
reason for granting such pardon, and also the names of the person or
persons at whose solicitation such pardon was granted. ' '
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December /, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 26th
ultimo, a report* from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 5, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 17th July last, requesting me to communicate all information received
at the several Departments of the Government touching the organization
within or near the territory of the United States of armed bodies of men
for the purpose of avenging the death of the Archduke Maximilian or of
intervening in Mexican affairs, and what measures have been taken to
prevent the organization or departure of such organized bodies for the
purpose of carrying out such objects, I transmit a report from the Secre-
tary of State and the papers accompanying it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 5, 186^.
To the Senate of the United States:
I submit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification,
a commercial treaty between the United States of America and Her
Majesty the Queen of Madagascar, signed at Antananarivo on the 14th
of February last. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 10, 1867.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 25th
ultimo, a report f from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
♦Relating to the removal of J. I^othrop Motley from his post as minister of the United States at
Vienna.
t Relating to the formation and the functions of the Government of the united States of North
Germany.
J
Andrew Johnson 583
Washington, December 10, 186'/.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit a copy of a dispatch of the 17th of July last, addressed to
the Secretary of State, and of the papers which accompanied it, from
Anson Biirlingame, esq., minister of the United States to China, relating
to a proposed modification of the existing treaty between this Govern-
ment and that of China.
The Senate is aware that the original treaty is chiefly ex parte in its
character. The proposed modification, though not of sufficient impor-
tance to warrant all the usual forms, does not seem to be objectionable;
but it can not be legally accepted by the executive government without
the advice and consent of the Senate. If this should be given, it may be
indicated by a resolution, upon the adoption of which the United States
minister to China will be instructed to inform the Government of that
country that the modification has been assented to.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 12, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
On the 1 2th of August last I suspended Mr. Stanton from the exercise
of the office of Secretary of War, and on the same day designated General
Grant to act as Secretary of War ad interim.
The following are copies of the Executive orders:
Executive Mansion,
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Washington, August 12, 1867.
Secretary of War.
Sir: By virtue of the power and authority vested in me as President by the Consti-
tution and laws of the United States, you are hereby suspended from office as Secre-
tary of War, and will cease to exercise any and all functions pertaining to the same.
You will at once transfer to General Ulysses S. Grant, who has this day been
authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War ad interim, all records, books,
and other property now in your custody and charge.
Executive Mansion,
General Ui^ysses S. Grant, Washington, D. C. , August 12, 1867.
Washington, D. C.
Sir: The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having been this day suspended as Secretary of
War, you are hereby authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War ad interim,
and will at once enter upon the discharge of the duties of the office.
The Secretary of War has been instructed to transfer to you all the records, books,
papers, and other public property now in his custody and charge.
The following communication was received from Mr. Stanton:
War Department,
The President. Washington City, August 12, 1867.
Sir: Your note of this date has been received, informing me that by virtue of
the powers and authority vested in you as President by the Constitution and laws
584
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of the United States I am suspended from office as Secretary of War, and will cease
to exercise any and all functions pertaining to the same, and also directing me at
once to transfer to General Ulysses S. Grant, who has this day been authorized
and empowered to act as Secretary of War ad interim^ all records, books, papers, and
other public property now in my custody and charge.
Under a sense of public duty I am compelled to deny your right under the Con-
stitution and laws of the United States, without the advice and consent of the
Senate and without any legal cause, to suspend me from office as Secretary of War
or the exercise of pny or all functions pertaining to the same, or wdthout such advice
and consent to compel me to transfer to any person the records, books, papers, and
public property in my custody as Secretary.
But inasmuch as the General Commanding the armies of the United States has
been appointed ad interim, and has notified me that he has accepted the appoint-
ment, I have no alternative but to submit, under protest, to superior force.
The suspension has not been revoked, and the business of the War
Department is conducted by the Secretary ad interim.
Prior to the date of this suspension I had come to the conclusion that
the time had arrived when it was proper Mr. Stanton should retire from
my Cabinet. The mutual confidence and general accord which should
exist in such a relation had ceased. I supposed that Mr. Stanton was
well advised that his continuance in the Cabinet was contrary to my
wishes, for I had repeatedly given him so to understand by every mode
short of an express request that he should resign. Having waited full
time for the voluntary action of Mr. Stanton, and seeing no manifestation
on his part of an intention to resign, I addressed him the following note
on the 5th of August:
Sir: Public considerations of a high character constrain me to say that your
resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted.
To this note I received the following reply:
War Department,
Washington, August 5, 1867.
Sir: Your note of this day has been received, stating that public considerations of
a high character constrain you to say that my resignation as Secretary of War will
be accepted.
In reply I have the honor to say that public considerations of a high character,
which alone have induced me to continue at the head of this Department, constrain
me not to resign the office of Secretary of War before the next meeting of Congress.
This reply of Mr. Stanton was not merely a disinclination of compli-
ance with the request for his resignation; it was a defiance, and some-
thing more. Mr. Stanton does not content himself with assuming that
public considerations bearing upon his continuance in ofiice form as
fully a rule of action for himself as for the President, and that upon so
delicate a question as the fitness of an ofiicer for continuance in his office
the officer is as competent and as impartial to decide as his superior, who
is responsible for his conduct. But he goes further, and plainly intimates
what he means by "public considerations of a high character," and this
is nothing else than his loss of confidence in his superior. He says that
Andrew Johnson 585
these public considerations have ' ' alone induced me to continue at the
head of this Department," and that they "constrain me not to resign
the office of Secretary of War before the next meeting of Congress."
This language is very significant. Mr. Stanton holds the position
unwilhngly. He continues in office only under a sense of high public
duty. He is ready to leave when it is safe to leave, and as the danger
he apprehends from his removal then will not exist when Congress
is here, he is constrained to remain during the interim. What, then, is
that danger which can only be averted by the presence of Mr. Stanton
or of Congress ? Mr. Stanton does not say that ' ' public considerations
of a high character ' ' constrain him to hold on to the office indefinitely.
He does not say that no one other than himself can at any time be found to
take his place and perform its duties. On the contrary, he expresses a
desire to leave the office at the earliest moment consistent with these high
public considerations. He says, in effect, that while Congress is away he
must remain, but that when Congress is here he can go. In other words,
he has lost confidence in the President. He is unwilling to leave the
War Department in his hands or in the hands of anyone the President
may appoint or designate to perform its duties. If he resigns, the Presi-
dent may appoint a Secretary of War that Mr. Stanton does not approve;
therefore he will not resign. But when Congress is in session the Presi-
dent can not appoint a Secretary of War which the Senate does not
approve; consequently when Congress meets Mr. Stanton is ready to
resign.
Whatever cogency these * * considerations ' ' may have had on Mr.
Stanton, whatever right he may have had to entertain such considera-
tions, whatever propriety there might be in the expression of them to
others, one thing is certain, it was official misconduct, to say the least of
it, to parade them before his superior officer.
Upon the receipt of this extraordinary note I only delayed the order
of suspension long enough to make the necessary arrangements to fill
the office. If this were the only cause for his suspension, it would be
ample. Necessarily it must end our most important official relations, for
I can not imagine a degree of effrontery which would embolden the head
of a Department to take his seat at the council table in the Executive
Mansion after such an act; nor can I imagine a President so forgetful of
the proper respect and dignity which belong to his office as to submit to
such intrusion. I will not do Mr. Stanton the wrong to suppose that he
entertained anj^ idea of offering to act as one of my constitutional advisers
after that note was written. There was an interval of a week between
that date and the order of suspension, during which two Cabinet meet-
ings were held. Mr. Stanton did not present himself at either, nor was
he expected.
On the 1 2th of August Mr. Stanton was notified of his suspension and
that General Grant had been authorized to take charge of the Department.
i
586 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
In his answer to this notification, of the same date, Mr. Stanton expresses
himself as follows:
Under a sense of public duty I am compelled to deny your right under the Consti-
tution and laws of the United States, without the advice and consent of the Senate
and without any legal cause, to suspend me from office as Secretary of War or the
exercise of any or all functions pertaining to the same, or without such advice and
consent to compel me to transfer to any person the records, books, papers, and public
property in my custody as Secretary.
But inasmuch as the General Commanding the armies of the United States has
been appointed ad interim, and has notified me that he has accepted the appoint-
ment, I have no alternative but to submit, under protest, to superior force.
It will not escape attention that in his note of August 5 Mr. Stanton
stated that he had been constrained to continue in the office, even before
he was requested to resign, by considerations of a high public character.
In this note of August 12a new and different sense of public duty com-
pels him to deny the President's right to suspend him from office without
the consent of the Senate. This last is the public duty of resisting an
act contrary to law, and he charges the President with violation of the
law in ordering his suspension.
Mr. Stanton refers generally to the Constitution and laws of the ' * United
States," and says that a sense of public duty ** under" these compels
him to deny the right of the President to suspend him from office. As
to his sense of duty under the Constitution, that will be considered in the
sequel. As to his sense of duty under ' ' the laws of the United States, ' '
he certainly can not refer to the law which creates the War Depart-
ment, for that expressly confers upon the President the unlimited right
to remove the head of the Department. The only other law bearing
upon the question is the tenure-of -office act, passed by Congress over the
Presidential veto March 2, 1867. This is the law which, under a sense
of public duty, Mr. Stanton volunteers to defend.
There is no provision in this law which compels any officer coming
within its provisions to remain in office. It forbids removals — not res-
ignations. Mr. Stanton was perfectly free to resign at any moment,
either upon his own motion or in compliance with a request or an order.
It was a matter of choice or of taste. There was nothing compulsory in
the nature of legal obligation. Nor does he put his action upon that
imperative ground. He says he acts under a "sense of public duty,"
not of legal obligation, compelling him to hold on and leaving him no
choice. The public duty which is upon him arises from the respect which
he owes to the Constitution and the laws, violated in his own case. He
is therefore compelled by this sense of public duty to vindicate violated
law and to stand as its champion.
This was not the first occasion in which Mr. Stanton, in discharge of a
public duty, was called upon to consider the provisions of that law. That
tenure-of-office law did not pass without notice. I^ike other acts, it was
sent to the President for approval. As is my custom, I submitted its
Andrew Johnson 587
consideration to my Cabinet for their advice upon the question whether I
should approve it or not. It was a grave question of constitutiomal law,
in which I would, of course, rely most upon the opinion of the Attorney-
General and of Mr. Stanton, who had once been Attorney- General.
Every member of my Cabinet advised me that the proposed law was
unconstitutional. All spoke without doubt or reservation, but Mr. Stan-
ton's condemnation of the law was the most elaborate and emphatic. He
referred to the constitutional provisions, the debates in Congress, espe-
cially to the speech of Mr. Buchanan when a Senator, to the decisions of
the Supreme Court, and to the usage from the beginning of the Govern-
ment through every successive Administration, all concurring to estab-
lish the right of removal as vested by the Constitution in the President.
To all these he added the weight of his own deliberate judgment, and
advivSed me that it was my duty to defend the power of the President
from usurpation and to veto the law.
I do not know when a sense of public duty is more imperative upon a
head of Department than upon such an occasion as this. He acts then
under the gravest obligations of law, for when he is called upon by the
President for advice it is the Constitution which speaks to him. All his
other duties are left by the Constitution to be regulated by statute, but
this duty was deemed so momentous that it is imposed by the Constitution
itself.
After all this I was not prepared for the ground taken by Mr. Stanton
in his note of August 12. I was not prepared to find him compelled by
a new and indefinite sense of public duty, under "the Constitution,"
to assume the vindication of a law which, under the solemn obligations
of public duty imposed by the Constitution itself, he advised me was a
violation of that Constitution. I make great allowance for a change of
opinion, but such a change as this hardly falls within the limits of great-
est indulgence.
Where our opinions take the shape of advice, and influence the action
of others, the utmost stretch of charity will scarcely justify us in repudi-
ating them when they come to be applied to ourselves.
But to proceed with the narrative. I was so much struck with the full
mastery of the question manifested by Mr. Stanton, and was at the time
so fully occupied with the preparation of another veto upon the pending
reconstruction act, that I requested him to prepare the veto upon this
tenure-of-office bill. This he declined, on the ground of physical disa-
bility to undergo at the time the labor of writing, but stated his readiness
to furnish what aid might be required in the preparation of materials for
the paper.
At the time this subject was before the Cabinet it seemed to be taken
for granted that as to those members of the Cabinet who had been
appointed by Mr. Lincoln their tenure of office was not fixed by the pro-
visions of the act. I do not remember that the point was distinctly
S88
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
decided, but I well recollect that it was suggested b}^ one member of the
Cabinet who was appointed by Mr. Lincoln, and that no dissent was
ex;pressed.
Whether the point was well taken or not did not seem to me of any
consequence, for the unanimous expression of opinion against the consti-
tutionality and policy of the act was so decided that I felt no concern, so
far as the act had reference to the gentlemen then present, that I would
be embarrassed in the future. The bill had not then become a law. The
limitation upon the power of removal was not yet imposed, and there was
yet time to make any changes. If any one of these gentlemen had then
said to me that he would avail himself of the provisions of that bill in
case it became a law, I should not have hesitated a moment as to his
removal. No pledge was then expressly given or required. But there
are circumstances when to give an expressed pledge is not necessary, and
when to require it is an imputation of possible bad faith. I felt that if
these gentlemen came within the purview of the bill it was as to them
a dead letter, and that none of them would ever take refuge under its
provisions.
I now pass to another subject. When, on the 15th of April, 1865, the
duties of the Presidential office devolved upon me, I found a full Cabinet
of seven members, all of them selected by Mr. Lincoln. I made no change.
On the contrary, I shortly afterwards ratified a change determined upon by
Mr. Lincoln, but not perfected at his death, and admitted his appointee,
Mr. Harlan, in the place of Mr. Usher, who was in office at the time.
The great duty of the time was to reestablish government, law, and
order in the insurrectionary States. Congress was then in recess, and the
sudden overthrow of the rebellion required speedy action. This grave
subject had engaged the attention of Mr. Lincoln in the last days of his
life, and the plan according to which it was to be managed had been pre-
pared and was ready for adoption. A leading feature of that plan was
that it should be carried out by the Executive authority, for, so far as I
have been informed, neither Mr. Lincoln nor any member of his Cabinet
doubted his authority to act or proposed to call an extra session of Con-
gress to do the work. The first business transacted in Cabinet after I
became President was this unfinished business of my predecessor. A
plan or scheme of reconstruction was produced which had been prepared
for Mr. Lincoln by Mr. Stanton, his Secretary of War. It was approved,
and at the earliest moment practicable was applied in the form of a proc-
lamation to the State of North Carolina, and afterwards became the basis
of action in turn for the other States.
Upon the examination of Mr. Stanton before the Impeachment Com-
mittee he was asked the following question:
Did any one of the Cabinet express a doubt of the power of the executive branch of
the Government to reorganize State governments which had been in rebellion with-
out the aid of Congress?
Andrew Johnson 589
He answered:
None whatever. I had myself entertained no doubt of the authority of the Presi-
dent to take measures for the organization of the rebel States on the plan proposed
during the vacation of Congress and agreed in the plan specified in the proclamation
in the case of North Carolina.
There is perhaps no act of my Administration for which I have been
more denounced than this. It was not originated by me, but I shrink
from no responsibility on that account, for the plan approved itself to my
own judgment, and I did not hesitate to carry it into execution.
Thus far and upon this vital policy there was perfect accord between
the Cabinet and myself, and I saw no necessity for a change. As time
passed on there was developed an unfortunate difference of opinion and
of policy between Congress and the President upon this same subject
and upon the ultimate basis upon which the reconstruction of these States
should proceed, especially upon the question of negro suffrage. Upon
this point three members of the Cabinet found themselves to be in sym-
pathy with Congress. They remained only long enough to see that the
difference of policy could not be reconciled. They felt that they should
remain no longer, and a high sense of duty and propriety constrained
them to resign their positions. We parted with mutual respect for the
sincerity of each other in opposite opinions, and mutual regret that the
difference was on points so vital as to require a severance of official rela-
tions. This was in the summer of 1866. The subsequent sessions of
Congress developed new complications, when the suffrage bill for the Dis-
trict of Columbia and the reconstruction acts of March 2 and March 23,
1867, all passed over the veto. It was in Cabinet consultations upon
these bills that a difference of opinion upon the most vital points was
developed. Upon these questions there was perfect accord between all
the members of the Cabinet and myself, except Mr. Stanton. He stood
alone, and the difference of opinion could not be reconciled. That unity
of opinion which, upon great questions of public policy or administration,
is so essential to the Executive was gone.
I do not claim that a head of Department should have no other opinions
than those of the President. He has the same right, in the conscientious
discharge of duty, to entertain and express his own opinions as has the
President. What I do claim is that the President is the responsible head
of the Administration, and when the opinions of a head of Department
are irreconcilably opposed to those of the President in grave matters of
policy and administration there is but one result which can solve the dif-
ficulty, and that is a severance of the official relation. This in the past
history of the Government has always been the rule, and it is a wise one,
for such differences of opinion among its members must impair the effi-
ciency of any Administration.
I have now referred to the general grounds upon which the withdrawal
of Mr. Stanton from my Administration seemed to me to be proper and
590 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
necessary, but I can not omit to state a special ground, which, if it stood
alone, would vindicate my action.
The sanguinary riot which occurred in the city of New Orleans on
the 30th of August, 1866, justly aroused public indignation and public
inquiry, not only as to those who were engaged in it, but as to those who,
more or less remotely, might be held to responsibility for its occurrence.
I need not remind the Senate of the effort made to fix that responsi-
bility on the President. The charge was openly made, and again and
again reiterated all through the land, that the President was warned in
time, but refused to interfere.
By telegrams from the lieutenant-governor and attorney-general of
Louisiana, dated the 27th and 28th of August, I was advised that a body
of delegates claiming to be a constitutional convention were about to
assemble in New Orleans; that the matter was before the grand jury,
but that it would be impossible to execute civil process without a riot-
and this question was asked:
Is the miHtary to interfere to prevent process of court?
This question was asked at a time when the civil courts were in the
full exercise of their authority, and the answer sent by telegraph on
the same 28th of August was this:
The military will be expected to sustain, and not to interfere with, the proceedings
of the courts.
On the same 28th of August the following telegram was sent to Mr.
Stanton by Major- General Baird, then (owing to the absence of General
Sheridan) in command of the military at New Orleans:
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War:
A convention has been called, with the sanction of Governor Wells, to meet here
on Monday. The lieutenant-governor and city authorities think it unlawful, and
propose to break it up by arresting the delegates. I have given no orders on the
subject, but have warned the parties that I could not countenance or permit such
action without instructions to that effect from the President. Please instruct me at
once by telegraph.
The 28th of August was on Saturday. The next morning, the 29th,
this dispatch was received by Mr. Stanton at his residence in this city.
He took no action upon it, and neither sent instructions to General Baird
himself nor presented it to me for such instructions. On the next day
(Monday) the riot occurred. I never saw this dispatch from General
Baird until some ten days or two weeks after the riot, when, upon my
call for all the dispatches, with a view to their pubHcation, Mr. Stanton
sent it to me.
These facts all appear in the testimony of Mr. Stanton before the
Judiciary Committee in the impeachment investigation.
Andrew Johnson 591
On the 36th, the day of the riot, and after it was suppressed, General
Baird wrote to Mr. Stanton a long letter, from which I make the following
extract:
Sir: I have the honor to inform you that a very serious riot has occurred here
to-day. I had not been applied to by the convention for protection, but the lieu-
tenant-governor and the mayor had freely consulted with me, and I was so fully
convinced that it was so strongly the intent of the city authorities to preserve the
peace, in order to prevent military interference, that I did not regard an outbreak as
a thing to be apprehended. The lieutenant-governor had assured me that even
if a writ of arrest was issued by the court the sheriff would not attempt to serve
it without my permission, and for to-day they designed to suspend it. I inclose
herewith copies of my correspondence with the mayor and of a dispatch which the
lieutenant-governor claims to have received from the President. I regret that no
reply to my dispatch to you of Saturday has yet reached me. General Sheridan is
still absent in Texas.
The dispatch of General Baird of the 28th asks for immediate instruc-
tions, and his letter of the 30th, after detailing the terrible riot which had
just happened, ends with the expression of regret that the instructions
which he asked for were not sent. It is not the fault or the error or the
omission of the President that this military commander was left without
instructions; but for all omissions, for all errors, for all failures to instruct
when instruction might have averted this calamity, the President was
openly and persistently held responsible. Instantly, without waiting for
proof, the delinquency of the President was heralded in every form of
utterance. Mr. Stanton knew then that the President was not responsi-
ble for this delinquency. The exculpation was in his power, but it was
not given by him to the public, and only to the President in obedience to
a requisition for all the dispatches.
No one regrets more than myself that General Baird' s request was not
brought to my notice. It is clear from his dispatch and letter that if
the Secretary of War had given him proper instructions the riot which
arose on the assembling of the convention would have been averted.
There may be those ready to say that I would have given no instruc-
tions even if the dispatch had reached me in time, but all must admit
that I ought to have had the opportunity.
The following is the testimony given by Mr. Stanton before the im-
peachment investigation committee as to this dispatch:
Q. Referring to the dispatch of the 28th of July by General Baird, I ask you
whether that dispatch on its receipt was communicated ?
A. I received that dispatch on Sunday forenoon. I examined it carefully, and
considered the question presented. I did not see that I could give any instructions
different from the line of action which General Baird proposed, and made no answer
to the dispatch.
Q. I see it stated that this was received at 10.20 p. m. Was that the hour at which
it was received by you?
A. That is the date of its reception in the telegraph office Saturday night. I
received it on Sunday forenoon at my residence. A copy of the dispatch was fur-
nished to the President several days afterwards, along with all the other dispatches
592 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
and communications on that subject, but it was not furnished by me before that time.
I suppose it may have been ten or fifteen days afterwards.
Q. The President himself being in correspondence with those parties upon the
same subject, would it not have been proper to have advised him of the reception of
that dispatch?
A. I know nothing about his correspondence, and know nothing about any corre-
spondence except this one dispatch. We had intelligence of the riot on Thursday
morning. The riot had taken place on Monday.
It is a difficult matter to define all the relations which exist between
the heads of Departments and the President. The legal relations are
well enough defined. The Constitution places these ofiicers in the rela-
tion of his advisers when he calls upon them for advice. The acts of
Congress go further. Take, for example, the act of 1789 creating the
War Department. It provides that —
There shall be a principal officer therein to be called the Secretary for the Depart-
ment of War, who shall perform and execute such duties as shall from time to time
be enjoined on or intrusted to him by the President of the United States; and, fur-
thermore, the said principal officer shall conduct the business of the said Department
in such manner as the President of the United States shall from time to time order
and instruct.
Provision is also made for the appointment of an inferior ofi&cer by the
head of the Department, to be called the chief clerk, ' * who, whenever
said principal officer shall be removed from office by the President of the
United States, ' ' shall have the charge and custody of the books, records,
and papers of the Department.
The legal relation is analogous to that of principal and agent. It is the
President upon whom the Constitution devolves, as head of the executive
department, the duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed; but as
he can not execute them in person, he is allowed to select his agents,,
and is made responsible for their acts within just limits. So complete is
this presumed delegation of authority in the relation of a head of Depart-
ment to the President that the Supreme Court of the United States have
decided that an order made by a head of Department is presumed to be
made by the President himself.
The principal, upon whom such responsibility is placed for the acts
of a subordinate, ought to be left as free as possible in the matter of
selection and of dismissal. To hold him to responsibility for an officer
beyond his control; to leave the question of the fitness of such an agent
to be decided y^r him and not by him; to allow such a subordinate, when
the President, moved by ''public considerations of a high character,"
requests his resignation, to assume for himself an equal right to act upon
his own views of ''public considerations" and to make his own con-
clusions paramount to those of the President — to allow all this is to
reverse the just order of administration and to place the subordinate
above the superior.
There are, however, other relations between the President and a head of
Department beyond these defined legal relations, which necessarily attend
Andrew Johnson 593
them, though not expressed. Chief among these is mutual confidence.
This relation is so delicate that it is sometimes hard to say when or how
it ceases. A single flagrant act may end it at once, and then there is nc
difficulty. But confidence may be just as effectually destroyed by a series
of causes too subtle for demonstration. As it is a plant of slow growth,
so, too, it may be slow in decay. Such has been the process here. I will
not pretend to say what acts or omissions have broken up this relation.
They are hardly susceptible of statement, and still less of formal proof.
Nevertheless, no one can read the correspondence of the 5th of August
without being convinced that this relation was effectually gone on both
sides, and that while the President was unwilling to allow Mr. Stanton to
remain in his Administration, Mr. Stanton was equally unwilling to allow
the President to carry on his Administration without his presence.
In the great debate which took place in the House of Representatives
in 1789, in the first organization of the principal Departments, Mr. Madi-
son spoke as follows:
It is evidently the intention of the Constitution that the first magistrate should be
responsible for the executive department. So far, therefore, as we do not make the
oflficers who are to aid him in the duties of that department responsible to him, he
is not responsible to the country. Again: Is there no danger that an officer, when
he is appointed by the concurrence of the Senate and has friends in that body, may
choose rather to risk his estabUshment on the favor of that branch than rest it upon
the discharge of his duties to the satisfaction of the executive branch, which is con-
stitutionally authorized to inspect and control his conduct? And if it should happen
that the officers connect themselves with the Senate, they may mutually support
each other, and for want of efficacy reduce the power of the President to a mere
vapor, in which case his responsibility would be annihilated, and the expectation of
it is unjust. The high executive officers, joined in cabal with the Senate, would lay
the foundation of discord, and end in an assumption of the executive power only to
be removed by a revolution in the Government.
Mr. Sedgwick, in the same debate, referring to the proposition that a
head of Department should only be removed or suspended by the concur-
rence of the Senate, used this language:
But if proof be necessary, what is then the consequence? Why, in nine cases out
of ten, where the case is very clear to the mind of the President that the man ought
to be removed, the effect can not be produced, because it is absolutely impossible to
produce the necessary evidence. Are the Senate to proceed without evidence ? Some
gentlemen contend not. Then the object will be lost. Shall a man under these
circumstances be saddled upon the President who has been appointed for no other
purpose but to aid the President in performing certain duties ? Shall he be contin-
ued, I ask again, against the will of the President? If he is, where is the responsi-
bility? Are you to look for it in the President, who has no control over the officer,
no power to remove him if he acts unfeelingly or unfaithfully? "Without you make
him responsible you weaken and destroy the strength and beauty of your system.
What is to be done in cases which can only be known from a long acquaintance with
the conduct of an officer?
I had indulged the hope that upon the assembling of Congress Mr.
Stanton would have ended this unpleasant complication according to his
M P— vol, VI— 38
594 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
intimation given in his note of August 12. The duty which I have felt
myself called upon to perform was by no means agreeable, but I feel that
I am not responsible for the controversy or for the consequences.
Unpleasant as this necessary change in my Cabinet has been to me
upon personal considerations, I have the consolation to be assured that
so far as the public interests are involved there is no cause for regret.
Salutary reforms have been introduced by the Secretary ad interim,
and great reductions of expenses have been effected under his adminis-
tration of the War Department, to the saving of millions to the Treasury.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 14, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 9th instant, I transmit herewith a copy of the papers relating to the
trial by a military commission of Albert M. D. C. lyUsk, of lyouisiana.
No action in the case has yet been taken by the President.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December ly, i86y.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit for the information of the House of Representatives a report
from the Secretary of State, with an accompanying paper.*
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 17, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 6th instant, concern-
ing the International Monetary Conference held at Paris in June last, I
transmit a report from the Secretary of State, which is accompanied by
the papers called for by the resolution.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December z/, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate, an agreement between
the diplomatic representatives of certain foreign powers in Japan, includ-
ing the minister of the United States, on the one part, and plenipoten-
tiaries on the part of the Japanese Government, relative to the settlement
of Yokohama.
* Report of George H. Sharpe relative to the assassination of President I^incoln and the attempted
assassination of Secretary Seward.
Andrew Johnson ^^^
This instrument can not be legally binding upon the United States
unless sanctioned by the Senate. There appears to be no objection to its
approval.
A copy of General Van Valkenburgh's dispatch to the Secretary of State,
by which the agreement was accompanied, and of the map to which it
refers, are also herewith transmitted. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, December i8, i86y.
Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:
An official copy of the order issued by Major- General Winfield S. Han-
cock, commander of the Fifth Military District, dated headquarters in New
Orleans, I^a., on the 29th day of November, has reached me through the
regular channels of the War Department, and I herewith communicate
it to Congress for such action as may seem to be proper in view of all the
circumstances.
It will be perceived that General Hancock announces that he will
make the law the rule of his conduct; that he will uphold the courts and
other civil authorities in the performance of their proper duties, and that
he will tise his military power only to preserv^e the peace and enforce the
law. He declares very explicitly that the sacred right of the trial by jury
and the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be crushed out or
trodden under foot. He goes further, and in one comprehensive sentence
asserts that the principles of American liberty are still the inheritance of
this people and ever should be.
When a great soldier, with unrestricted power in his hands to oppress
his fellow-men, voluntarily foregoes the chance of gratifying his selfish
ambition and devotes himself to the duty of building up the liberties and
strengthening the laws of his country, he presents an example of the
highest public virtue that human nature is capable of practicing. The
strongest claim of Washington to be ''first in war, first in peace, and first
in the hearts of his countrymen ' ' is founded on the great fact that in all
his illustrious career he scrupulously abstained from violating the legal
and constitutional rights of his fellow-citizens. When he surrendered
his commission to Congress, the President of that body spoke his high-
est praise in saying that he had ' ' always regarded the rights of the civil
authorities through all dangers and disasters." Whenever power above
the law courted his acceptance, he calmly put the temptation aside. By
such magnanimous acts of forbearance he won the universal admiration of
mankind and left a name which has no rival in the history of the world.
I am far from saying that General Hancock is the only officer of
the American Army who is influenced by the example of Washington.
Doubtless thousands of them are faithfully devoted to the principles for
which the men of the Revolution laid down their lives. But the distin-
guished honor belongs to him of being the first officer in high command
59^ Messages and Papers of the Presidents
south of the Potomac, since the close of the civil war, who has given utter-
ance to these noble sentiments in the form of a military order.
I respectfully suggest to Congress that some public recognition of
General Hancock's patriotic conduct is due, if not to him, to the friends
of law and justice throughout the country. Of such an act as his at such
a time it is but fit that the dignity should be vindicated and the virtue
proclaimed, so that its value as an example may not be lost to the nation.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 19, i86y.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to a resolution of that body of the
1 6th instant, a report* from the Secretary of State, with accompanying
P^P^^^* ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 20, i86y.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I herewith transmit to Congress a report, dated the 20th instant, with
the accompanying papers, received from the Secretary of State in compli-
ance with the requirements of the eighteenth section of the act entitled
"An act to regulate the diplomatic and consular systems of the United
States," approved August 18, 1856. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December ji, i86j.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the i8th
iUvStant, requesting information concerning alleged interference by Rus-
sian naval vessels with whaling vessels of the United States, I transmit a
report from the Secretary of State and the papers referred to therein.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<35««ar>/ 6, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith transmit to the Senate a report from the Secretary of the
Treasury, containing the information requested in their resolution of
the 1 6th ultimo, relative to the amount of United States bonds issued
to the Union Pacific Railroad Company and each of its branches, includ-
ing the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Relating to the removal of Governor Ballard, of the Territory of Idaho.
Andrew Johnson 597
Washington, January 7, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to a resolu-
tion of the House of Representatives of yesterday, making inquiry how
many and what State legislatures have ratified the proposed amendment
to the Constitution of the United States known as the fourteenth article.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<a!^««rj/ 7, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
A Spanish steamer named Nuestra Senora being in the harbor of Port
Royal, S. C, on the ist of December, 1861, Brigadier- General T. W. Sher-
man, who was in command of the United States forces there, received
information which he supposed justified him in seizing her, as she was
on her way from Charleston to Havana with insurgent correspondence on
board. The seizure was made accordingly, and during the ensuing spring
the vessel was sent to New York, in order that the legality of the seizure
might be tried.
By a decree of June 20, 1863, Judge Betts ordered the vessel to be
restored, and by a subsequent decree, of October 15, 1863, he referred
the adjustment of damages to amicable negotiations between the two
Governments.
While the proceeding in admiralty was pending, the vessel was ap-
praised and taken by the Navy Department at the valuation of $28,000,
which sum that Department paid into the Treasury.
As the amount of this valuation can not legally be drawn from the
Treasury without authority from Congress, I recommend an appropria-
tion for that purpose.
It is proposed to appoint a commissioner on the part of this Government
to adjust, informally in this case, with a similar commissioner on the part
of Spain, the question of damages, the commissioners to name an arbiter for
points upon which they may disagree. When the amount of the damages
shall thus have been ascertained, application will be made to Congress for
a further appropriation toward paying them.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, January 14., 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of War ad
interim, with the accompanying papers, prepared in compliance with a
resolution of the House of Representatives of March 15, 1867, requesting
information in reference to contracts for ordnance projectiles and small
^^^s. ANDREW JOHNSON.
598 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, D. C.,Ja7mary i^, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith the report made by the commissioners appointed
under the act of Congress approved on the 20th day of July, 1867, entitled
"An act to establish peace with certain hostile Indian tribes," together
with the accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /«;^z/fljrK z^, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of yesterday, calling for infor-
mation relating to the appointment of the American minister at Pekin to
a diplomatic or other mission on behalf of the Chinese Government by
the Emperor of China, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State
upon the subject, together with the accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington City, fanuary 14., 1868.
To the Senate of the United States: *
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
the following treaties, concluded at "Medicine Lodge Creek," Kansas,
between the Indian tribes therein named and the United States, by their
commissioners appointed by the act of Congress approved July 20, 1867,
entitled * 'An act to establish peace with certain hostile Indian tribes, ' ' viz:
A treaty with the Kiowa and Comanche tribes, concluded October 21,
1867.
A treaty with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache tribes, concluded
October 28, 1867.
A treaty with the Arapahoe and Cheyenne tribes, dated October 28,
1867.
A letter of this date from the Secretary of the Interior, transmitting
said treaties, is herewith inclosed.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<aj;^2^«rj/ z/, 1868.
To ike Senate of the United States:
With reference to the convention between the United States and Den-
mark for the cession of the islands of St. Thomas and St. John, in the West
Indies, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State on the subject of
the vote of St. Thomas on the question of accepting the cession.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 599
Washington, D. ^..January 2j, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the request of the Senate of yesterday, I return
herewith their resolution of the 21st instant, calling for information in
reference to James A. Seddon, late Secretary of War of the so-called
Confederate states. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 2j, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have received the following preamble and resolution, adopted by the
Senate on the 8th instant:
Whereas Senate bill No. 141, and entitled "An act for the further security of equal
rights in the District of Columbia," having at this present session passed both Houses
of Congress, was afterwards, on the nth day of December, 1867, duly presented to
the President of the United States for his approval and signature; and
Whereas more than ten days, exclusive of Sundays, have since elapsed in this
session without said bill having been returned, either approved or disapproved:
Therefore,
Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to inform the Sen-
ate whether said bill has been delivered to and received by the Secretary of State, as
provided by the second section of the act of the 27th day of July, 1789.
As the act which the resolution mentions has no relevancy to the sub-
ject under inquiry, it is presumed that it was the intention of the Senate
to refer to the law of the 15th September, 1789, the second section of
which prescribes —
That whenever a bill, order, resolution, or vote of the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatives, having been approved and signed by the President of the United States,
or not having been returned by him with his objections, shall become a law or take
effect, it shall forthwith thereafter be received by the said Secretary from the Presi-
dent; and whenever a bill, order, resolution, or vote shall be returned by the President
with his objections, and shall, on being reconsidered, be agreed to be passed, and be
approved by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and thereby become a law or take
effect, it shall in such case be received by the said Secretary from the President of
the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in whichsoever House it
shall last have been so approved.
Inasmuch as the bill * ' for the further security of equal rights in the
District of Columbia" has not become a law in either of the modes
designated in the section above quoted, it has not been delivered to
the Secretary of State for record and promulgation. The Constitution
expressly declares that—
If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days ( Sundays excepted )
after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as
if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in
which case it shall not be a law.
As stated in the preamble to the resolution, the bill to which it refers
was presented for my approval on the nth day of December, 1867. On
6oo Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the 2otli of same month, and before the expiration of the ten days after
the presentation of the bill to the President, the two Houses, in accord-
arice with a concurrent resolution adopted on the 3d [13th] of December,
adjourned until the 6th of January, 1868, Congress by their adjourn-
ment thus prevented the return of the bill within the time prescribed
by the Constitution, and it was therefore left in the precise condition in
which that instrument positively declares a bill ''shall not be a law."
If the adjournment in December did not cause the failure of this bill,
because not such an adjournment as is contemplated by the Constitution
in the clause which I have cited, it must follow that such was the nature
of the adjournments during the past year, on the 30th day of March until
the first Wednesday of July and from the 20th of July until the 21st of
November. Other bills wHll therefore be affected by the decision which
may be rendered in this case, among them one having the same title as
that named in the resolution, and containing similar provisions, which,
passed by both Houses in the month of July last, failed to become a law
by reason of the adjournment of Congress before ten days for its consid-
eration had been allowed the Executive.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January -?/, 1868.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 2 2d
instant, calling for a copy of the report of Abram S. Hewitt, commissioner
of the United States to the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867, 1 transmit
a report from the Secretary of State and the papers which accompany it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, y««««^rj/ -?/, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the documents to
which it refers, in relation to the formal transfer of territory from Russia
to the United States in accordance with the treaty of the 30th of March
^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<3!;^^^«rJ/ 28, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to its ratifi-
cation, an additional article to the treaty of navigation and commerce
with Russia of the i8th of December, 1832, which additional article was
concluded and signed between the plenipotentiaries of the two Govern-
ments at Washington on the 27th instant.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 6oi
Washington, February j, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a report from the Secretary of State, suggesting
the necessity for a further appropriation toward defraying the expense
of employing copying clerks, with a view to enable his Department sea-
sonably to answer certain calls for information.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February j, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 27th
ultimo, directing the Secretary of State to furnish information in regard
to the trial of John H. Surratt, I transmit a report from the Secretary of
^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February j, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report* from the Secretary of State, in answer
to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 28th of January.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 10, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Navy,
relative to depredations upon and the future care of the reservations of
lands for the ' ' purpose of supplying timber for the Navy of the United
^^^^^^•" ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February 10, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In reply to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the ist
instant, I transmit herewith a report from the Postmaster- General, in
reference to the appointment of a special agent to take charge of the
post-office at Penn Yan, in the State of New York.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 10, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with the accompany-
ing papers, on the subject of a transfer of the Peninsula and Bay of
♦Relating to the famine in Sweden and Norway.
6o2 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Samana to the United States. The advice and consent of the Senate to
the transfer, upon the terms proposed in the draft of a convention with
the Dominican RepubUc, are requested.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February lo, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I submit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, the accompanying consular convention between the United States
and the Govenrment of His Majesty the King of Italy.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , February 10, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Attorney- General, prepared in
compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 30th ultimo, request-
ing information as to the number of justices of the peace now in com-
mission in each ward, respectively, of the city of Washington.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 10, 1868.
To the House of Rep7'esentatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
25th of November, 1867, calling for information in relation to the trial
and conviction of American citizens in Great Britain and Ireland for the
two years last past, I transmit a partial report from the Secretary of
State, which is accompanied by a portion of the papers called for by the
resolution.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , February 11, 1868,
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution adopted yesterday by the House of
Representatives, requesting any further correspondence the President
"may have had with General U. S. Grant, in addition to that hereto-
fore submitted, on the subject of the recent vacation by the latter of the
War Office, ' ' I transmit herewith a copy gf a communication addressed
to General Grant on the loth instant, together with a copy of the accom-
panying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON
Andrew Johnson 603
General U. S. Grant, ExECUTivij Mansion, February 10, 1868.
Commanding Arm,ies of the United States, Washington, D. C.
GeneRAI,: The extraordinary character of your letter of the 3d instant* would
seem to preclude any reply on my part; but the manner in which publicity has been
given to the correspondence of which that letter forms a part and the grave ques-
tions which are involved induce me to take this mode of giving, as a proper sequel to
the communications which have passed between us, the statements of the five mem-
bers of the Cabinet who were present on the occasion of our conversation on the
14th ultimo. Copies of the letters which they have addressed to me upon the subject
are accordingly herewith inclosed.
You speak of my letter of the 31st ultimo f as a reiteration of the "many and gross
misrepresentations ' ' contained in certain newspaper articles, and reassert the cor-
rectness of the statements contained in your communication of the 28th ultimo, J
adding — and here I give your own words — "anything in yoiu-s in reply to it to the
contrary notwithstanding, ' '
When a controversy upon matters of fact reaches the point to which this has been
brought, further assertion or denial between the immediate parties should cease,
especially where upon either side it loses the character of the respectful discussion
which is required by the relations in which the parties stand to each other and
degenerates in tone and temper. In such a case, if there is nothing to rely upon but
the opposing statements, conclusions must be drawn from those statements alone
and from whatever intrinsic probabilities they afford in favor of or against either of
the parties. I should not shrink from this test in this controversy; but, fortunately,
it is not left to this test alone. There were five Cabinet officers present at the con-
versation the detail of which in my letter of the 28th [31st f] ultimo you allow your-
self to say contains * ' many and gross misrepresentations. ' ' These gentlemen heard
that conversation and have read my statement. They speak for themselves, and I
leave the proof without a word of comment.
I deem it proper before concluding this communication to notice some of the state-
ments contained in yoiu- letter.
You say that a performance of the promises alleged to have been made by you
to the President "would have involved a resistance to law and an inconsistency
with the whole history of my connection with the suspension of Mr. Stanton. " You
then state that you had fears the President would, on the removal of Mr. Stanton,
appoint someone in his place who would embarrass the Army in carrying out the
reconstruction acts, and add:
"It was to prevent such an appointment that I accepted the oj6&ce of Secretary of
War ad interim, and not for the purpose of enabling you to get rid of Mr. Stanton
by withholding it from him in opposition to law, or, not doing so myself, surrender-
ing it to one who would, as the statements and assumptions in your communication
plainly indicate was sought."
First of all, you here admit that from the very beginning of what you term "the
whole history" of your connection with Mr. Stanton's suspension you intended to
circumvent the President. It was to carry out that intent that you accepted the
appointment. This was in your mind at the time of your acceptance. It was not,
then, in obedience to the order of your superior, as has heretofore been supposed,
that you assumed the duties of the office. You knew it was the President's purpose to
prevent Mr. Stanton from resuming the office of Secretary of War, and you intended
to defeat that purpose. You accepted the office, not in the interest of the President,
I but of Mr. Stanton. If this purpose, so entertained by you, had been confined to
yourself; if when accepting the office you had done so with a mental reservatior
to frustrate the President, it would have been a tacit deception. In the ethics of }
r ■"""■ "
6o4 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
some persons such a course is allowable. But you can not stand even upon that
questionable ground. The "history" of your connection with this transaction, as
written by yourself, places you in a different predicament, and shows that you not
only concealed your design from the President, but induced him to suppose that you
would carry out his purpose to keep Mr. Stanton out of office by retaining it your-
self after an attempted restoration by the Senate, so as to require Mr. Stanton to
establish his right by judicial decision.
I now give that part of this " history " as written by yourself in your letter of the
28th ultimo:*
' ' Some time after I assumed the duties of Secretary of War ad interun the Presi-
dent asked me my views as to the course Mr. Stanton would have to pursue, in case
the Senate should not concur in his suspension, to obtain possession of his office.
My reply was, in substance, that Mr. Stanton would have to appeal to the courts to
reinstate him, illustrating my position by citing the ground I had taken in the case
of the Baltimore police commissioners."
Now, at that time, as you admit in your letter of the 3d instant, f you held the office
for the very object of defeating an appeal to the courts. In that letter you say that
in accepting the office one motive was to prevent the President from appointing some
other person who would retain possession, and thus make judicial proceedings neces-
sary. You knew the President was unwilling to trust the office with anyone who
would not by holding it compel Mr. Stanton to resort to the courts. You perfectly
understood that in this interview, " some time" after you accepted the office, the
President, not content with yoiu* silence, desired an expression of your views, and you
answered him that Mr, Stanton ' ' would have to appeal to the courts. ' ' If the Presi-
dent reposed confidence before he knew your views, and that confidence had been
violated, it might have been said he made a mistake; but a violation of confidence
reposed after that conversation was no mistake of his nor of yours. It is the fact
only that needs be stated, that at the date of this conversation you did not intend to
hold the office with the purpose of forcing Mr. Stanton into court, but did hold it then
and had accepted it to prevent that course from being carried out. In other words,
you said to the President, "That is the proper course," and you said to yourself,
"I have accepted this office, and now hold it to defeat that course," The excuse
you make in a subsequent paragraph of that letter of the 28th ultimo,* that after-
wards you changed yoiu* views as to what would be a proper course, has nothing to
do with the point now under consideration. The point is that before you changed
your views you had secretly determined to do the very thing which at last you did —
surrender the office to Mr. Stanton. You may have changed your views as to the
law, but you certainly did not change your views as to the course you had marked
out for yourself from the beginning.
I will only notice one more statement in your letter of the 3d instant f — that the per-
formance of the promises which it is alleged were made by you would have involved
you in the resistance of law. I know of no statute that would have been violated
had you, carrying out your promises in good faith, tendered your resignation when
you concluded not to be made a party in any legal proceedings. You add:
" I am in a measure confirmed in this conclusion by your recent orders directing
me to disobey orders from the Secretary of War, my superior and your subordinate,
without having countermanded his authority to issue the orders I am to disobey."
On the 24th X ultimo you addressed a note to the President requesting in writing an
order given to you verbally five days before to disregard orders from Mr. Stanton as Sec-
retary of War until you ' ' knew from the President himself that they were his orders. "
On the 29th, I in compliance with your request, I did give you instructions in writ-
ing "not to obey any order from the War Department assumed to be issued by the
* See pp. 613-615. t See pp. 618-620. % See p. 613. § See p. 615.
Andrew Johnson 605
direction of the President unless such order is known by the General Commanding
the armies of the United States to have been authorized by the Executive. ' '
There are some orders which a Secretary of War may issue without the authority
of the President; there are others which he issues simply as the agent of the Presi-
dent, and which purport to be " by direction ' ' of the President. For such orders the
President is responsible, and he should therefore know and understand what they are
before giving such "direction." Mr. Stanton states in his letter of the 4th instant,*
which accompanies the published correspondence, that he ' ' has had no correspond-
ence with the President since the 12th of August last; " and he further says that since
he resumed the duties of the office he has continued to discharge them * ' without any
personal or written communication with the President;" and he adds, "No orders
have been issued from this Department in the name of the President with my knowl-
edge, and I have received no orders from him."
It thus seems that Mr. Stanton now discharges the duties of the War Department
without any reference to the President and without using his name.
My order to you had only reference to orders ' ' assumed to be issued by the direc-
tion of the President." It would appear from Mr. Stanton's letter that you have
received no such orders from him. However, in yom* note to the President of the
50th ultimOjf in which you acknowledge the receipt of the written order of the 29th, f
you say that you have been informed by Mr. Stanton that he has not received any
order limiting his authority to issue orders to the Army, according to the practice of
the Department, and state that * * while this authority to the War Department is not
countermanded it will be satisfactory evidence to me that any orders issued from
the War Department by direction of the President are authorized by the Executive. ' '
The President issues an order to you to obey no order from the War Department
purporting to be made ' * by the direction of the President ' ' until you have referred
it to him for his approval. You reply that you have received the President's order
and will not obey it, but will obey an order purporting to be given by his direction if
it comes from the War Department. You will not obey the direct order of the Presi-
dent, but will obey his indirect order. If, as you say, there has been a practice in the
War Department to issue orders in the name of the President without his direction,
does not the precise order you have requested and have received change the prac-
tice as to the General of the Army? Could not the President countermand any such
order issued to you from the War Department? If you should receive an order from
that Department, issued in the name of the President, to do a special act, and an
order directly from the President himself not to do the act, is there a doubt which
you are to obey? You answer the question when you say to the President, in your
letter of the 3d instant, J the Secretary of War is "my superior and your subordinate,"
and yet you refuse obedience to the superior out of a deference to the subordinate.
Without further comment upon the insubordinate attitude which you have assumed,
I am at a loss to know how you can relieve yourself from obedience to the orders of
the President, who is made by the Constitution the Commander in Chief of the Army
and Navy, and is therefore the official superior as well of the General of the Army as
of the Secretary of War.
Respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
[I^etter addressed to each of the members of the Cabinet present at the conversation between the
President and General Grant on the 14th of January, 1868, and answers thereto.]
Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C, February 5, 1868.
Sir: The Chronicle of this morning contains a correspondence between the Presi-
dent and General Grant reported from the War Department in answer to a resolu-
tion of the House of Representatives.
* See pp. 612-613. t See p. 615. % See pp. 618-620.
6o6 Messages aitd Papers of the Presidents
I beg to call your attention to that correspondence, and especially to that part of
it which refers to the conversation between the President and General Grant at the
Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the 14th of January, and to request you to state what
was said in that conversation.
Very respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February 5, 1868.
The President.
Sir: Your note of this date was handed to me this evening. My recollection of
the conversation at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the 14th of January, corresponds
with your statement of it in the letter of the 31st ultimo* in the published corre-
spondence.
The three points specified in that letter, giving your recollection of the conversa-
tion, are correctly stated.
Very respectfully, GIDEON WEIvLES.
Treasury Department, February 6, 1868. ^
The President.
Sir : I have received your note of the 5th instant, calling my attention to the cor-
respondence between yourself and General Grant as published in the Chronicle of
yesterday, especially to that part of it which relates to what occurred at the Cabinet
meeting on Tuesday, the 14th ultimo, and requesting me to state what was said in
the conversation referred to.
I can not undertake to state the precise language used, but I have no hesitation in
saying that your account of that conversation as given in your letter to General Grant
under date of the 31st ultimo* substantially and in all important particulars accords
with my recollection of it.
With great respect, your obedient servant,
HUGH McCUIylyOCH.
Post-Oefice Department,
Washington, February d, 1868.
The President.
Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of the 5th of February, calling my attention to
the correspondence published in the Chronicle between the President and General
Grant, and especially to that part of it which refers to the conversation between the
President and General Grant at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the 14th of Jan-
uary, with a request that I state what was said in that conversation.
In reply I have the honor to state that I have read carefully the correspondence
in question, and particularly the letter of the President to General Grant dated Jan-
uary 31, 1868.* The following extract from your letter of the 31st January to General
Grant is, according to my recollectipn, a correct statement of the conversation that
took place between the President and General Grant at the Cabinet meeting on the
14th of January last. In the presence of the Cabinet the President asked General
Grant whether, ' ' in conversation which took place after his appointment as Secre-
tary of War ad interim, he did not agree either to remain at the head of the War
Department and abide any judicial proceedings that might follow the nonconcur-
rence by the Senate in Mr. Stanton's suspension, or, should he wish not to become
involved in such a controversy, to put the President in the same position with respect
to the office as he occupied previous to General Grant's appointment, by returning
*See pp. 615-618.
Andrew Johnson 607
it to the President in time to anticipate such action by the Senate." This General
Grant admitted.
The President then asked General Grant if at the conference on the preceding
Saturday he had not, to avoid misunderstanding, requested General Grant to state
what he intended to do, and, further, if in reply to that inquiry he (General Grant)
had not referred to their former conversations, saying that from them the President
understood his position, and that his (General Grant's) action would be consistent
with the understanding which had been reached.
To these questions General Grant replied in the affirmative.
The President asked General Grant if at the conclusion of their interview on Sat-
urday it was not understood that they were to have another conference on Monday
before final action by the Senate in the case of Mr, Stanton.
General Grant replied that such was the understanding, but that he did not sup-
pose the Senate would act so soon; that on Monday he had been engaged in a con-
ference with General Sherman, and was occupied with "many little matters," and
asked if General Sherman had not called on that day.
I take this mode of complying with the request contained in the President's letter
to me, because my attention had been called to the subject before, when the conver-
sation between the President and General Grant was under consideration.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
AIvBX. W. RANDALIy,
Postmaster-General.
Department oe the Interior,
The President. Washington, D. C, February 6, 1868.
Sir: I am in receipt of yours of yesterday, calling my attention to a correspond-
ence between yourself and General Grant published in the Chronicle newspaper,
and especially to that part of said correspondence ' ' which refers to the conversation
between the President and General Grant at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the
14th of January," and requesting me "to state what was said in that conversation."
In reply I submit the following statement: At the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday,
the 14th of January, 1868, General Grant appeared and took his accustomed seat at
the board. When he had been reached in the order of business, the President asked
him, as usual, if he had anything to present.
In reply the General, after referring to a note which he had that morning addressed
to the President, inclosing a copy of the resolution of the Senate refusing to concur
in the reasons for the suspension of Mr. Stanton, proceeded to say that he regarded
his duties as Secretary of War ad interun terminated by that resolution, and that
he could not lawfully exercise such duties for a moment after the adoption of the
resolution by the Senate; that the resolution reached him last night, and that this
morning he had gone to the War Department, entered the Secretary's room, bolted
one door on the inside, locked the other on the outside, delivered the key to the
Adjutant-General, and proceeded to the Headquarters of the Army and addressed
the note above mentioned to the President, informing him that he (General Grant)
was no longer Secretary of War ad interim.
The President expressed great surprise at the course which General Grant had
thought proper to pursue, and, addressing himself to the General, proceeded to say,
in substance, that he had anticipated such action on the part of the Senate, and,
being very desirous to have the constitutionality of the tenure-of -office bill tested
and his right to suspend or remove a member of the Cabinet decided by the judicial
tribunals of the country, he had some time ago, and shortly after General Grant's
appointment as Secretary of War ad interim, asked the General what his action
would be in the event that the Senate should refuse to concur in the suspension of
6o8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Mr. Stanton, and that the General had then agreed either to remain at the head
of the War Department till a decision could be obtained from the court or resign
the office into the hands of the President before the case was acted upon by the
Senate, so as to place the President in the same situation he occupied at the time of
his (Grant's) appointment.
The President further said that the conversation was renewed on the preceding
Saturday, at which time he asked the General what he intended to do if the Senate
should undertake to reinstate Mr. Stanton, in reply to which the General referred to
their former conversation upon the same subject and said: "You understand my
position, and my conduct will be conformable to that understanding;" that he (the
General) then expressed a repugnance to being made a party to a judicial proceed-
ing, saying that he would expose himself to fine and imprisonment by doing so, as
his continuing to discharge the duties of Secretary of War ad interim after the
Senate should have refused to concur in the suspension of Mr. Stanton would be a
violation of the tenure-of -office bill; that in reply to this he (the President) informed
General Grant he had not suspended Mr. Stanton under the tenure-of -office bill, but
by virtue of the powers conferred on him by the Constitution; and that, as to the
fine and imprisonment, he (the President) would pay whatever fine was imposed and
submit to whatever imprisonment might be adjudged against him (the General);
that they continued the conversation for some time, discussing the law at length,
and that they finally separated without having reached a definite conclusion, and
with the understanding that the General would see the President again on Monday.
In reply General Grant admitted that the conversations had occurred, and said
that at the first conversation he had given it as his opinion to the President that in
the event of nonconcurrence by the Senate in the action of the President in respect
to the Secretary of War the question would have to be decided by the court — that
Mr. Stanton would have to appeal to the court to reinstate him in office; that the ins
would remain iji till they could be displaced and. the outs put in by legal proceed-
ings; and that he then thought so, and had agreed that if he should change his mind
he would notify the President in time to enable him to make another appointment,
but that at the time of the first conversation he had not looked very closely into the
law; that it had recently been discussed by the newspapers, and that this had induced
him to examine it more carefully, and that he had come to the conclusion that if the
Senate should refuse to concur in the suspension Mr. Stanton would thereby be rein-
stated, and that he (Grant) could not continue thereafter to act as Secretary of War
ad interim without subjecting himself to fine and imprisonment, and that he came
over on Saturday to inform the President of this change in his views, and did so
inform him; that the President replied that he had not suspended Mr. Stanton under
the tenure-of -office bill, but under the Constitution, and had appointed him (Grant)
by virtue of the authority derived from the Constitution, etc.; that they continued
to discuss the matter some time, and finally he left, without any conclusion having
been reached, expecting to see the President again on Monday.
He then proceeded to explain why he had not called on the President on Monday,
saying that he had had a long interview with General Sherman, that various little
matters had occupied his time till it was late, and that he did not think the Senate
would act so soon, and asked: "Did not General Sherman call on you on Monday?"
I do not know what passed between the President and General Grant on Saturday,
except as I learned it from the conversation between them at the Cabinet meeting on
Tuesday, and the foregoing is substantially what then occurred. The precise words
used on the occasion are not, of course, given exactly in the order in which they
were spoken, but the ideas expressed and the facts stated are faithfully preserved
and presented.
I have the honor to be, sir, with great respect, yom- obedient servant,
O. H. BROWNING.
Andrew Johnson 609
Department of State,
Washington, February <5, 1868.
The President.
Sir: The meeting to which you refer in your letter was a regular Cabinet meeting.
While the members were assembling, and before the President had entered the council
chamber, General Grant on coming in said to me that he was in attendance there, not
as a member of the Cabinet, but upon invitation, and I replied by the inquiry whether
there was a change in the War Department. After the President had taken his seat,
business went on in the usual way of hearing matters submitted by the several Sec-
retaries. When the time came for the Secretary of War, General Grant said that he
was now there, not as Secretary of War, but upon the President's invitation; that
he had retired from the War Department. A slight di^erence then appeared about
the supposed invitation, General Grant saying that the officer who had borne his let-
ter to the President that morning announcing his retirement from the War Depart-
ment had told him that the President desired to see him at the Cabinet, to which the
President answered that when General Grant's communication was delivered to him
the President simply replied that he supposed General Grant would be very soon at
the Cabinet meeting. I regarded the conversation thus begun as an incidental one.
It went on quite informally, and consisted of a statement on your part of your views
in regard to the understanding of the tenure upon which General Grant had assented
to hold the War Department ad interim and of his replies by way of answer and
explanation. It was respectful and courteous on both s'des. Being in this conver-
sational form, its details could only have been preserved by verbatim report. So far
as I know, no such report was made at the time. I can give only the general effect
of the conversation. Certainly you stated that, although you had reported the rea-
sons for Mr. Stanton's suspension to the Senate, you nevertheless held that he would
not be entitled to resume the office of Secretary of War even if the Senate should
disapprove of his suspension, and that you had proposed to have the question tested
by judicial process, to be applied to the person who should be the incumbent of the
Department under your designation of Secretary of War ad interim in the place of
Mr. Stanton. You contended that this was well understood between yourself and
General Grant; that when he entered the War Department as Secretary ad interim
he expressed his concurrence in a belief that the question of Mr. Stanton's restora-
tion would be a question for the courts; that in a subsequent conversation with Gen-
eral Grant you had adverted to the understanding thus had, and that General Grant
expressed his concurrence in it; that at .some conversation which had been previously
held General Grant said he still adhered to the same construction of the law, but said
if he should change his opinion he would give you seasonable notice of it, so that you
should in any case be placed in the same position in regard to the War Department
that you were while General Grant held it ad interim. I did not understand General
Grant as denying nor as explicitly admitting these statements in the form and full
extent to which you made them. His admission of them was rather indirect and
circumstantial, though I did not understand it to be an evasive one. He said that,
reasoning from what occurred in the case of the police in Maryland, which he re-
garded as a parallel one, he was of opinion, and so assured you, that it would be
his right and duty under your instructions to hold the War Office after the Senate
should disapprove of Mr. Stanton's suspension until the question should be decided
upon by the courts; that he remained until very recently of that opinion, and that on
the Saturday before the Cabinet meeting a conversation was held between yourself
and him in which the subject was generally discussed.
General Grant's statement was that in that conversation he had stated to you the
legal difficulties which might arise, involving fine and imprisonment, under the civil-
tenure bill, and that he did not care to subject himself to those penalties; that you
replied to this remark that you regarded the civil-tenure bill as unconstitutional
M P— voiv VI — 39
6io Messages and Papers of the Presidents
and did not think its penalties were to be feared, or that you would voluntarily
assume them; and you insisted that General Grant should either retain the office
until relieved by yourself, according to what you claimed was the original under-
standing between yourself and him, or, by seasonable notice of change of purpose
on his part, put you in the same situation which you would be if he adhered. You
claimed that General Grant finally said in that Saturday's conversation that you
understood his views, and his proceedings thereafter would be consistent with what
had been so understood. General Grant did not controvert, nor can I say that he
admitted, this last statement. Certainly General Grant did not at any time in the
Cabinet meeting insist that he had in the Saturday's conversation, either distinctly or
finally, advised you of his determination to retire from the charge of the War Depart-
ment otherwise than under your own subsequent direction. He acquiesced in your
statement that the Saturday's conversation ended with an expectation that there
would be a subsequent conference on the subject, which he, as well as yourself, sup-
posed could seasonably take place on Monday. You then alluded to the fact that
General Grant did not call upon you on Monday, as you had expected from that con-
versation. General Grant admitted that it was his expectation or purpose to call
upon you on Monday. General Grant assigned reasons for the omission. He said he
was in conference with General Sherman; that there were many little matters to be
attended to; he had conversed upon the matter of the incumbency of the War Depart-
ment with General Sherman, and he expected that General Sherman would call upon
you on Monday. My own mind suggested a further explanation, but I do not remem-
ber whether it was mentioned or not, namely, that it was not supposed by General
Grant on Monday that the Senate would decide the question so promptly as to antici-
pate further explanation between yourself and him if delayed beyond that day. Gen-
eral Grant made another explanation — that he was engaged on Sunday with General
Sherman, and I think, also, on Monday, in regard to the War Department matter,
with a hope, though he did not say in an effort, to procure an amicable settlement
of the affair of Mr. Stanton, and he still hoped that it would be brought about.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient servant,
WIIvIylAM H. SEWARD.
Washington, D. C, February ii, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
The accompanying letter from General Grant, received since the trans-
mission to the House of Representatives of my communication of this
date, is submitted to the House as a part of the correspondence referred
to in the resolution of the loth instant.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Headquarters Army of the United States,
Washington^ D. C, February 11, 1868.
His Excellency A. Johnson,
President of the United States.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the
loth instant,* accompanied by statements of five Cabinet ministers of their recollec-
tion of what occurred in Cabinet meeting on the 14th of January. Without admit-
ting anything in these statements where they differ from anything heretofore stated
by me, I propose to notice only that portion of your communication wherein I am
charged with insubordination. I think it will be plain to the reader of my letter of
* See pp. 603-610.
Andrew Johnson 6ii
the 3otli of January * that I did not propose to disobey any legal order of the President
distinctly given, but only gave an interpretation of what would be regarded as sat-
isfactory evidence of the President's sanction to orders communicated by the Secre-
tary of War. I will say here that your letter of the loth instant f contains the first
intimation I have had that you did not accept that interpretation.
Now for reasons for giving that interpretation. It was clear to me before my
letter of January 30* was written that I, the person having more public business to
transact with the Secretary of War than any other of the President's subordinates,
was the only one who had been instructed to disregard the authority of Mr. Stanton
where his authority was derived as agent of the President,
On the 27th of January I received a letter from the Secretary of War (copy here-
with) directing me to furnish escort to public treasure from the Rio Grande to New
Orleans, etc., at the request of the Secretary of the Treasury to him. I also send two
other inclosures, showing recognition of Mr. Stanton as Secretary of War by both
the Secretary of the Treasury and the Postmaster-General, in all of which cases the
Secretary of War had to call upon me to make the orders requested or give the infor-
mation desired, and where his authority to do so is derived, in my view, as agent of
the President.
With an order so clearly ambiguous as that of the President here referred to, it was
my duty to inform the President of my interpretation of it and to abide by that
interpretation until I received other orders.
Disclaiming any intention, now or heretofore, of disobeying any legal order of the
President distinctly communicated,
I remain, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT, General.
War DeparTmkn'T,
General U. S. Grant, • Washington City, January 27, 1868.
Commanding Arm,y United States.
Gknerai,: The Secretary of the Treasury has requested this Department to afford
A. F. Randall, special agent of the Treasury Department, such military aid as may be
necessary to secure and forward for deposit from Brownsville, Tex., to New Orleans
public moneys in possession of custom-house officers at Brownsville, and which are
deemed insecure at that place.
You will please give such directions as you may deem proper to the officer com-
manding at Brownsville to carry into effect the request of the Treasury Department,
the instructions to be sent by telegraph to Galveston, to the care of A. F. Randall,
special agent, who is at Galveston waiting telegraphic orders, there being no tele-
graphic communication with Brownsville, and the necessity for military protection
to the public moneys represented as urgent.
Please favor me with a copy of such instructions as you may give, in order that
they may be communicated to the Secretary of the Treasury.
Yours, truly, BDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Post-Ofi?ice Department, Contract Office,
Washington, February j, 1868.
The Honorable the Secretary of War.
Sir: It has been represented to this Department that in October last a military
commission was appointed to settle upon some general plan of defense for the Texas
frontiers, and that the said commission has made a report recommending a line of
posts from the Rio Grande to the Red River.
* See p. 615. t See pp. 603-605,
6i2 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
An application is now pending in this Department for a change in the course of
the San Antonio and Bl Paso mail, so as to send it by way of Forts Mason, Griffin,
and Stockton instead of Camps Hudson and I^ancaster. This application requires
;mmediate decision, but before final action can be had thereon it is desired to have
some official information as to the report of the commission above referred to.
Accordingly, I have the honor to request that you will cause this Department to be
furnished as early as possible with the information desired in the premises, and also
with a copy of the report, if any has been made by the commission.
Very respectfully, etc. , ^^^ ^ McLBlvLAN,
Second Assistant Postmaster- General.
February 3, 1868.
Referred to the General of the Army for report.
BDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Treasury Department, /awwarj/ pp, 1868.
The Honorable Secretary of War.
Sir: It is represented to this Department that a band of robbers has obtained such
a foothold in the section of country between Humboldt and Lawrence, Kans. , com-
mitting depredations upon travelers, both by public and private conveyance, that
the safety of the public money collected by the receiver of the land office at Hum-
boldt requires that it should be guarded during its transit from Humboldt to Ivaw-
rence. I have therefore the honor to request that the proper commanding officer of
the district may be instructed by the 'N^^ar Department, if in the opinion of the hon-
orable Secretary of War it can be done without prejudice to the public interests, to
furnish a sufficient military guard to protect such moneys as may be in transitu from
the above office for the purpose of being deposited to the credit of the Treasurer of
the United States. As far as we are now advised, such service will not be necessary
oftener than once a month. Will you please advise me of the action taken, that I
may instruct the receiver and the Commissioner of the General Land Office in the
matter?
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, jj McCULLOCH
Secretary of the Treasury.
Respectfully referred to the General of the Army to give the necessary orders in
this case and to furnish this Department a copy for the information of the Secretary
of the Treasury.
By order of the Secretary of War: ^-^ SCHRIVER
Inspector-General.
[The following are inserted because they have direct bearing on the two messages from the
President of February 11, 1868, and their inclosurcs.]
War Department,
Hon. Schuyi^er C01.EAX, Washington City, February 4, 1868.
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Sir: In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 3d instant,
I transmit herewith copies furnished me by General Grant of correspondence between
him and the President relating to the Secretary of War, and which he reports to be
all the correspondence he has had with the President on the subject.
I have had no correspondence with the President since the 12th of August last.
Andrew Johnson 613
After the action of the Senate on his alleged reason for my suspension from the office
of Secretary of War, I resumed the duties of that office, as required by the act of Con-
gress, and have continued to discharge them without aijy personal or written com-
munication with the President. No orders have been issued from this Department
in the name of the President with my knowledge, and I have received no orders
from him.
The correspondence sent herewith embraces all the correspondence known to me
on the subject referred to in the resolution of the House of Representatives.
I have the honor to be, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
General Grant to the President,
Hkadquartkrs Army of the United States,
His Excellency A. Johnson, Washington, January 24. 1868.
President of the United States.
Sir: I have the honor very respectfully to request to have in writing the order
which the President gave me verbally on Sunday, the 19th instant, to disregard the
orders of the Hon. E. M. Stanton as Secretary of War until I knew from the President
himself that they were his orders.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT, General.
General Grant to the President.
Headquarters Army of the United States,
Washington, D. C, January 28, 1868.
His Excellency A. Johnson,
President of the United States.
Sir: On the 24th instant I requested you to give me in writing the instructions
which you had previously given me verbally not to obey any order from Hon. E. M.
Stanton, Secretary of War, unless I knew that it came from yourself. To this writ-
ten request I received a message that has left doubt in my mind of your intentions.
To prevent any possible misunderstanding, therefore, I renew the request that you
will give me written instructions, and till they are received will suspend action on
your verbal ones.
I am compelled to ask these instructions in writing in consequence of the many
and gross misrepresentations affecting my personal honor circulated through the
press for the last fortnight, purporting to come from the President, of conversations
which occurred either with the President privately in his office or in Cabinet meeting.
What is written admits of no misunderstanding.
In view of the misrepresentations referred to, it will be well to state the facts in
the case.
Some time after I assumed the duties of Secretary of War ad interim the President
asked me my views as to the course Mr. Stanton would have to pursue, in case the
Senate should not concur in his suspension, to obtain possession of his office. My
reply was, in substance, that Mr. Stanton would have to appeal to the courts to rein-
state him, illustrating my position by citing the ground I had taken in the case of
the Baltimore police commissioners.
In that case I did not doubt the technical right of Governor Swann to remove
the old commissioners and to appoint their successors. As the old commissioners
refused to give up, however, I contended that no resource was left but to appeal to
the courts.
Finding that the President was desirous of keeping Mr. Stanton out of office.
6i4 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
whether sustained in the suspension or not, I stated that I had not looked particu-
larly into the tenure-of -office bill, but that what I had stated was a general principle,
and if I should change my mind in this particular case I would inform him of the
fact.
Subsequently, on reading the tenure-of -office bill closely, I found that I could
not, without violation of the law, refuse to vacate the office of Secretary of War the
moment Mr. Stanton was reinstated by the Senate, even though the President should
order me to retain it, which he never did.
Taking this view of the subject, and learning on Saturday, the nth instant, that
the Senate had taken up the subject of Mr. Stanton's suspension, after some conver-
sation with lyieutenant-General Sherman and some members of my staff, in which I
stated that the law left me no discretion as to my action should Mr. Stanton be
reinstated, and that I intended to inform the President, I went to the President for
the sole purpose of making this decision known, and did so make it known.
In doing this I fulfilled the promise made in our last preceding conversation on
the subject.
The President, however, instead of accepting my view of the requirements of the
tenure -of -office bill, contended that he had suspended Mr. Stanton under the author-
ity given by the Constitution, and that the same authority did not preclude him from
reporting, as an act of courtesy, his reasons for the suspension to the Senate; that,
having appointed me under the authority given by the Constitution, and not under
any act of Congress, I could not be governed by the act. I stated that the law was
binding on me, constitutional or not, until set aside by the proper tribunal. An
hour or more was consumed, each reiterating his views on this subject, until, getting
late, the President said he would see me again.
I did not agree to call again on Monday, nor at any other definite time, nor was I
sent for by the President until the following Tuesday.
From the nth to the Cabinet meeting on the 14th instant a doubt never entered
my mind about the President's fully understanding my position, namely, that if the
Senate refused to concur in the suspension of Mr. Stanton my powers as Secretary
of War ad interim would cease and Mr. Stanton's right to resume at once the func-
tions of his office would under the law be indisputable, and I acted accordingly.
With Mr. Stanton I had no communication, direct nor indirect, on the subject of his
reinstatement during his suspension.
I knew it had been recommended to the President to send in the name of Gov-
ernor Cox, of Ohio, for Secretary of War, and thus save all embarrassment — a propo-
sition that I sincerely hoped he would entertain favorably; General Sherman seeing
the President at my particular request to urge this on the 13th instant.
On Tuesday (the day Mr. Stanton reentered the office of the Secretary of War)
General Comstock, who had carried my official letter announcing that with Mr.
Stanton's reinstatement by the Senate I had ceased to be Secretary of War ad
interim^ and who saw the President open and read the communication, brought back
to me from the President a message that he wanted to see me that day at the Cabi-
net meeting, after I had made known the fact that I was no longer Secretary of War
ad interim.
At this meeting, after opening it as though I were a member of the Cabinet, when
reminded of the notification already given him that I was no longer Secretary of
War ad interifn, the President gave a version of the conversations alluded to already.
In this statement it was asserted that in both conversations I had agreed to hold on to
the office of Secretary of War until displaced by the courts, or resign, so as to place
the President where he would have been had I never accepted the office. After hear-
ing the President through, I stated our conversations substantially as given in this
letter. I will add that my conversation before the Cabinet embraced other matter
not pertinent here, and is therefore left out.
Andrew Johnson 615
I in no wise admitted the correctness of the President's statement of our conversa-
tions, though, to soften the evident contradiction my statement gave, I said (allud-
ing to our first conversation on the subject) the President might have understood
me the way he said, namely, that I had promised to resign if I did not resist the
reinstatement. I made no such promise.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT, General.
Headquarters Army of the United States,
January jo, 1868.
Respectfully forwarded to the Secretary of War for his information.
U. S. GRANT, General,
[Indorsement of the President on General Grant's note of January 24, 1868.*]
January 29, 1868.
As requested in this communication. General Grant is instructed in writing not
to obey any order from the War Department assumed to be issued by the direction of
the President unless such order is known by the General Commanding the armies
of the United States to have been authorized by the Executive.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
General Grant to the President.
Headquarters Army of the United States,
Washington^ January 30, 1868.
His Excellency A. Johnson,
President of the United States.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the return of my note of the 24th instant,*
with your indorsement thereon, that I am not to obey any order from the War De-
partment assumed to be issued by the direction of the President unless such order
is known by me to have been authorized by the Executive, and in reply thereto to
say that I am informed by the Secretary of War that he has not received from the
Executive any order or instructions limiting or impairing his authority to issue
orders to the Army, as has heretofore been his practice under the law and the cus-
toms of the Department. While this authority to the War Department is not coun-
termanded it will be satisfactory evidence to me that any orders issued from the
War Department by direction of the President are authorized by the Executive.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GKA-^^^T, General.
Headquarters Army United States,
January 30, 1868.
Respectfully forwarded to the Secretary of War for his information.
U. S. GRANT, General.
The President to General Grant.
Executive Mansion, January 31, 1868.
General U. S. Grant,
Cotnmanding United States Armies.
Generai.: I have received your communication of the 28th instant, f renewing your
request of the 24th,* that I should repeat in a written form my verbal instructions of
* See p. 613. t See pp. 613-615.
6i6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the 19th instant, viz, that you obey no order from the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton as
Secretary of War unless you have information that it was issued by the President's
directions.
In submitting this request (with which I complied on the 29th instant*) you take
occasion to allude to recent publications in reference to the circumstances connected
with the vacation by yourself of the office of Secretary of War ad interim, and with
the view of correcting statements which you term "gross misrepresentations" give
at length your own recollection of the facts under which, without the sanction of the
President, from whom you had received and accepted the appointment, you yielded
the Department of War to the present incumbent.
As stated in your communication, some time after you had assumed the duties
of Secretary of War ad interim we interchanged views respecting the course that
should be pursued in the event of nonconcurrence by the Senate in the suspen-
sion from oflBice of Mr. Stanton. I sought that interview, calling myself at the War
Department. My sole object in then bringing the subject to your attention was to
ascertain definitely what would be your own action should such an attempt be made
for his restoration to the War Department. That object was accomplished, for
the interview terminated with the distinct understanding that if upon reflection you
should prefer not to become a party to the controversy or should conclude that it
would be your duty to surrender the Department to Mr. Stanton upon action in his
favor by the Senate you were to return the office to me prior to a decision by the
Senate, in order that if I desired to do so I might designate someone to succeed you.
It must have been apparent to you that had not this understanding been reached it
was my purpose to relieve you from the further discharge of the duties of Secretary
of War ad interim, and to appoint some other person in that capacity.
Other conversations upon this subject ensued, all of them having on my part the
same object and leading to the same conclusion as the first. It is not necessary,
however, to refer to any of them excepting that of Saturday, the nth instant, men-
tioned in your communication. As it was then known that the Senate had pro-
ceeded to consider the case of Mr. Stanton, I was anxious to learn your determination.
After a protracted interview, during which the provisions of the tenure-of -office bill
were freely discussed, you said that, as had been agreed upon in our first conference,
you would either return the office to my possession in time to enable me to appoint
a successor before final action by the Senate upon Mr. Stanton's suspension, or would
remain as its head, awaiting a decision of the question b}^ judicial proceedings. It
was then understood that there would be a further conference on Monday, by which
time I supposed you would be prepared to inform me of your final decision. You
failed, however, to fulfill the engagement, and on Tuesday notified me in writing of
the receipt by you of ofiicial notification of the action of the Senate in the case
of Mr. Stanton, and at the same time informed me that according to the act regulat-
ing the tenure of certain civil offices your functions as Secretary of War ad interim
ceased from the moment of the receipt of the notice. You thus, in disregard of the
understanding between us, vacated the office without having given me notice of 3^our
intention to do so. It is but just, however, to say that in your communication you
claim that you did inform me of your purpose, and thus "fulfilled the promise made
in our last preceding conversation on this subject." The fact that such a promise
existed is evidence of an arrangement of the kind I have mentioned. You had found
in our first conference ' ' that the President was desirous of keeping Mr. Stanton out
of office whether sustained in the suspension or not. ' ' You knew what reasons had
induced the President to ask from you a promise; you also knew that in case your
views of duty did not accord with his own convictions it was his purpose to fill your
place by another appointment. Bven ignoring the existence of a positive understand-
ing between us, these conclusions were plainly deducible from our various conversa-
tions. It is certain, however, that even under these circumstances you did not offer
*Seep. 615.
Andrew Johnson 617
to return the place to my possession, but, according to your own statement, placed
yourself in a position where, could I have anticipated your action, I would have been
compelled to ask of you, as I was compelled to ask of your predecessor in the War
Department, a letter of resignation, or else to resort to the more disagreeable expe-
dient of suspending you by a successor.
As stated in your letter, the nomination of Governor Cox, of Ohio, for the office of
Secretary of War was suggested to me. His appointment as Mr. Stanton's succes-
sor was urged in your name, and it was said that his selection would save further
embarrassment. I did not think that in the selection of a Cabinet officer I should
be trammeled by such considerations. I was prepared to take the responsibility of
deciding the question in accordance with my ideas of constitutional duty, and, having
determined upon a course which I deemed right and proper, was anxious to learn
the steps you would take should the possession of the War Department be demanded
by Mr. Stanton. Had your action been in conformity to the understanding between
us, I do not believe that the embarrassment would have attained its present propor-
tions or that the probability of its repetition would have been so great.
I know that, with a view to an early termination of a state of affairs so detrimental
to the public interests, you voluntarily offered, both on Wednesday, the 15th instant,
and on the succeeding Sunday, to call upon Mr. Stanton and urge upon him that the
good of the service required his resignation, I confess that I considered your pro-
posal as a sort of reparation for the failure on your part to act in accordance with
an understanding more than once repeated, which I thought had received your full
assent, and under which you could have returned to me the office which I had con-
ferred upon you, thus saving yourself from embarrassment and leaving the respon-
sibility where it properly belonged — with the President, who is accountable for the
faithful execution of the laws.
I have not yet been informed by you whether, as twice proposed by yourself, you
have called upon Mr. Stanton and made an effort to induce him voluntarily to retire
from the War Department.
You conclude your communication with a reference to our conversation at the
meeting of the Cabinet held on Tuesday, the 14th instant. In your account of what
then occurred you say that after the President had given his version of our previous
conversations you stated them substantially as given in your letter; that you in no
wise admitted the correctness of his statement of them, "though, to soften the evi-
dent contradiction my statement gave, I said (alluding to our first conversation on the
subject) the President might have understood me the way he said, namely, that I had
promised to resign if I did not resist the reinstatement.. I made no such promise."
My recollection of what then transpired is diametrically the reverse of your narra-
tion. In the presence of the Cabinet I asked you —
First. If, in a conversation which took place shortly after your appointment as
Secretary of War ad interim, you did not agree either to remain at the head of the
War Department and abide any judicial proceedings that might follow nonconcur-
rence by the Senate in Mr. Stanton's suspension, or, should you wish not to become
involved in such a controversy, to put me in the same position with respect to the
office as I occupied previous to your appointment, by returning it to me in time to
anticipate such action by the Senate. This you admitted.
Second. I then asked you if, at our conference on the preceding Saturday, I had
not, to avoid misunderstanding, requested you to state what you intended to do, and,
further, if in reply to that inquiry you had not referred to our former conversations,
saying that from them I understood your position, and that your action would be
consistent with the understanding which had been reached. To these questions you
also replied in the affirmative.
Third. I next asked if at the conclusion of our interview on Saturday it was not
understood that we were to have another conference on Monday before final action
6i8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
by the Senate in the case of Mr, Stanton, You replied that such was the under-
standing, but that you did not suppose the Senate would act so soon; that on Mon-
day you had been engaged in a conference with General Sherman and were occu-
pied with "many little matters," and asked if General Sherman had not called on
that day. What relevancy General Sherman's visit to me on Monday had with the
purpose for which you were then to have called I am at a loss to perceive, as he
certainly did not inform me whether you had determined to retain possession of
the ofi&ce or to afford me an opportunity to appoint a successor in advance of any
attempted reinstatement of Mr, Stanton,
This account of what passed between us at the Cabinet meeting on the 14th instant
widely differs from that contained in your communication, for it shows that instead
of having ' ' stated our conversations as given in the letter ' ' which has made this
reply necessary you admitted that my recital of them was entirely accurate. Sin-
cerely anxious, however, to be correct in my statements, I have to-day read this
narration of what occurred on the 14th instant to the members of the Cabinet who
were then present. They, without exception, agree in its accuracy.
It is only necessary to add that on Wednesday morning, the 15th instant, you
called on me, in company with Lieutenant-General Sherman. After some prelimi-
nary conversation, you remarked that an article in the National Intelligencer of
that date did you much injustice, I replied that I had not read the Intelligencer
of that morning. You then first told me that it was your intention to urge Mr.
Stanton to resign his office.
After you had withdrawn I carefully read the article of which you had spoken,
and found that its statements of the understanding between us were substantially
correct. On the 17th I caused it to be read to four of the five members of the Cabinet
who were present at our conference on the 14th, and they concurred in the general
accuracy of its statements respecting our conversation upon that occasion.
In reply to your communication, I have deemed it proper, in order to prevent
further misunderstanding, to make this simple recital of facts.
Very respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
General Grant to the President.
Headquarters Army of the United States,
Washington, D. C, February j, 1868.
His Excellency A. Johnson,
President of the United States.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the
31st ultimo,''^ in answer to mine of the 28th ultimo. f After a careful reading and com-
parison of it with the article in the National Intelligencer of the 15th ultimo and the
article over the initials J. B. S. in the New York World of the 27th ultimo, purport-
ing to be based upon your statement and that of the members of your Cabinet therein
named, I find it to be but a reiteration, only somewhat more in detail, of the "many
and gross misrepresentations ' ' contained in these articles, and which my statement
of the facts set forth in my letter of the 28th ultimo f was intended to correct; and I
here reassert the correctness of my statements in that letter, anything in yoinrs in
reply to it to the contrary notwithstanding.
I confess my surprise that the Cabinet officers referred to should so greatly mis-
apprehend the facts in the matter of admissions alleged to have been made by me
at the Cabinet meeting of the 14th ultimo as to suffer their names to be made the
♦See pp. 615-618. t See pp. 613-615.
Andrew Johnson
619
basis of the charges in the newspaper article referred to, or agree in the accuracy, as
you affirm they do, of your account of what occurred at that meeting.
You know that we parted on Saturday, the nth ultimo, without any promise on
my part, either express or implied, to the effect that I would hold on to the office of
Secretary of War ad interim against the action of the Senate, or, declining to do so
myself, would surrender it to you before such action was had, or that I would see
you again at any fixed time on the subject.
The performance of the promises alleged by you to have been made by me would
have involved a resistance to law and an inconsistency with the whole history of my
connection with the suspension of Mr. Stanton.
From our conversations and my written protest of August i, 1867, against the
removal of Mr. Stanton, you must have known that my greatest objection to his re-
moval or suspension was the fear that someone would be appointed in his stead who
would, by opposition to the laws relating to the restoration of the Southern States
to their proper relations to the Government, embarrass the Army in the performance
of duties especially imposed upon it by these laws; and it was to prevent such an
appointment that I accepted the office of Secretary of War ad interim, and not for
the purpose of enabling you to get rid of Mr. Stanton by my withholding it from him
in opposition to law, or, not doing so myself, surrendering it to one who would, as
the statement and assumptions in your communication plainly indicate was sought.
And it was to avoid this same danger, as well as to relieve you from the personal
embarrassment in which Mr. Stanton's reinstatement would place you, that I urged
the appointment of Governor Cox, believing that it would be agreeable to you and
also to Mr. Stanton, satisfied as I was that it was the good of the country, and not
the office, the latter desired.
On the 15th ultimo, in presence of General Sherman, I stated to you that I thought
Mr. Stanton would resign, but did not say that I would advise him to do so. On the
i8th I did agree with General Sherman to go and advise him to that course, and on
the 19th I had an interview alone with Mr. Stanton, which led me to the conclusion
that any advice to him of the kind would be useless, and I so informed General
Sherman.
Before I consented to advise Mr. Stanton to resign, I understood from him, in a
conversation on the subject immediately after his reinstatement, that it was his
opinion that the act of Congress entitled "An act temporarily to supply vacancies
in the Executive Departments in certain cases," approved February 20, 1863, was
repealed by subsequent legislation, which materially influenced my action. Previ-
ous to this time I had had no doubt that the law of 1863 was still in force, and, not-
withstanding my action, a fuller examination of the law leaves a question in my
mind whether it is or is not repealed. This being the case, I could not now ad-
vise his resignation, lest the same danger I apprehended on his first removal might
follow.
The course you would have it understood I agreed to pursue was in violation of
law and without orders from you, while the course I did pursue, and which I never
doubted you fully understood, was in accordance with law and not in disobedience
of any orders of my superior.
And now, Mr. President, when my honor as a soldier and integrity as a man have
been so violently assailed, pardon me for saying that I can but regard this whole
matter, from the beginning to the end, as an attempt to involve me in the resistance
of law, for which you hesitated to assume the responsibility in orders, and thus to
destroy my character before the country. I am in a measiu-e confirmed in this con-
clusion by your recent orders directing me to disobey orders from the Secretary of
War, my superior and your subordinate, without having countermanded his authority
to issue the orders I am to disobey.
620 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
with the assurance, Mr. President, that nothing less than a vindication of my per-
sonal honor and character could have induced this correspondence on my part,
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U. S. GRANT, General.
Respectfully forw^arded to the Secretary of War for his information, and to be made
a part of correspondence previously furnished on same subject.
U. S. GRANT, General.
Washington, February ly, 1868.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In reply to the resolution adopted by the House of Representatives on
the 19th of December last, calling for correspondence and information in
relation to Russian America, I transmit reports and accompanying docu-
ments from the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury,
respectively. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 18, 1868.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 17th
of January last, calling for information in regard to the execution of the
treaty of 1858 with China, for the settlement of claims, I transmit a report
of the Secretary of State and the papers which accompany it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February ig, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Attorney- General, prepared in
compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
26th November, 1867, requesting a list of all pardons "granted since the
14th day of April, 1865, to any person or persons charged with or con-
victed of making or passing counterfeit money, or having counterfeit
money or tools or instruments for making the same in his or their pos-
session, or charged with or convicted of the crime of forgery or criminal
alteration of papers, accounts, or other documents, or of the crime of per-
jury, and that such list be accompanied by a particular statement in each
case of the reasons or grounds of the pardon, with a disclosure of the
names of persons, if any, who recommended or advised the same."
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February ip, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Attorney- General, prepared in
compliance with a resolution adopted by the Senate on the 2d day of
December last, requesting "a full list of the names of all persons par-
\
Andrew Johnson
621
doned by the President since May i, 1865, who have been convicted of
counterfeiting United States bonds, greenbacks, national-bank currency,
fractional currency, or the coin of the United States, with the date of
issuing each pardon, reasons for issuing it, and by whom recommended."
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 20, 1868.
To the Se7iate of the United States:
In answer to a resolution of the Senate of the i8th of December last,
requesting information in regard to the island of San Juan, on Puget
Sound, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers
which accompanied it. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 20, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
With reference to the convention between Denmark and the United
States concluded on the 24th of October last, I transmit to the Senate a
copy in translation of a note of the 19th instant addressed to the Secre-
tary of State by His Danish Majesty's charge d'affaires, announcing the
ratification of the convention by the Government of Denmark and stating
his readiness to proceed with the customary exchange of ratifications.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 21, 1868.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Chief of the Engineer
Corps of the Army, accompanied by a report, in reference to ship canals
around the Falls of the Ohio River, called for by the resolution of the
House of Representatives of the 18th instant.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February 21, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
On the 1 2th day of August, 1867, by virtue of the power and authority
vested in the President by the Constitution and laws of the United States,
I suspended Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War.
In further exercise of the power and authority so vested in the Presi-
dent, I have this day removed Mr. Stanton from office and designated the
Adjutant- General of the Army to act as Secretary of War ad interim.
Copies of the communications upon this subject addressed to Mr.
Stanton and the Adjutant-General are herewith transmitted for the
information of the Senate. ANDREW JOHNSON.
622 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, D. C. , February 22, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have received a copy of the resolution adopted by the Senate on the
2 1 St instant, as follows:
Whereas the Senate have received and considered the communication of the Pres-
ident stating that he had removed Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and had
designated the Adjutant-General of the Army to act as Secretary of War ad interim:
Therefore,
Resolved by the Senate of the United States, That under the Constitution and laws
of the United States the President has no power to remove the Secretary of War and
designate any other officer to perform the duties of that office ad interim.
This resolution is confined to the power of the President to remove the
Secretary of War and to designate another officer to perform the duties
of the office ad interim, and by its preamble is made expressly applica-
ble to the removal of Mr. Stanton and the designation to act ad interim
of the Adjutant- General of the Army. Without, therefore, attempting
to discuss the general power of removal as to all officers, upon which
subject no expression of opinion is contained in the resolution, I shall
confine myself to the question as thus limited — the power to remove
the Secretary of War.
It is declared in the resolution —
That under the Constitution and laws of the United States the President has no
power to remove the Secretary of War and designate any other officer to perform the
duties of that office ad interim.
As to the question of power under the Constitution, I do not propose
at present to enter upon its discussion.
The uniform practice from the beginning of the Government, as estab-
lished by every President who has exercised the office, and the decisions
of the Supreme Court of the United States have settled the question in
favor of the power of the President to remove all officers excepting a
class holding appointments of a judicial character. No practice nor any
decision has ever excepted a Secretary of War from this general power of
the President to make removals from office.
It is only necessary, then, that I should refer to the power of the Exec-
utive, under the laws of the United States, to remove from office a Sec-
retary of War. The resolution denies that under these laws this power
has any existence. In other words, it affirms that no such authority is
recognized or given by the statutes of the country.
What, then, are the laws of the United States which deny the Presi-
dent the power to remove that officer? I know but two laws which bear
upon this question. The first in order of time is the act of August 7,
1789, creating the Department of War, which, after providing for a Sec-
retary as its principal officer, proceeds as follows:
Skc. 2. And be It further enacted, That there shall be in the said Department an
inferior officer, to be appointed by the said principal officer, to be employed therein
Andrew Johnson 623
as he shall deem proper, and to be called the chief clerk m the Department of War,
and who, whenever the said principal officer shall be removed from office by the
President of the United States, or in any other case of vacancy, shall during such
vacancy have the charge and custody of all records, books, and papers appertaining
to the said Department.
It is clear that this act, passed by a Congress many of whose members
participated in the formation of the Constitution, so far from denying the
power of the President to remove the Secretary of War, recognizes it as
existing in the Executive alone, without the concurrence of the Senate
or of any other department of the Government. Furthermore, this act
does not purport to confer the power by legislative authority, nor in fact
was there any other existing legislation through which it was bestowed
upon the Executive. The recognition of the power by this act is there-
fore complete as a recognition under the Constitution itself, for there was
no other source or authority from which it could be derived.
The other act which refers to this question is that regulating the tenure
of certain civil offices, passed by Congress on the 2d day of March, 1867.
The first section of that act is in the following words:
That every person holding any civil office to which he has been appointed by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter be
appointed to any such office, and shall become duly qualified to act therein, is and
shall be entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been in like manner
appointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided: Provided, That
the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War, of the Navy, and of the Interior, the
Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-General shall hold their offices, respectively,
for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed and
for one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of
the Senate.
The fourth section of the same act restricts the term of offices to the
limit prescribed by the law creating them.
That part of the first section which precedes the proviso declares that
every person holding a civil office to which he has been or may be appointed
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall hold such office
until a successor shall have been in like manner appointed. It purports
to take from the Executive, during the fixed time established for the
tenure of the office, the independent power of removal, and to require for
such removal the concurrent action of the President and the Senate.
The proviso that follows proceeds to fix the term of office of the seven
heads of Departments, whose tenure never had been defined before, by
prescribing that they * ' shall hold their offices, respectively, for and during
the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed and for
one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and con-
sent of the Senate. ' '
Thus, as to these enumerated officers, the proviso takes from the Presi-
dent the power of removal except with the advice and consent of the Sen-
ate. By its terms, however, before he can be deprived of the power to
624 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
displace them it must appear that he himself has appointed them. It is
only in that case that they have any tenure of office or any independent
right to hold during the term of the President and for one month after
the cessation of his official functions. The proviso, therefore, gives no
tenure of office to any one of these officers who has been appointed by a
former President beyond one month after the accession of his successor.
In the case of Mr. Stanton, the only appointment under which he held
the office of Secretary of War was that conferred upon him by my imme-
diate predecessor, with the advice and consent of the Senate. He has
never held from me any appointment as the head of the War Department.
Whatever right he had to hold the office was derived from that original
appointment and my own sufferance. The law was not intended to pro-
tect such an incumbent of the War Department by taking from the Presi-
dent the power to remove him. This, in my judgment, is perfectly clear,
and the law itself admits of no other just construction. We find in all
that portion of the first section which precedes the proviso that as to civil
officers generally the President is deprived of the power of removal, and
it is plain that if there had been no proviso that power would just as
clearly have been taken from him so far as it applies to the seven heads
of Departments. But for reasons which were no doubt satisfactory to
Congress these principal officers were specially provided for, and as to
them the express and only requirement is that the President who has
appointed them shall not without the advice and consent of the Senate
remove them from office. The consequence is that as to my Cabinet, em-
bracing the seven officers designated in the first section, the act takes from
me the power, without the concurrence of the Senate, to remove any one of
them that I have appointed, but it does not protect such of them as I did
not appoint, nor give to them any tenure of office beyond my pleasure.
An examination of this act, then, shows that while in one part of the
section provision is made for officers generally, in another clause there is
a class of officers, designated by their official titles, who are excepted
from the general terms of the law, and in reference to whom a clear dis-
tinction is made as to the general power of removal limited in the first
clause of the section.
This distinction is that as to such of these enumerated officers as hold
under the appointment of the President the power of removal can only
be exercised by him with the consent of the Senate, while as to those
who have not been appointed by him there is no like denial of his power
to displace them. It would be a violation of the plain meaning of this
enactment to place Mr. Stanton upon the same footing as those heads of
Departments who have been appointed by myself. As to him, this law
gives him no tenure of office. The members of my Cabinet who have
been appointed by me are by this act entitled to hold for one month after
the term of my office shall cease; but Mr. Stanton could not, against the
wishes of my successor, hold a moment thereafter. If he were permitted
Andrew Johnson 625
by that successor to hold for the first two weeks, would that successor
have no power to remove him ? But the power of my successor over him
could be no greater than my own. If my successor would have the power
to remove Mr. Stanton after permitting him to remain a period of two
weeks, because he was not appointed by him, but by his predecessor, I,
who have tolerated Mr. Stanton for more than two years, certainly have
the same right to remove him, and upon the same ground, namely, that
he was not appointed by me, but by my predecessor.
Under this construction of the tenure-of -office act, I have never doubted
my power to remove Mr. Stanton.
Whether the act were constitutional or not, it was always my opinion
that it did not secure him from removal. I was, however, aware that
there were doubts as to the construction of the law, and from the first I
deemed it desirable that at the earliest possible moment those doubts
should be settled and the true construction of the act fixed by decision
of the Supreme Court of the United States. My order of suspension in
August last was intended to place the case in such a position as would
make a resort to a judicial decision both necessary and proper. My un-
derstanding and wishes, however, under that order of suspension were
frustrated, and the late order for Mr. Stanton's removal was a further step
toward the accomplishment of that purpose.
I repeat that my own convictions as to the true construction of the law
and as to its constitutionality were well settled and were sustained by
every member of my Cabinet, including Mr. Stanton himself. Upon the
question of constitutionality, each one in turn deliberately advised me
that the tenure-of -office act was unconstitutional. Upon the question
whether, as to those members who were appointed by my predecessor, that
act took from me the power to remove them, one of those members
emphatically stated in the presence of the others sitting in Cabinet that
they did not come within the provisions of the act, and it was no protec-
tion to them. No one dissented from this construction, and I understood
them all to acquiesce in its correctness. In a matter of such grave con-
sequence I was not disposed to rest upon my own opinions, though forti-
fied by my constitutional advisers. I have therefore sought to bring
the question at as early a day as possible before the Supreme Court of the
United States for final and authoritative decision.
In respect to so much of the resolution as relates to the designation of
an officer to act as Secretary of War ad interim, I have only to say that I
have exercised this power under the provisions of the first section of the
act of February 13, 1795, which, so far as they are applicable to vacancies
caused by removals, I understand to be still in force.
The legislation upon the subject of ad interim appointments in the
Executive Departments stands, as to the War Office, as follows:
The second section of the act of the 7th of August, 1789, makes pro-
vision for a vacancy in the very case of a removal of the head of the War
M P — VOL VI — 40
626 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Department, and upon such a vacancy gives the charge and custody of
the records, books, and papers to the chief clerk. Next, by the act of the
8th of May, 1792, section 8, it is provided that in case of a vacancy occa-
sioned by death, absence from the seat of Government, or sickness of the
head of the War Department the President may authorize a person to per-
form the duties of the office until a successor is appointed or the disability
removed. The act, it will be observed, does not provide for the case of a
vacancy caused by removal. Then, by the fii st section of the act of Feb-
ruary 13, 1795, it is provided that in case of any vacancy the President
may appoint a person to perform the duties while the vacancy exists.
These acts are followed by that of the 20th of February, 1863, by the
first section of which provision is again made for a vacancy caused by
death, resignation, absence from the seat of Government, or sickness of
the head of any Executive Department of the Government, and upon the
occurrence of such a vacancy power is given to the President —
to authorize the head of any other Executive Department, or other officer in either
of said Departments whose appointment is vested in the President, at his discretion,
to perform the duties of the said respective offices until a successor be appointed or
until such absence or inabihty by sickness shall cease: Provided^ That no one vacancy
shall be supplied in manner aforesaid for a longer term than six months.
This law, with some modifications, reenacts the act of 1 792 , and provides,
as did that act, for the sort of vacancies so to be filled; but, like the act of
1792, it makes no provision for a vacancy occasioned by removal. It has
reference altogether to vacancies arising from other causes.
According to my construction of the act of 1863, while it impliedly
repeals the act of 1792 regulating the vacancies therein described, it has
no bearing whatever upon so much of the act of 1795 as applies to a
vacancy caused by removal. The act of 1795 therefore furnishes the
rule for a vacancy occasioned by removal — one of the vacancies expressly
referred to in the act of the 7th of August, 1789, creating the Department
of War. Certainly there is no express repeal by the act of 1863 of the
act of 1795. The repeal, if there is any, is by implication, and can only
be admitted so far as there is a clear inconsistency between the two acts.
The act of 1795 is inconsistent with that of 1863 as to a vacancy occa-
sioned by death, resignation, absence, or sickness, but not at all inconsist-
ent as to a vacancy caused by removal.
It is assuredly proper that the President should have the same power
to fill temporarily a vacancy occasioned by removal as he has to supply a
place made vacant by death or the expiration of a term. If, for instance,
the incumbent of an office should be found to be wholly unfit to exer-
cise its functions, and the public service should require his immediate
expulsion, a remedy should exist and be at once applied, and time be
allowed the President to select and appoint a successor, as is permitted
him in case of a vacancy caused by death or the termination of an official
term.
Andrew Johnson
627
The necessity, therefore, for an ad interim appointment is just as
great, and, indeed, may be greater in cases of removal than in any others.
Before it be held, therefore, that the power given by the act of 1795 in
cases of removal is abrogated by succeeding legislation an express repeal
ought to appear. So whojesome a power should certainly not be taken
away by loose implication.
It may be, however, that in this, as in other cases of implied repeal,
doubts may arise. It is confessedly one of the most subtle and debat-
able questions which arise in the construction of statutes. If upon such
a question I have fallen into an erroneous construction, I submit whether
it should be characterized as a violation of official duty and of law.
I have deemed it proper, in vindication of the course which I have con-
sidered it my duty to take, to place before the Senate the reasons upon
which I have based my action. Although I have been advised by every
member of my Cabinet that the entire tenure-of-office act is unconstitu-
tional, and therefore void, and although I have expressly concurred in
that opinion in the veto message which I had the honor to submit to Con-
gress when I returned the bill for reconsideration, I have refrained from
making a removal of any officer contrary to the provisions of the law,
and have only exercised that power in the case of Mr. Stanton, which,
in my judgment, did not come within its provisions. I have endeavored
to proceed with the greatest circumspection, and have acted only in an
extreme and exceptional case, carefully following the course which I
have marked out for myself as a general rule, faithfully to execute all
laws, though passed over my objections on the score of constitutionality.
In the present instance I have appealed, or sought to appeal, to that final
arbiter fixed by the Constitution for the determination of all such ques-
tions. To this course I have been impelled by the solemn obligations
which rest upon me to sustain inviolate the powers of tjie high office
committed to my hands.
Whatever may be the consequences merely personal to myself, I could
not allow them to prevail against a public duty so clear to my own mind,
and so imperative. If what was possible had been certain, if I had been
fully advised when I removed Mr. Stanton that in thus defending the
trust committed to my hands my own removal was sure to follow, I could
not have hesitated. Actuated by public considerations of the highest
character, I earnestly protest against the resolution of the Senate which
charges me in what I have done with a violation of the Constitution and
laws of the United States. . ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 2^, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In further answer of the resolution of the Senate of the 13th of Janu-
ary last, relative to the appointment of the Hon. Anson Burlingame to a
628
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
diplomatic or other mission by the Emperor of China, I transmit a report
from the Secretary of State and the communication which accompanied it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February 26, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the General Commanding the Army
of the United States, prepared in compliance with the resolution of the
Senate of the 4th instant, requesting copies of all instructions relating to
the Third Military District issued to General Pope and General Meade.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 4, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 1 7th February ultimo,
concerning the alleged interference of the United States consul at Rome
in the late difficulty in Italy, I transmit a report from the Secretary of
State, containing the information called for by the resolution.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 5, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit a report of this date from the Secretary of State, and the
accompanying papers, in regard to the revolution in the Dominican
Republic. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 5, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 21st of February last,
in relation to the abduction of one Allan Macdonald from Canada, I trans-
mit a communication from the Secretary of State, accompanied by the
papers relating to that subject. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 5, 1868,
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 7th
of January last, in relation to the claim of the late Benjamin W. Perkins
against the Russian Government, I transmit a communication from the
Secretary of State, which is accompanied by the papers called for by
the resolution. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 629
Washington, March 6, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate the accompanying report * of the Secretary of
State, in answer to their resolution of the 13th January.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 10, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to ratifica-
tion, a treaty between the United States and His Majesty the King of
Prussia, in the name of the North German Confederation, for the purpose
of regulating the citizenship of those persons who emigrate from the
Confederation to this country and from the United States to the North
German Confederation. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 11, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In further answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 25th of November, 1867, calling for information in relation to the
trial and conviction of American citizens in Great Britain and Ireland
for the last two years, I transmit a continuation of the report from the
Secretary of State upon the subject. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March i^, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 27th of January last,
in relation to the arrest and trial of the Rev. John McMahon, Robert B.
I,ynch, and John Warren by the Government of Great Britain, and re-
questing to be informed what action has been taken by this Government
in maintaining the rights of American citizens abroad, I transmit a report
of the Secretary of State, which is accompanied by a copy of the papers
called for by that resolution. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, March 18, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty made on the 2d day of March, 1868, by and between Nathaniel G.
Taylor, Commissioner of Indian Affairs; Alexander C. Hunt, governor
and ex officio superintendent of Indian affairs of Colorado Territory, and
Kit Carson, on the part of the United States, and the representatives of
♦Relating to a claim, under the act of Congress of August i8, 1856, of citizens of the United States
to guano on Alta Vela, an island in the vicinity of Santo Domingo.
630 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the Tabeguache, Muache, Capote, Weeminuche,Yampa, Grand River, and
Uintah bands of Ute Indians.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the 17th instant and the
papers therein referred to are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 24., 1868.
To. the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention, signed on the 23d instant, for the surrender of crimi-
nals, between the United States and the Government of Italy.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 24., 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report* and accompanying documents, in answer
to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the i8th ultimo.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 23, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to a resolution
of the 9th instant, the accompanying report f from the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 25, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report and accompanying document,! in answer
to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the nth ultimo.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March 23, 1868.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1 8th
ultimo, relating to the report of Mr. Cowdin, I transmit a report of the
Secretary of State and the document § to which it refers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
♦Relating to unexpended appropriations for contingent expenses of foreign intercourse; amount
remaining on deposit with Baring Brothers & Co. September 30, 1867, etc.
t Declining to transmit copies of correspondence, negotiations, and treaties with German States
since January i, 1868, relative to the rights of naturalized citizens.
X statement of amounts paid for legal services by the Department of State during each year since
i860, with names of persons to whom paid.
I Report of Elliot C. Cowdin, United States commissioner to the Paris ^position of 1867, on silk
and silk manufactures.
Andrew Johnson 631
Washington, April 2, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in further answer to their
resolution of the 9th ultimo, the accompanying report * from the Secre-
tary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington,^/?-// 2, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In further reply to the resolution adopted by the House of Represent-
atives on the 19th of December, 1867, calling for correspondence and
information in relation to Russian America, I transmit a report from the
Secretary of State and the papers which accompanied it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April s, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and the papers accom-
panying it, in answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of
the loth of February last, requesting information relative to the impris-
onment and destruction of the property of Antonio Pelletier by the peo-
ple and authorities of Hayti.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April zj, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 5th of February last,
calling for the correspondence upon the subject of the murder by the in-
habitants of the island of Formosa of the ship's company of the Ameri-
can bark Rover, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State and a
report from the Secretary of the Navy, with accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April 18, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 14th of April instant,
calling for information relative to any application by any party for exclu-
sive privileges in connection with hunting, trading, and the fisheries in
Alaska, I transmit herewith the report of the Secretary of State on the
subject, with its accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Transmitting correspondence pertaining to the convention of February 22, 1868, with the North
German Confederation, relative to naturalization.
632 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, D. C, April 22, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 28th ultimo,
requesting information as to the number and designations of military
departments formed since the ist day of August, 1867, and as to the
statute or other authority under which they have been established, I
transmit a report from the Adjutant- General's Office showing the organ-
ization since that date of the Department of Alaska and the Military
Division of the Atlantic.
The orders issued by me upon this subject are in accordance with long-
established usage and hitherto unquestioned authority. This will be
readily seen from the accompanying report, which shows that, employing
the authority vested by the Constitution in the President as Commander
in Chief of the Army, it has been customary for my predecessors to create
such military divisions and departments as from time to time they deemed
advisable. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, April ^7, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I submit a report of the Secretary of State, concerning the naturali-
zation treaty recently negotiated between the United States and North
Germany. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , May 5, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress the accompanying documents, which I deem it
proper to state are all the papers* that have been submitted to the Presi-
dent relating to the proceedings to which they refer in the States of South
Carolina and Arkansas. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May 6, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in further answer to their resolution of the
14th of Apnl last, the accompanying report f from the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, May 8, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith reports from the Secretary of the Treasury and
the Secretary of the Navy, prepared in compliance with a resolution
* Constitutions of South Carolina and Arkansas.
t Relating to application for exclusive privileges in connection with hunting, trading, and the
fisheries in Alaska.
Andrew Johnson " 633
of the House of Representatives of the 12th of December last, requesting
information respecting the sale of public vessels since the close of the
rebellion. No report upon the subject has yet been received from the
Department of War.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May p, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolu-
tion of the 14th ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State, with accom-
panying papers.*
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May p, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith reports from the Secretary of the Treasury and the
Attorney-General, prepared in compliance with the resolution of the Sen-
ate of the 17th December last, requesting information in reference to the
seizure and confiscation of property. No report upon this subject has
yet been received by me from the War Department.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C,
May II, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress the accompanying documents, f which embrace
all the papers that have been submitted to me relating to the proceedings
to which they refer in the States of North Carolina and Louisiana.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May 15, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolu-
tion of the 8th instant, a report % from the Secretary of State, with accom-
panying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Report of Freeman H. Morse, United States consul at I,ondon, on " The Foreign Maritime Com-
merce of the United States: Its Past, Present, and Future," etc.
t Constitutions of North Carolina and lyouisiana.
t Relating to the detention, at the request of the House of Representatives, of the ironclad moni-
tors Oneoto and Catawba, purchased from the United States by Swift & Co., and supposed to be
intended for the Government of Peru, then at war with a power friendly to the United States.
634 " Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, D. C, May 18, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress the accompanying document,* which is the
only paper which has been submitted to me relating to the proceedings
to which it refers in the State of Georgia.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May 23, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate a report from the Secretary of State, with
accompaniments, in relation to recent events in the Empire of Japan.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , May ^7, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress the accompanying documents,! which are the
only papers which have been submitted to me relating to the proceedings
to which they refer in the State of Florida.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, May 29, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, in reply
to the resolution of the House of Representatives adopted on the 26th
instant, making inquiries relative to a naval force at Hayti.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fune 2, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I communicate, for the information of the Senate, in confidence, a
report of the Secretary of State, accompanied by a copy of a dispatch
recently received from the acting consul of the United States at San Jose,
Costa Rica. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fune 2, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I communicate, for the consideration of the Senate, a report from the
Secretary of State, accompanied by a copy of a dispatch recently received
from the acting United States consul in charge of the legation at San
Jose, Costa Rica. ANDREW JOHNSON.
♦Constitution of Georgia.
t Letter from the president of the constitutional convention of Florida, transmitting a copy of the
constitution of that State.
Andrew Johnson 635
Washington, June 5, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In further answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of
the 25th of November, 1867, calHng for information in relation to the trial
and conviction of American citizens in Great Britain and Ireland for the
last two years, I transmit the accompanying report from the Secretary of
State upon the subject. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, June 8, j868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 28th ultimo, I
transmit herewith a communication from the Postmaster- General, with a
copy of the correspondence recently had with the authorities of Great
Britain in relation to a new postal treaty.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.June 10, 1868.
To the House of Represejitatives:
In reply to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the ist
instant, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Interior,
in reference to a treaty now being negotiated between the Great and I^ittle
Osage Indians and the special Indian commissioners acting on the part
of the United States. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.June ij, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith submit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded on the 27 th ultimo between commissioners on the part
of the United States and the Great and I^ittle Osage tribe of Indians of
Kansas, together with a communication from the Secretary of the Inte-
rior suggesting an amendment to the fourteenth article, and a copy of the
report of the commissioners. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.June is, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Interior, made
in reply to the resolution adopted by the House of Representatives on the
13th instant.
The treaty recently concluded with the Great and Little Osage Indians,
to which the accompanying report refers, was submitted to the Senate prior
to the receipt of the resolution of the House upon the subject.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
636
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, June ip, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to its ratifi-
cation, a treaty between the United States and His Majesty the King of
Bavaria, signed at Munich on the 26th ultimo, concerning the citizenship
of persons emigrating from Bavaria to the United States and from the
United States to the Kingdom of Bavaria. I transmit also a copy of the
letter of the United States minister communicating the treaty, of the pro-
tocol which accompanied it, and a translation of the Bavarian military
law referred to in the latter paper.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , June 20, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded at Fort Sumner, N. Mex,, on the ist instant, between
Lieutenant- General W. T. Sherman and Colonel Samuel F. Tappan, on
the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Navajo
Indians, on the part of the latter. I also transmit a communication upon
the subject from the Secretary of the Interior, with the accompanying
P^P^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, y«w^ 22, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 28th
ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers.*
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fune 2j, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to a resolu-
tion of the House of Representatives of the 15th instant, upon the subject
of Messrs. Warren and Costello, who have been convicted and sentenced
to penal imprisonment in Great Britain.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /2^«<? 23, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate a copy of a dispatch addressed to the Depart-
ment of State by the consul of the United States at Bangkok, Siam, dated
* Correspondence relative to the act of Congress of March 27, 1867, prohibiting persons in the
diplomatic service of the United States from wearing any uniform or official costume not pre-
viously authorized by Congres§,
Andrew Johnson 637
December 31, 1867, with a view to its consideration and the ratification
thereof, of the modification proposed by the royal counselors of the King-
dom of Siam in Article I of the general regulations which form a part
of the treaty between the United States and that Kingdom concluded
May 29, 1856, of which a printed copy is also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, June 2g, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a dispatch from the United States con-
sul at Blsinore, and of an instruction from the Secretary of State to the
United States minister at Copenhagen, relative to an alleged practice of
the Danish authorities to banish convicts to this country. The expe-
diency of making it a penal offense to bring such persons to the United
States is submitted to your consideration.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
To the House of Representatives: Washington, July 2, 1868.
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State of the 2d
instant, together with accompanying papers.*
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.July 7, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded at Fort I^aramie, Dakota Territory, on the 7th of May,
1868, between the United States and the chiefs and headmen of the Crow
Indians of Montana, and a treaty concluded at Fort I^aramie, Dakota
Territory, on the loth of May, 1868, between the United States and the
chiefs and headmen of the Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapahoe
tribes of Indians.
A letter from the Secretary of the Interior suggesting amendments to
said treaties, and the papers to which he refers in his communication, are
also herewith transmitted. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C. , July 7, 1868,
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty made and concluded at Ottawa, Kans., on the ist day of June,
* Petitions of merchants and shipowners of New York and Boston relative to the detention, at the
request of the House of Representatives, of the ironclad monitors Oneoto and Catawba, purchased
from the United States by Swift & Co., and supposed to be intended for the Government of Peru,
then at war with a power friendly to the United States.
638 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
1868, between the United States and the Swan Creek and Black River
Chippewas and the Munsee or Christian Indians of the State of Kansas.
Accompanying the treaty is a letter from the Secretary of the Interior,
dated the 30th ultimo, together with the papers therein designated.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /w/k P, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratification,
additional articles to the treaty between the United States and His
Majesty the Emperor of China of the i8th June, 1858, signed in this city
on the 4th instant by the plenipotentiaries of the parties.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fuly 10, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention between the United States and the Mexican Repub-
lic, signed in this city by the plenipotentiaries of the parties on the 4th
instant, providing for an adjustment of claims of citizens of the United
States on the Mexican Government and of Mexican citizens on the Gov-
erament of the United States. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fuly 10^ 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
Referring to my message to the Senate of the 23d of May last, I here-
with transmit a further report from the Secretary of State, with an accom-
panying document, relative to late occurrences in Japan.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /«/k 14., 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate a report from the Secretary of State, inclos-
ing a list of the States of the Union whose legislatures have ratified the
proposed fourteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, and also a copy of the resolutions of ratification, as called
for in the Senate's resolution of the 9th instant, together with a copy
of the respective resolutions of the legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey
purporting to rescind the resolutions of ratification of said amendment
which had previously been adopted by the legislatures of these two States,
respectively, or to withdraw their consent to the same.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 639
Washington, /z^/j/ 75, 1868.
To the Seiiate and House of Representatives:
I hereby transmit to Congress a report, with the accompanying papers,
received from the Secretary of State, in comphance with the requirements
of the eighteenth section of the act entitled "An act to regulate the dip-
lomatic and consular systems of the United States, ' ' approved August 18,
^^^^' ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /w/k 75, 1868.
To the Congress of the United States:
I submit herewith a correspondence between the Secretary of State and
Mr. Robert B. Van Valkenburgh, minister resident of the United States
in Japan. It seems to show the importance of an amendment of the law
of the United States prohibiting the cooly trade.
ANDREW JOHNSON
Washington, yi?^/^ z/, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in compliance with its resolution of the 9th
instant, a report from the Secretary of State, communicating a copy of a
paper received by him to-day, purporting to be a resolution ratifying on
the part of the State of I^ouisiana the proposed amendment to the Con-
stitution of the United States known as Article XIV.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /2^/v 18, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in compliance with its resolution of the 9th
instant, a report from the Secretary of State, communicating a copy of a
paper received by me on the i8th instant, purporting, to be a resolution
of the senate and house of representatives of the State of South Caro-
lina, ratifying the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United
States known as Article XIV. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.July 18, 1868.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
Experience has fully demonstrated the wisdom of the framers of the
Federal Constitution. Under all circumstances the result of their labors
was as near an approximation to perfection as was compatible with the
falHbility of man. Such being the estimation in which the Constitution
640 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
is and has ever been held by our countrymen, it is not surprising that
any proposition for its alteration or amendment should be received with
reluctance and distrust. While this sentiment deserves commendation
and encouragement as a useful preventive of unnecessary attempt to
change its provisions, it must be conceded that time has developed im-
perfections and omissions in the Constitution, the reformation of which
has been demanded by the best interests of the country. Some of these
have been remedied in the manner provided in the Constitution itself.
There are others which, although heretofore brought to the attention
of the people, have never been so presented as to enable the populal
judgment to determine whether they should be corrected by means of
additional amendments. My object in this communication is to suggest
certain defects in the Constitution which seem to me to require correc-
tion, and to recommend that the judgment of the people be taken on the
amendments proposed.
The first of the defects to which I desire to direct attention is in that
clause of the Constitution which provides for the election of President and
Vice-President through the intervention of electors, and not by an imme-
diate vote of the people. The importance of so amending this clause as
to secure to the people the election of President and Vice-President by
their direct votes was urged with great earnestness and ability by Presi-
dent Jackson in his first annual message, and the recommendation was
repeated in five of his subsequent communications to Congress, extending
through the eight years of his Administration. In his message of 1829
he said:
To the people belongs the right of electing their Chief Magistrate; it was never
designed that their choice should in any case be defeated, either by the intervention
of electoral colleges or by the agency confided, under certain contingencies, to the
House of Representatives.
He then proceeded to state the objections to an election of President
by the House of Representatives, the most important of which was that
the choice of a clear majority of the people might be easily defeated.
He then closed the argument with the following communication:
I would therefore recommend such an amendment of the Constitution as may
remove all intermediate agency in the election of the President and Vice-President.
The mode may be so regulated as to preserve to each State its present relative weight
in the election, and a failure in the first attempt may be provided for by confining the
second to a choice between the two highest candidates. In connection with such an
amendment it would seem advisable to limit the service of the Chief Magistrate to a
single term of either four or six years. If, however, it should not be adopted, it is
worthy of consideration whether a provision disqualifying for ofiice the Representa-
tives in Congress on whom such an election may have devolved would not be proper.
Although this recommendation was repeated with undiminished ear-
nestness in several of his succeeding messages, yet the proposed amend-
ment was never adopted and submitted to the people by Congress. The
danger of a defeat of the people's choice in an election by the House of
I
Andrew Johnson 641
Representatives remains unprovided for in the Constitution, and would
be greatly increased if the House of Representatives should assume the
power arbitrarily to reject the votes of a State which might not be cast
in conformity with the wishes of the majority in that body.
But if President Jackson failed to secure the amendment to the Consti-
tution which he urged so persistently, his arguments contributed largely
to the formation of party organizations, which have effectually avoided
the contingency of an election by the House of Representatives. These
organizations, first by a resort to the caucus system of nominating can-
didates, and afterwards to State and national conventions, have been
successful in so limiting the number of candidates as to escape the danger
of an election by the House of Representatives.
It is clear, however, that in thus limiting the number of candidates the
true object and spirit of the Constitution have been evaded and defeated.
It is an essential feature in our republican system of government that
every citizen possessing the constitutional qualifications has a right to
become a candidate for the office of President and Vice-President, and
that every qualified elector has a right to cast his vote for any citizen
whom he may regard as worthy of these offices. But under the party
organizations which have prevailed for j^ears these asserted rights of the
people have been as effectually cut off and destroyed as if the Constitution
itself had inhibited their exercise.
The danger of a defeat of the popular choice in an election by the
House of Representatives is no greater than in an election made nomi-
nally by the people themselves, when by the laws of party organizations
and by the constitutional provisions requiring the people to vote for elect-
ors instead of for the President or Vice-President it is made impracticable
for any citizen to be a candidate except through the process of a party
nomination, and for any voter to cast his suffrage for any other person
than one thus brought forward through the manipulations of a nominat-
ing convention. It is thus apparent that by means of party organizations
that provision of the Constitution which requires the election of President
and Vice-President to be made through the electoral colleges has been
made instrumental and potential in defeating the great object of confer-
ring the choice of these officers upon the people. It may be conceded
that party organizations are inseparable from republican government, and
that when formed and managed in subordination to the Constitution they
may be valuable safeguards of popular liberty; but when they are per-
verted to purposes of bad ambition they are liable to become the dangerous
instruments of overthrowing the Constitution itself. Strongly impressed
with the truth of these views, I feel called upon by an imperative sense
of duty to revive substantially the recommendation so often and so ear-
nestly made by President Jackson, and to urge that the amendment to the
Constitution herewith presented, or some similar proposition, may be sub-
mitted to the people for their ratification or rejection.
M P — voi« VI — 41
642 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Recent events have shown the necessity of an amendment to the Con-
stitution distinctly defining the persons who shall discharge the duties of
President of the United States in the event of a vacancy in that office by
the death, resignation, or removal of both the President and Vice-Presi-
dent. It is clear that this should be fixed by the Constitution, and not
be left to repealable enactments of doubtful constitutionality. It occurs
to me that in the event of a vacancy in the office of President by the death,
resignation, disability, or removal of both the President and Vice-Presi-
dent the duties of the office should devolve upon an officer of the executive
department of the Government, rather than one connected with the legis-
lative or judicial departments. The objections to designating either the
President pro tempore of the Senate or the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, especially in the event of a vacancy produced by removal, are so
obvious and so unanswerable that they need not be stated in detail. It is
enough to state that they are both interested in producing a vacancy, and,
according to the provisions of the Constitution, are members of the tri-
bunal by whose decree a vacancy may be produced.
Under such circumstances the impropriety of designating either of these
officers to succeed the President so removed is palpable. The framers of
the Constitution, when they referred to Congress the settlement of the
succession to the office of President in the event of a vacancy in the offices
of both President and Vice-President, did not, in my opinion, contemplate
the designation of any other than an officer of the executive department,
on whom, in such a contingency, the powers and duties of the President
should devolve. Until recently the contingency has been remote, and
serious attention has not been called to the manifest incongruity between
the provisions of the Constitution on this subject and the act of Congress
of 1792. Having, however, been brought almost face to face with this
important question, it seems an eminently proper time for us to make the
legislation conform to the language, intent, and theory of the Constitu-
tion, and thus place the executive department beyond the reach of visur-
pation, and remove from the legislative and judicial departments every
temptation to combine for the absorption of all the powers of government.
It has occurred to me that in the event of such a vacancy the duties of
President would devolve most appropriately upon some one of the heads
of the several Executive Departments, and under this conviction I pre-
sent for your consideration an amendment to the Constitution on this
subject, with the recommendation that it be submitted to the people for
their action.
Experience seems to have established the necessity of an amendment
of that clause of the Constitution which provides for the election of Sen-
ators to Congress by the legislatures of the several States. It would be
more consistent with the genius of our form of government if the Senators
were chosen directly by the people of the several States. The objections
to the election of Senators by the legislatures are so palpable that I deem
Andrew Johnson 643
it unnecessary to do more than submit the proposition for such an amend-
ment, with the recommendation that it be opened to the people for their
judgment.
It is strongly impressed on my mind that the tenure of office by the
judiciary of the United States during good behavior for life is incompati-
ble with the spirit of republican government, and in this opinion I am
fully sustained by the evidence of popular judgment upon this subject in
the different States of the Union.
I therefore deem it my duty to recommend an amendment to the Con-
stitution by which the terms of the judicial officers would be limited to a
period of years, and I herewith present it in the hope that Congress will
submit it to the people for their decision.
The foregoing views have long been entertained by me. In 1845, in
the House of Representatives, and afterwards, in i860, in the Senate of the
United States, I submitted substantially the same propositions as those to
which the attention of Congress is herein invited. Time, observation,
and experience have confirmed these convictions; and, as a matter of pub-
lic duty and a deep sense of my constitutional obligation ' ' to recommend
to the consideration' of Congress such measures as I deem necessary and
expedient, ' ' I submit the accompanying propositions, and urge their adop-
tion and submission to the judgment of the people.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
JOINT RKSOIvUTlON proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
Whereas the fifth article of the Constitution of the United States provides for
amendments thereto in the manner following, viz:
"The Congress, v^^henever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall
propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures
of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amend-
ments, which in either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this
Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States
or by conventions in three-fourths. thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratifica-
tion may be proposed by the Congress: Provided, That no amendment which may
be made prior to the year 1808 shall in any manner aifect the first and fourth clauses
in the ninth section of the first article, and that no State, without its consent, shall be
deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate:"
Therefore,
Be it resolved by the Seriate and House of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled [two-thirds of both Houses concurring), That
the following amendments to the Constitution of the United States be proposed
to the legislatures of the several States, which, when ratified by the legislatures of
three-fourths of the States, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the
Constitution :
' ' That hereafter the President and Vice-President of the United States shall be
chosen for the term of six years, by the people of the respective States, in the manner
following: Each State shall be divided by the legislature thereof in districts, equal
in number to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which such State
may be entitled in the Congress of the United States; the said districts to be com-
posed of contiguous territory, and to contain, as nearly as may be, an equal number
of persons entitled to be represented under the Constitution, and to be laid off for
644 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the first time immediately after the ratification of this amendment; that on the first
Thursday in August in the year 18 — , and on the same day every sixth year there-
after, the citizens of each State who possess the qualifications requisite for electors
of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures shall meet within their respec-
tive districts and vote for a President and Vice-President of the United States; and
the person receiving the greatest number of votes for President and the one receiv-
ing the greatest number of votes for Vice-President in each district shall be holden to
have received one vote, which fact shall be immediately certified by the governor of
the State to each of the Senators in Congress from such State and to the President
of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Congress of the
United States shall be in session on the second Monday in October in the year 18 — ,
and on the same day in every sixth year thereafter; and the President of the Senate,
in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, shall open all the cer-
tificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest num-
ber of votes for President shall be President, if such number be equal to a majority
of the whole number of votes given; but if no person have such majority, then a second
election shall be held on the first Thursday in the month of December then next en-
suing between the persons having the two highest numbers for the ofiice of President,
which second election shall be conducted, the result certified, and the votes counted
in the same manner as in the first, and the person having the greatest number of
votes for President shall be President. But if two or more persons shall have received
the greatest and an equal number of votes at the second election, then the person who
shall have received the greatest number of votes in the greatest number of States
shall be President. The person having the greatest number of votes for Vice-Presi-
dent at the first election shall be Vice-President, if such number be equal to a majority
of the whole number of votes given; and if no person have such majority, then a sec-
ond election shall take place between the persons having the two highest numbers
on the same day that the second election is held for President, and the person having
the highest number of the votes for Vice-President shall be Vice-President. But if
there should happen to be an equality of votes between the persons so voted for at the
second election, then the person having the greatest number of votes in the greatest
number of States shall be Vice-President. But when a second election shall be neces-
sary in the case of Vice-President and not necessary in the case of President, then
the Senate shall choose a Vice-President from the persons having the two highest
numbers in the first election, as now prescribed in the Constitution: Provided^ That
after the ratification of this amendment to the Constitution the President and Vice-
President shall hold their offices, respectively, for the term of six years, and that
no President or Vice-President shall be eligible for reelection to a second term."
Skc. 2. And be it further resolved, That Article II, section i, paragraph 6, of the
Constitution of the United States shall be amended so as to read as follows:
•'In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation,
or inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office, the same shall devolve
on the VicQ-President; and in the case of the removal, death, resignation, or ina-
bility both of the President and Vice-President, the powers and duties of said office
shall devolve on the Secretary of State for the time being, and after this officer,
in case of vacancy in that or other Department, and in the order in which they are
named, on the Secretary of the Treasury, on the Secretary of War, on the Secretary
of the Navy, on the Secretary of the Interior, on the Postmaster-General, and on the
Attorney-General; and such officer, on whom the powers and duties of President
shall devolve in accordance with the foregoing provisions, shall then act as Presi-
dent until the disability shall be removed or a President shall be elected, as is or may
6e provided for by law."
Sec. 3. And be it further resolved. That Article I, section 3, be amended by strik-
ing out the word "legislature," and inserting in lieu thereof the following words,
Andrew Johnson
645
viz: " Persons qualified to vote for members of the most numerous branch of the leg-
islature," so as to make the third section of said article, when ratified by three-
fourths of the States, read as follows, to wit;
' ' The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each
State, chosen by the persons qualified to vote for the members of the most numerous
branch of the legislature thereof, for six years, and each Senator shall have one vote."
Sec, 4. Afid be it fuHher resolved, That Article III, section i, be amended by
striking out the words ' ' good behavior, ' ' and inserting the following words, viz: ' ' the
term of twelve years." And further, that said article and section be amended by
adding the following thereto, viz: "And it shall be the duty of the President of the
United States, within twelve months after the ratification of this amendment by three-
fourths of all the States, as provided by the Constitution of the United States, to
divide the whole number of judges, as near as may be practicable, into three classes.
The seats of the judges of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the
fourth year from such classification, of the second class at the expiration of the eighth
year, and of the third class at the expiration of the twelfth year, so that one-third
may be chosen every fourth year thereafter. "
The article as amended will read as follows :
Ar'Mci.E III.
Sec. I. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme
Court and such inferior courts as the Congress from time to time may ordain and
establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their
offices during the term of twelve years, and shall at stated times receive for their
services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in
office; and it shall be the duty of the President of the United States, within twelve
months after the ratification of this amendment by three-fourths of all the States, as
provided by the Constitution of the United States, to divide the whole number of
judges, as near as may be practicable, into three classes. The seats of the judges
of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the fourth year from such clas-
sification; of the second class, at the expiration of the eighth year; and of the third
class, at the expiration of the twelfth year, so that one-third may be chosen every
fourth year thereafter.
Washington, D. C.July 18, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In compliance with the resolution adopted by the House of Represent-
atives on the 13th instant, requesting "copies of all instructions, records,
and correspondence connected with the commission authorized to nego-
tiate the late treaty with the Great and Little Osage Indians, and copies
of all propositions made to said commission from railroad corporations or
by individuals," I transmit the accompanying communications from the
Secretary of the Interior, together with the papers to which they have
reference.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, July 20, 1868.
To the Seftate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in compliance with its resolution of the 9th
instant, a report from the Secretary of State, communicating a copy of a
646 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
paper received by me this day, purporting to be a resolution of the sen-
ate and house of representatives of the State of Alabama ratifying the
proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States known as
Article XIV. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /z^/j/ 24., 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, inclosing a
report of a board of naval officers appointed in pursuance of an act of
Congress approved May 19, 1868, to select suitable locations for powder
magazines. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fuly <?/, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolu-
tion of the 24th instant, the accompanying report* from the Secretary of
^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
VETO MESSAGES.
Washington, D. C. , March 25, 1868.
To the Seriate of the United States:
I have considered, with such care as the pressure of other duties has
permitted, a bill entitled "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to
amend the judiciary act, passed the 24th of September, 1789.' " Not
being able to approve all of its provisions, I herewith return it to the
Senate, in which House it originated, with a brief statement of my ob-
jections.
The first section of the bill meets my approbation, as, for the purpose
of protecting the rights of property from the erroneous decision of infe-
rior judicial tribunals, it provides means for obtaining uniformity, by
appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, in cases which have
now become very numerous and of much public interest, and in which
such remedy is not now allowed. The second section, however, takes
away the right of appeal to that court in cases which involve the life
and liberty of the citizen, and leaves them exposed to the judgment of
numerous inferior tribunals. It is apparent that the two sections were
* Relating to absence from his post of the consul at Panama.
Andrew Johnson 647
conceived in a very different spirit, and I regret that my objections to one
impose upon me the necessity of withholding my sanction from the other.
I can not give my assent to a measure which proposes to deprive any
person ' ' restrained of his or her Hberty in violation of the Constitution
or of any treaty or law of the United States ' ' from the right of appeal
to the highest judicial authority known to our Government. To ' ' secure
the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" is one of the
declared objects of the Federal Constitution. To assure these, guaran-
ties are provided in the same instrument, as well against ' ' unreasonable
searches and seizures" as against the suspensions of "the privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus, >!? * ^ unless when, in cases of rebellion or
invasion, the public safety may require it. " It was doubtless to afford the
people the means of protecting and enforcing these inestimable privileges
that the jurisdiction which this bill proposes to take away was conferred
upon the Supreme Court of the nation. The act conferring that juris-
diction was approved on the 5th day of February, 1867, with a full knowl-
edge of the motives that prompted its passage, and because it was believed
to be necessary and right. Nothing has since occurred to disprove the
wisdom and justness of the measures, and to modify it as now proposed
would be to lessen the protection of the citizen from the exercise of arbi-
trary power and to weaken the safeguards of life and liberty, which can
never be made too secure against illegal encroachments.
The bill not only prohibits the adjudication by the Supreme Court of
cases in which appeals may hereafter be taken, but interdicts its jurisdic-
tion on appeals which have already been made to that high judicial body.
If, therefore, it should become a law, it will by its retroactive operation
wrest from the citizen a remedy which he enjoyed at the time of his
appeal. It will thus operate most harshly upon those who believe that
justice has been denied them in the inferior courts.
The legislation proposed in the second section, it seems to me, is not in
harmony with the spirit and intention of the Constitution. It can not
fail to affect most injuriously the just equipoise of our system of Govern-
ment, for it establishes a precedent which, if followed, may eventually
sweep awa}^ every check on arbitrary and unconstitutional legislation.
Thus far during the existence of the Government the Supreme Court of
the United States has been viewed by the people as the true expounder
of their Constitution, and in the most violent party conflicts its judg-
ments and decrees have always been sought and deferred to with confi-
dence and respect. In public estimation it combines judicial wisdom
and impartiality in a greater degree than any other authority known to
the Constitution, and any act which may be construed into or mistaken
for an attempt to prevent or evade its decision on a question which
affects the liberty of the citizens and agitates the country can not fail to
be attended with unpropitious consequences. It will be justly held by a
large portion of the people as an admission of the unconstitutionality of
648
Messages mid Papers of the Presidents
the act on which its judgment may be forbidden or forestalled, and may
interfere with that willing acquiescence in its provisions which is neces-
sary for the harmonious and efficient execution of any law.
For these reasons, thus briefly and imperfectly stated, and for others,
of which want of time forbids the enumeration, I deem it my duty to
withhold my assent from this bill, and to return it for the reconsidera-
tion of Congress. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C^June 20, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I return without my signature a bill entitled ' 'An act to admit the State
of Arkansas to representation in Congress. ' '
The approval of this bill would be an admission on the part of the
Executive that the * 'Act for the more efficient government of the rebel
States," passed March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary thereto were
proper and constitutional. My opinion, however, in reference to those
measures has undergone no change, but, on the contrary, has been
strengthened by the results which have attended their execution. Even
were this not the case, I could not consent to a bill which is based upon
the assumption either tljat by an act of rebellion of a portion of its peo-
ple the State of Arkansas seceded from the Union, or that Congress
may at its pleasure expel or exclude a State from the Union, or inter-
rupt its relations with the Government by arbitrarily depriving it of
representation in the Senate and House of Representatives. If Arkansas
is a State not in the Union, this bill does not admit it as a State into the
Union. If, on the other hand, Arkansas is a State in the Union, no leg-
islation is necessary to declare it entitled ' ' to representation in Congress
as one of the States of the Union." The Constitution already declares
that "each State shall have at least one Representative;" that the Sen-
ate "shall be composed of two Senators from each State," and "that no
State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the
Senate."
That instrument also makes each House " the judge of the elections,
returns, and qualifications of its own members, ' ' and therefore all that
is now necessary to restore Arkansas in all its constitutional relations
to the Government is a decision by each House upon the eligibility of
those who, presenting their credentials, claim seats in the respective
Houses of Congress. This is the plain and simple plan of the Consti-
tution; and believing that had it been pursued when Congress assem-
bled in the month of December, 1865, the liestoration of the States would
long since have been completed, I once again earnestly recommend that
it be adopted by each House in preference to legislation, which I respect-
fully submit is not only of at least doubtful constitutionality, and there-
fore unwise and dangerous as a precedent, but is unnecessary, not so
effective in its operation as the mode prescribed by the Constitution,
Andrew Johnson
649
involves additional delay, and from its terms may be taken rather as
applicable to a Territory about to be admitted as one of the United States
than to a State which has occupied a place in the Union for upward of a
quarter of a century.
The bill declares the State of Arkansas entitled and admitted to repre-
sentation in Congress as one of the States of the Union upon the follow-
ing fundamental condition:
That the constitution of Arkansas shall never be so amended or changed as to
deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the United States of the right to vote who
are entitled to vote by the constitution herein recognized, except as a punishment
for such crimes as are now felonies at common law, whereof they shall have been
duly convicted under laws equally applicable to all the inhabitants of said State:
Provided, That any alteration of said constitution, prospective in its effect, may be
made in regard to the time and place of residence of voters.
I have been unable to find in the Constitution of the United States any
warrant for the exercise of the authority thus claimed by Congress. In
assuming the power to impose a * ' fundamental condition ' ' upon a State
which has been duly ' * admitted into the Union upon an equal footing
with the original States in all respects whatever," Congress asserts a
right to enter a State as it may a Territory, and to regulate the highest
prerogative of a free people — the elective franchise. This question is
reserved by the Constitution to the States themselves, and to concede to
Congress the power to regulate the subject would be to reverse the fun-
damental principle of the Republic and to place in the hands of the Fed-
eral Government, which is the creature of the States, the sovereignty
which justly belongs to the States or the people — the true source of all
political power, by whom ouj- Federal system was created and to whose
will it is subordinate.
The bill fails to provide in what manner the State of Arkansas is to
signify its acceptance of the * ' fundamental condition ' ' which Congress
endeavors to make unalterable and irrevocable. Nor does it prescribe
the penalty to be imposed should the people of the State amend or
change the particular portions of the constitution which it is one of the
purposes of the bill to perpetuate, but as to the consequences of such
action leaves them in uncertainty and doubt. When the circumstances
under which this constitution has been brought to the attention of Con-
gress are considered, it is not unreasonable to suppose that efforts will
be made to modify its provisions, and especially those in respect ,to
which this measure prohibits any alteration. It is seriously questioned
[whether the constitution has been ratified by a majority of the persons
; who, under the act of March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary thereto,
'were entitled to registration and to vote upon that issue. Section 10 of
the schedule provides that —
No person disqualified from voting or registering under this constitution shall vote
for candidates for any office, nor shall be permitted to vote for the ratification or
'rejection of the constitution at the polls herein authorized.
650 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Assumed to be in force before its adoption, in disregard of the law of
Congress, the constitution undertakes to impose upon the elector other
and further conditions. The fifth section of the eighth article provides
that ' * all persons, before registering or voting, ' ' must take and subscribe
an oath which, among others, contains the following clause:
That I accept the civil and poHtical equality of all men, and agree not to attempt
to deprive any person or persons, on account of race, color, or previous condition, of
any political or civil right, privilege, or immunity enjoyed by any other class of men.
It is well known that a very large portion of the electors in all the
States, if not a large majority of all of them, do not believe in or accept
the political equality of Indians, Mongolians, or negroes with the race to
which they belong. If the voters in many of the States of the North and
West were required to take such an oath as a test of their qualification,
there is reason to believe that a majority of them would remain from the
polls rather than comply with its degrading conditions. How far and to
what extent this test oath prevented the registration of those who were
qualified under the laws of Congress it is not possible to know, but that
such was its effect, at least sufficient to overcome the small and doubtful
majority in favor of this constitution, there can be no reasonable doubt.
Should the people of Arkansas, therefore, desiring to regulate the elec-
tive franchise so as to make it conform to the constitutions of a large
proportion of the States of the North and West, modify the provisions
referred to in the ''fundamental condition," what is to be the conse-
quence? Is it intended that a denial of representation shall follow?
And if so, may we not dread, at some future day, a recurrence of the
troubles which have so long agitated the country? Would it not be the
part of wisdom to take for our guide the Federal Constitution, rather
than resort to measures which, looking only to the present, may in a few
years renew, in an aggravated form, the strife and bitterness caused by
legislation which has proved to be so ill timed and unfortunate?
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C,
June 2^y 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In returning to the House of Representatives, in which it originated,
a bill entitled "An act to admit the vStates of North Carolina, South
Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida to representation in
Congress," I do not deem it necessary to state at length the reasons which
constrain me to withhold my approval. I will not, therefore, undertake J
at this time to reopen the discussion upon the grave constitutional ques-
tions involved in the act of March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary
thereto, in pursuance of which it is claimed, in the preamble to this bill,
these States have framed and adopted constitutions of State government.
Andrew Johnson
6^1
Nor will I repeat the objections contained in my message of the 20th
instant, returning without my signature the bill to admit to represen-
tation the State of Arkansas, and which are equally applicable to the
pending measure.
Like the act recently passed in reference to Arkansas, this bill super-
sedes the plain and simple mode prescribed by the Constitution for the
admission to seats in the respective Houses of Senators and Representa-
tives from the several States. It assumes authority over six States of the
Union which has never been delegated to Congress, or is even warranted
by previous unconstitutional legislation upon the subject of restoration.
It imposes conditions which are in derogation of the equal rights of the
States, and is founded upon a theory which is subversive of the funda-
mental principles of the Government. In the case of Alabama it violates
the plighted faith of Congress by forcing upon that State a constitution
which was rejected by the people, according to the express terms of an
act of Congress requiring that a majority of the registered electors should
vote upon the question of its ratification.
For these objections, and many others that might be presented, I can
not approve this bill, and therefore return it for the action of Congress
required in such cases by the Federal Constitution.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C,
July 20, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
I have given to the joint resolution entitled "A resolution excluding
from the electoral college the votes of States lately in rebellion which shall
not have been reorganized" as careful examination as I have been able
to bestow upon the subject during the few days that have intervened
since the measure was submitted for my approval.
Feeling constrained to withhold my consent, I herewith return the res-
olution to the Senate, in which House it originated, with a brief state-
ment of the reasons which have induced my action. This joint resolution
is based upon the assumption that some of the States whose inhabitants
were lately in rebellion are not now entitled to representation in Congress
and participation in the election of President and Vice-President of the
United States.
Having heretofore had occasion to give in detail my reasons for dis-
senting from this view, it is not necessary at this time to repeat them.
It is sufficient to state that I continue strong in my conviction that the
acts of secession, by which a number of the States sought to dissolve
their connection with the other States and to subvert the Union, being
unauthorized by the Constitution and in direct violation thereof, were
from the beginning absolutely null and void. It follows necessarily that
652 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
when the rebelhon terminated the several States which had attempted
to secede continued to be States in the Union, and all that was required to
enable them to resume their relations to the Union was that they should
adopt the measures necessary to their practical restoration as States.
Such measures were adopted, and the legitimate result was that those
States, having conformed to all the requirements of the Constitution,
resumed their former relations, and became entitled to the exercise of all
the rights guaranteed to them by its provisions.
The joint resolution under consideration, however, seems to assume
that by the insurrectionary acts of their respective inhabitants those
States forfeited their rights as such, and can never again exercise them
except upon readmission into the Union on the terms prescribed by Con-
gress. If this position be correct, it follows that they were taken out of
the Union by virtue of their acts of secession, and hence that the war
waged upon them was illegal and unconstitutional. We would thus be
placed in this inconsistent attitude, that while the war was commenced
and carried on upon the distinct ground that the Southern States, being
component parts of the Union, were in rebellion against the lawful
authority of the United States, upon its termination we resort to a policy
of reconstruction which assumes that it was not in fact a rebellion, but
that the war was waged for the conquest of territories assumed to be
outside of the constitutional Union.
The mode and manner of receiving and counting the electoral votes
for President and Vice-President of the United States are in plain and
simple terms prescribed by the Constitution. That instrument impera-
tively requires that "the President of the Senate shall, in the presence
of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and
the votes shall then be counted." Congress has, therefore, no power,
under the Constitution, to receive the electoral votes or reject them.
The whole power is exhausted when, in the presence of the two Houses,
the votes are counted and the result declared. In this respect the power
and duty of the President of the Senate are, under the Constitution,
purely ministerial. When, therefore, the joint resolution declares that
no electoral votes shall be received or counted from States that since the
4th of March, 1867, have not "adopted a constitution of State govern-
ment under which a State government shall have organized," a power
is assumed which is nowhere delegated to Congress, unless upon the
assumption that the State governments organized prior to the 4th of
March, 1867, were illegal and void.
The joint resolution, by implication at least, concedes that these States
were States by virtue of their organization prior to the 4th of March,
1867, but denies to them the right to vote in the election of President
and Vice-President of the United States. It follows either that this
assumption of power is wholly unauthorized by the Constitution or that
the States so excluded from voting were out of the Union by reason
Andrew Johnson 653
of the rebellion, and have never been legitimately restored. Being fully
satisfied that they were never out of the Union, and that their relations
thereto have been legally and constitutionally restored, I am forced to
the conclusion that the joint resolution, which deprives them of the
right to have their votes for President and Vice-President received and
counted, is in conflict with the Constitution, and that Congress has no
more power to reject their votes than those of the States which have
been uniformly loyal to the Federal Union.
It is worthy of remark that if the States whose inhabitants were re-
cently in rebellion were legally and constitutionally organized and restored
to their rights prior to the 4th of March, 1867, as I am satisfied they
were, the only legitimate authority under which the election for Presi-
dent and Vice-President can be held therein must be derived from the
governments instituted before that period. It clearly follows that all
the State governments organized in those States under act of Congress
for that purpose, and under military control, are illegitimate and of no
validity whatever; and in that view the votes cast in those States for
President and Vice-President, in pursuance of acts passed since the 4th
of March, 1867, and in obedience to the so-called reconstruction acts of
Congress, can not be legally received and counted, while the only votes
in those States that can be legally cast and counted will be those cast in
pursuance of the laws in force in the several States prior to the legisla-
tion by Congress upon the subject of reconstruction.
I can not refrain from directing your special attention to the declaration
contained in the joint resolution, that ''none of the States whose inhab-
itants were lately in rebellion shall be entitled to representation in the
electoral college," etc. If it is meant by this declaration that no State
is to be allowed to vote for President and Vice-President all of whose
inhabitants were engaged in the late rebellion, it is apparent that no one
of the States will be excluded from voting, since it is well known that in
every Southern State there were many inhabitants who not only did not
participate in the rebellion, but who actually took part in the suppression,
or refrained from giving it any aid or countenance. I therefore conclude
that the true meaning of the joint resolution is that no State a portion
of whose inhabitants were engaged in the rebellion shall be permitted to
participate in the Presidential election, except upon the terms and condi-
tions therein prescribed.
Assuming this to be the true construction of the resolution, the inquiry
becomes pertinent, May those Northern States a portion of whose inhab-
itants were actually in the rebellion be prevented, at the discretion of
Congress, from having their electoral votes counted? It is well known
that a portion of the inhabitants of New York and a portion of the inhab-
itants of Virginia were alike engaged in the rebellion; yet it is equally
w^ell known that Virginia, as well as New York, was at all times during the
war recognized by the Federal Government as a State in the Union — so
654 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
clearly that upon the termination of hostilities it was not even deemed
necessary for her restoration that a provisional governor should be ap-
pointed; yet, according to this joint resolution, the people of Virginia,
unless they comply with the terms it prescribes, are denied the right of
voting for President, while the people of New York, a portion of the
inhabitants of which State were also in rebellion, are permitted to have
their electoral votes counted without undergoing the process of recon-
struction prescribed for Virginia. New York is no more a State than
Virginia; the one is as much entitled to representation in the electoral
college as the other. If Congress has the power to deprive Virginia of
this right, it can exercise the same authority with respect to New York
or any other of the States. Thus the result of the Presidential elec-
tion may be controlled and determined by Congress, and the people be
deprived of their right under the Constitution to choose a President and
Vice-President of the United States.
If Congress were to provide by law that the votes of none of the States
should be received and counted if cast for a candidate who differed in
political sentiment with a majority of the two Houses, such legislation
would at once be condemned by the country as an unconstitutional and
revolutionary usurpation of power. It would, however, be exceedingly
difficult to find in the Constitution any more authority for the passage
of the joint resolution under consideration than for an enactment looking
directly to the rejection of all votes not in accordance with the political
preferences of a majority of Congress. No power exists in the Consti-
tution authorizing the joint resolution or the supposed law — the only
difference being that one would be more palpably unconstitutional and
revolutionary than the other. Both would rest upon the radical error
that Congress has the power to prescribe terms and conditions to the
right of the people of the States to cast their votes for President and
Vice-President.
For the reasons thus indicated I am constrained to return the joint
resolution to the Senate for such further action thereon as Congress may
deem necessary.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, July 2^, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
Believing that a bill entitled "An act relating to the Freedmen's
Bureau, and providmg for its discontinuance," interferes with the ap-
pointing power conferred by the Constitution upon the Executive, and
for other reasons, which at this late period of the session time will not
permit me to state, I herewith return it to the Senate, in which House
it originated, without my approval.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson
655
PROCLAMATIONS.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas in the month of July, A. D. 1861, in accepting the condition
of civil war which was brought about by insurrection and rebellion in
several of the States which constitute the United States, the two Houses
of Congress did solemnly declare that that war was not waged on the
part of the Government in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose
of conquest or subjugation, nor for any purpose of overthrowing or inter-
fering with the rights or established institutions of the States, but only
to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution of the United
States and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and
rights of the several States unimpaired, and that so soon as those objects
should be accomplished the war on the part of the Government should
cease; and
Whereas the President of the United States has heretofore, in the
spirit of that declaration and with the view of securing for it ultimate
and complete effect, set forth several proclamations offering amnesty and
pardon to persons who had been or were concerned in the aforenamed
rebellion, which proclamations, however, were attended with prudential
reservations and exceptions then deemed necessary and proper, and which
proclamations were respectively issued on the 8th day of December, 1863,
on the 26th day of March, 1864, on the 29th day of May, 1865, and on
the 7th day of September, 1867; and
Whereas the said lamentable civil war has long since altogether ceased,
with an acknowledgment by all the States of the supremacy of the
Federal Constitution and of the Government thereunder, and there no
longer exists any reasonable ground to apprehend a renewal of the said
civil war, or any foreign interference, or any unlawful resistance by any
portion of the people of any of the States to the Constitution and laws
of the United States; and
Whereas it is desirable to reduce the standing army and to bring to a
speedy termination military occupation, martial law, military tribunals,
•abridgment of the freedom of speech and of the press, and suspension of
the privilege of habeas corpus and of the right of trial by jury, such
encroachments upon our free institutions in time of peace being danger-
ous to public liberty, incompatible with the individual rights of the
citizen, contrary to the genius and spirit of our republican form of gov-
ernment, and exhaustive of the national resources; and
Whereas it is believed that amnesty and pardon will tend to secure a
complete and universal establishment and prevalence of municipal law
656 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
and order in conformity with the Constitution of the United StatevS, and
to remove all appearances or presumptions of a retaliatory or vindictive
policy on the part of the Government attended by unnecessary disquali-
fications, pains, penalties, confiscations, and disfranchisements, and, on
the contrary, to promote and procure complete fraternal reconciliation
among the whole people, with due submission to the Constitution and
laws:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do, by virtue of the Constitution and in the name of
the people of the United States, hereby proclaim and declare, uncondi-
tionally and without reservation, to all and to every person who, directly
or indirectly, participated in the late insurrection or rebellion, excepting
such person or persons as may be under presentment or indictment in
any court of the United States having competent jurisdiction upon a
charge of treason or other felony, a full pardon and amnesty for the
offense of treason against the United States or of adhering to their
enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights of prop-
erty, except as to slaves, and except also as to any property of which
any person may have been legally divested under the laws of the United
States.
In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and
have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto
affixed.
[s:eAi,.] Done at the city of Washington, the 4th day of July, A. D.
1868, and of the Independence of the United States of America
themnety-third. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By the Prksidknt of thb United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas by an act of Congress entitled **An act to admit the States
of North Carolina, South Carolina, lyouisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and
Florida to representation in Congress," passed on the 25th day of June,
1868, it is declared that it is made the duty of the President, within ten
days after receiving official information of the ratification by the legisla-
ture of either of said States of a proposed amendment to the Constitu-
tion known as article fourteen, to issue a proclamation announcing that
fact; and
Whereas the said act seems to be prospective; and
Whereas a paper purporting to be a resolution of the legislature of
Florida adopting the amendment of the thirteenth and fourteenth articles
of the Constitution of the United States was received at the Department
of State on the i6th of June, 1868, prior to the passage of the act of
Congress referred to, which paper is attested by the names of Horatio
Andreiv Johnson 657
Jenkins, jr., as president /r^ tempore of the senate, and W. W. Moore as
speaker of the assembly, and of WilHam ly. Apthoop, as secretary of the
senate, and William Forsyth Bynum, as clerk of the assembly, and which
paper was transmitted to the Secretary of State in a letter dated Exec-
utive Office, Tallahassee, Fla., June 10, 1868, from Harrison Reed, who
therein signs himself governor; and
Whereas on the 6th day of July, 1868, a paper was received by the
President, which paper, being addressed to the President, bears date of
the 4th day of July, 1868, and was transmitted by and under the name
of W. W. Holden, who therein writes himself governor of the State of
North Carolina, which paper certifies that the said proposed amendment,
known as article fourteen, did pass the senate and house of representa-
tives of the general assembly of North Carolina on the 2d day of July
instant, and is attested by the names of John H. Boner, or Bower, as
secretary of the house of representatives, and T. A. Byrnes, as secretary
of the senate; and its ratification on the 4th of July, 1868, is attested by
Tod R. Caldwell, as lieutenant-governor, president of the senate, and
Jo. W. Holden, as speaker house of representatives:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States of America, in compliance with and execution of the act
of Congress aforesaid, do issue this proclamation, announcing the fact of
the ratification of the said amendment by the legislature of the State
of North Carolina in the manner hereinbefore set forth.
In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and
have caused the seal of the United States to be hereto affixed.
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this nth day of July, A. D.
1868, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the ninety-third. ANDREW JOHNSON
By the President:
Wii,i,iAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
By thk President of the United States of America.
A proclamation.
Whereas by an act of Congress entitled ' 'An act to admit the States
of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and
Florida to representation in Congress, ' ' passed the 25th day of June,
1868, it is declared that it is made the duty of the President, within ten
days after receiving official information of the ratification by the legisla-
ture of either of said States of a proposed amendment to the Constitution
known as article fourteen, to issue a proclamation announcing that fact;
and
Whereas on the i8th day of July, 1868, a letter was received by the
President, which letter, being addressed to the President, bears date of
July 15, 1868, and was transmitted by and under the name of R. K. Scott,
ivi P— vol, VI— 42
658 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
who therein writes himself governor of South CaroHna, in which letter
was inclosed and received at the same time by the President a paper
purporting to be a resolution of the senate and house of representatives of
the general assembly of the State of South Carolina ratifying the said pro-
posed amendment, and also purporting to have passed the two said houses,
respectively, on the 7th and 9th of July, 1868, and to have been approved
by the said R. K. vScott, as governor of said State, on the 15th of July,
1868, which circumstances are attested by the signatures of D. T. Corbin,
as president/;'^ tempore of the senate, and of F. J. Moses, jr., as speaker
of the house of representatives of said State, and of the said R. K. Scott,
as governor:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States of America, in compliance with and execution of the act of
Congress aforesaid, do issue this my proclamation, announcing the fact
of the ratification of the said amendment by the legislature of the State of
South Carolina in the manner hereinbefore set forth.
In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and
have caused the seal of the United States to be hereto afl&xed.
P -| Done at the city of Washington, this i8th day of July, A. D.
1868, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the ninety-third. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
W11.1.IAM H. Skward. Secretary of State.
By thk Prksidknt of the) United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas by an act of Congress entitled "An act to admit the States
of North Carolina, South Carolina, lyouisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and
Florida to representation in Congress," passed on the 25th day of June,
1868, it is declared that it is made the duty of the President, within ten
days after receiving official information of the ratification by the legisla-
ture of either of said States of a proposed amendment to the Constitu-
tion known as article fourteen, to issue a proclamation announcing that
fact; and
Whereas a paper was received at the Department of State on the 17th
day of July, 1868, which paper, bearing date of the 9th day of July, 1868,
purports to be a resolution of the senate and house of representatives of
the 'State of Louisiana in general assembly convened ratifying the afore-
said amendment, and is attested by the signature of George K. Bovee,
as secretary of state, under a seal purporting to be the seal of the State
of lyouisiana:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States of America, in compliance with and execution of the act
of Congress before mentioned, do issue this my proclamation, announcing
Andrew Johnson 659
the fact of the ratification of the said amendment by the legislature of the
State of Louisiana in the manner hereinbefore set forth.
In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and
have caused the seal of the United States to be hereto affixed.
r -, Done at the city of Washington, this i8th day of July, A. D.
1868, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the ninety-third. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii^iviAM H. Skward, Secretary of State.
By thk President oe the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
Whereas by an act of Congress entitled ' ' An act to admit the States
of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and
Florida to representation in Congress," passed the 25th day of June,
1868, it is declared that it is made the duty of the President, within ten
days after receiving official information of the ratification by the legis-
lature of either of said States of a proposed amendment to the Constitu-
tion known as article fourteen, to issue a proclamation announcing that
fact; and
Whereas a letter was received this day by the President, which letter,
being addressed to the President, bears date of July 16, 1868, and was
transmitted by and under the name of William H. Smith, who therein
writes himself governor of Alabama, in which letter was inclosed and
received at the same time by the President a paper purporting to be a
resolution of the senate and house of representatives of the general as-
sembly of the State of Alabama ratifying the said proposed amendment,
which paper is attested by the signature of Charles A. Miller, as secretary
of state, under a seal purporting to be the seal of the State of Alabama,
and bears the date of approval of July 13, 1868, by WilHam H. Smith,
as governor of said State:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States of America, in compliance with and execution of the act of
Congress before mentioned, do issue this my proclamation, announcing
the fact of the ratification of the said amendment by the legislature of the
State of Alabama in the manner hereinbefore set forth.
In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and
have caused the seal of the United States to be hereto affixed.
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 20th day of July, A. D.
1868, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the ninety-third. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii^iviAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
66o Messages and Papers of the Presidents
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATlON.
Whereas by an act of Congress entitled "An act to admit the States
of North CaroHna, South CaroHna, I^ouisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and
Florida to representation in Congress," passed the 25th daj^ of June,
1868, it is declared that it is made the duty of the President, within ten
days after receiving official information of the ratification by the legis-
lature of either of said States of a proposed amendment to the Constitu-
tion known as article fourteen, to issue a proclamation announcing that
fact; and
Whereas a paper was received at the Department of State this 27th
day of July, 1868, purporting to be a joint resolution of the senate and
house of representatives of the general assembly of the State of Georgia,
ratifying the said proposed amendment and also purporting to have
passed the two said houses, respectively, on the 21st of July, 1868,
and to have been approved by Rufus B. Bullock, who therein signs him-
self governor of Georgia, which paper is also attested by the signatures
of Benjamin Conley, as president of the senate, and R. L. McWhorters,
as speaker of the house of representatives, and is further attested by the
signattures of A. E. Marshall, as secretary of the senate, and M. A, Hardin,
as clerk of the house of representatives:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of
the United States of America, in compliance with and execution of the
act of Congress before mentioned, do issue this my proclamation, announ-
cmg the fact of the ratification of the said amendment by the legislature
of the State of Georgia in the manner hereinbefore set forth.
In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and
have caused the seal of the United States to be hereto afiixed.
r -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 27th day of July, A. D.
1868, and of the Independence of the United States of America
the ninety-third. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
WiiviyiAM H. Seward, Secretary of State.
By the President of the United States of America.
A PROCIvAMATION.
In the year which is now drawing to its end the art, the skill, and the
labor of the people of the United States have been employed with greater
diligence and vigor and on broader fields than ever before, and the fruits
of the earth have been gathered into the granary and the storehouse in
marvelous abundance. Our highways have been lengthened, and new
and prolific regions have been occupied. We are permitted to hope that
long-protracted political and sectional dissensions are at no distant day
to give place to returning harmony and fraternal affection throughout
the Republic. Many foreign states have entered into liberal agreements
Aiidrew Johnson 66 1
with us, while nations which are far off and which heretofore have been
unsocial and exclusive have become our friends.
The annual period of rest, which we have reached in health and tran-
quillity, and which is crowned with so many blessings, is by universal
consent a convenient and suitable one for cultivating personal piety and
practicing public devotion.
I therefore recommend that Thursday, the 26th day of November next,
be set apart and observed by all the people of the United States as a day
for public praise, thanksgiving, and prayer to the Almighty Creator and
Divine Ruler of the Universe, by whose ever- watchful, merciful, and gra-
cious providence alone states and nations, no less than families and in-
dividual men, do live and move and have their being.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal
of the United States to be affixed.
|- -1 Done at the city of Washington, this 12th day of October,
A. D. 1868, and of the Independence of the United States the
ninety-third. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
Wii^i^iAM H. Sbward, Secretary of State,
EXECUTIVE ORDERS.
By thk President of the United States,
executive order.
Washington, December ly, 1867.
It is desired and advised that all communications in writing intended
for the executive department of this Government and relating to public
business of whatever kind, including suggestions for legislation, claims,
contracts, employment, appointments, and removals from ofl&ce, and par-
dons, be transmitted directly in the first instance to the head of the
Department to which the care of the subject-matter of the communication
properly belongs. This regulation has become necessary for the more
convenient, punctual, and regular dispatch of the public business.
By order of the President: WII.I.IAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
Generaiv Orders, No. 104.
Headquarters of the Army,
Adjutant- Generai^'s Office,
Washington, December 28, i86y.
By direction of the President of the United States, the following orders
are made:
I. Brevet Major-General E. O. C. Ord will turn over the command of
662 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the Fourth MiHtary District to Brevet Major- General A. C. Gillem, and
proceed to San Francisco, Cal. , to take command of the Department of
California.
II. On being relieved by Brevet Major- General Ord, Brevet Major-
General Irvin McDowell will proceed to Vicksburg, Miss. , and relieve
General Gillem in command of the Fourth Military District.
III. Brevet Major- General John Pope is hereby relieved of the com-
mand of the Third Military District, and will report without delay at the
Headquarters of the Army for further orders, turning over his command
to the next senior officer until the arrival of his successor.
IV. Major- General George G. Meade is assigned to the command of
the Third Military District, and will assume it without delay. The
Department of the East will be commanded by the senior officer now on
duty in it until a commander is named by the President.
V. The officers assigned in the foregoing orders to command of mili-
tary districts will exercise therein any and all powers conferred by acts
of Congress upon district commanders, and also any and all powers per-
taining to military-department commanders.
By command of General Grant:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
G:eN:eRAi, Ordkrs, No. io.
Headquarters of thk Army,
Adjutant- General's Office,
Washington, February 12, 1868.
The following orders are published for the information and guidance
of all concerned:
Executive Mansion,
Washington, D. C, February 12, 1868.
General U. S. Grant,
Commanding Armies of the United States, Washington, D. C.
General: You will please issue an order creating a military division,
to be called the Military Division of the Atlantic, to be composed of the
Department of the Lakes, the Department of the East, and the Depart-
ment of Washington, and to be commanded by Lieutenant- General Wil-
liam T. Sherman, with his headquarters at Washington.
Until further orders from the President, you will assign no ofiicer to
the permanent command of the IV^ilitary Division of the Missouri.
Respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
Major-General P. H. Sheridan, the senior officer in the Military Divi-
sion of the Missouri, will temporarily perform the duties of commander of
Andrew Johnson 663
the Military Division of the Missouri, in addition to his duties of depart-
ment commander.
By command of General Grant:
E. D. TOWNSBND,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, February 21, 1868.
Hon. Edwin M.Stanton,
Washington, D. C.
Sir: By virtue of the power and authority vested in me as Presi-
dent by the Constitution and laws of the United States, you are hereby
removed from office as Secretary for the Department of War, and your
functions as such will terminate upon the receipt of this communication.
You will transfer to Brevet Major- General lyorenzo Thomas, Adjutant-
General of the Army, who has this day been authorized and empowered
to act as Secretary of War ad interim, all records, books, papers, and other
public property now in your custody and charge.
Respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCUTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, February 21, 1868.
Brevet Major- General I^orknzo Thomas,
Adjutant- General United States Army, Washington, D. C.
Sir: The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having been this day removed from
office as Secretary for the Department of War, you are hereby authorized
and empowered to act as Secretary of War ad interim, and will imme-
diately enter upon the discharge of the duties pertaining to that office.
Mr. Stanton has been instructed to transfer to you all the records,
books, papers, and other public property now in his custody and charge.
Respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
Gi^NKRAiv Orders, No. 17.
HE^ABQUARTKRS of THE) ArMY,
Adjutant-Ge)nkrai.'s Office),
Washington, March 28, 1868.
By direction of the President of the United States, Major-General
W. S. Hancock is relieved from command of the Fifth Military District
and assigned to command of the Military Division of the Atlantic, cre-
ated by General Orders, No. 10, of February 12, 1868.
By command of General Grant:
E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
664 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, May 28, 1868.
The chairman of the committee of arrangements having requested that
an opportunity may be given to those employed in the several Executive
Departments of the Government to unite with Lheir fellow-citizens in
paying a fitting tribute to the memory of the brave men whose remains
repose in the national cemeteries, the President directs that as far as may
be consistent with law and the public interests persons who desire to par-
ticipate in the ceremonies be permitted to absent themselves from their
duties on Saturday, the 30th instant.
By order of the President: ^^ ^ MOORE, Secretary.
KxKcuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C.,June z, 1868.
Major-General John M. Schofield having been appointed, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate, Secretary for the Department of
War, is hereby relieved from the command of the First Military District,
created by the act of Congress passed March 2, 1867.
Brevet Major-General George Stoneman is hereby assigned, according
to his brevet rapk of major-general, to the command of the said First
District and of the Military Department of Virginia.
The Secretary of War will please give the necessary instructions to
carry this order into effect. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Gknbrai. Ordkrs, No. 25.
H^ADQUART:eRS OF THK ArMY,
Adjutant- Gknkrai.'s Office,
Washington, June j, 1868.
I. The following order of the President has been received from the
War Department:
Washington, yij/;z^ 2, 1868.
The President with deep regret announces to the people of the United
States the decease, at Wheatland, Pa., on the ist instant, of his honored
predecessor James Buchanan.
This event will occasion mourning in the nation for the loss of an
eminent citizen and honored public servant.
As a mark of respect for his memory, it is ordered that the Executive
Departments be irnmediately placed in mourning and all business be sus-
pended on the day of the funeral.
It is further ordered that the War and Navy Departments cause suit-
able military and naval honors to be paid on this occasion to the memory
of the illustrious dead. ANDREW JOHNSON.
I
Andrew Johnson 665
II. In compliance with the instructions of the President and of the
Secretary of War, on the day after the receipt of this order at each mili-
tary post the troops will be paraded at 10 o'clock a. m. and the order read
to them, after which all labors for the day will cease.
The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.
At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired, and afterwards, at intervals
of thirty minutes between the rising and setting sun, a single gun, and
at the close of the day a National salute of thirty-seven guns.
The officers of the Army will wear crape on the left arm and on their
swords and the colors of the several regiments will be put in mourning
for the period of six months.
By command of General Grant: ^ ^ TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
Spkciai, Order.
Navy Department,
Washington, June j, 1868.
The death of ex- President James Buchanan is announced in the follow-
ing order of the President of the United States:
[For order see preceding page,]
In pursuance of the foregoing order, it is hereby directed that thirty
minute guns be fired at each of the navy-yards and naval stations on
Thursday, the 4th instant, the day designated for the funeral of the late
ex-President Buchanan, commencing at noon, and on board the flagships
in each squadron upon the day after the receipt of this order. The
flags at the several navy-yards, naval stations, and marine barracks will
be placed at half-mast until after the funeral, and on board all naval ves-
sels in commission upon the day after this order is received.
GIDKON WElylyKS, Secretary of the Navy,
Generai, Orders, No. 33.
Headquarters of the Army,
Adjutant-Generai^'s Office,
Washington, June ^o, 1868.
By direction of the President of the United States, the following orders
are made:
I. Brevet Major-General Irvin McDowell is relieved from the com-
mand of the Fourth Military District, and will report in person, without
delay, at the War Department.
II. Brevet Major-General Alvan C. Gillem is assigned to the command
of the Fourth Military District, and will assume it without delay.
By command of General Grant: -pv -p^ TOWNSEND
Assistant Adjutant-General.
666 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Gknkrai. Ordkrs, No 44.
H:Eadquartkrs of the Army,
Adjutant-Gknerai^'s Office,
Washington, July ij, 1868.
By direction of the President, Brigadier and Brevet Major- General
Irvin McDowell is assigned to the command of the Department of the
East.
The headquarters of the department will be transferred from Philadel-
phia to New York City.
By command of General Grant: -^ -p^ TOWNSEND
Assistant Adjutant- General,
GkneraIv Orders, No. 55.
Headquarters of the Army,
Adjutant-General's Office,
Washing to7i, Jidy 28, 1868.
The following orders from the War Department, which have been
approved by the President, are published for the information and gov-
ernment of the Army and of all concerned:
The commanding generals of the Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth
Military Districts having officially reported that the States of Arkansas,
North Carolina, South Carolina, I^ouisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Flor-
ida have fully complied with the acts of Congress known as the recon-
struction acts, including the act passed June 22, 1868, entitled "An act
to admit the State of Arkansas to representation in Congress," and the
act passed June 25, 1868, entitled "An act to admit the States of North
Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida to
representation in Congress," and that, consequently, so much of the act
of March 2, 1867, and the acts supplementary thereto as provides for
the organization of military districts, subject to the military authority
of the United States, as therein provided, has become inoperative in said
States, and that the con manding generals have ceased to exercise in
said States the military powers conferred by said acts of Congress: There-
fore the following changes will be made in the organization and com-
mand of military districts and geographical departments:
I. The Second and Third Military Districts having ceased to exist, the
States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida
will constitute the Department of the South, Major- General George G.
Meade to command. Headquarters at Atlanta, Ga.
II. The Fourth Military District will now consist only of the State of
Mississippi, and will continue to be commanded by Brevet Major-General
A. C. Gillem, *
Andrew Johnson 667
III. The Fifth MiHtary District will now consist of the State of Texas,
and will be commanded by Brevet Major-General J. J. Reynolds. Head-
quarters at Austin, Tex.
IV. The States of Louisiana and Arkansas will constitute the Depart-
ment of Louisiana, Brevet Major-General L. H. Rousseau is assigned
to the command. Headquarters at New Orleans, La. Until the arrival
of General Rousseau at New Orleans, Brevet Major-General Buchanan
will command the Department.
V. Brevet Major-General George Crook is assigned, according to his
brevet of major-general, to command the Department of the Columbia,
in place of Rousseau, relieved.
VI. Brevet Major-General E. R. S. Canby is reassigned to command
the Department of Washington.
*******
By command of General Grant: E. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant- General.
Under and in pursuance of the authority vested in the President of the
United States by the provisions of the second section of the act of Congress
approved on the 27th day of July, 1868, entitled "An act to extend the
laws of the United States relating to customs, commerce, and navigation
over the territory ceded to the United States by Russia, to estabhsh a col-
lection district therein, and for other purposes," the port of Sitka, in said
Territory, is hereby constituted and established as the port of entry for
the collection district of Alaska provided for by said act; and under and
in pursuance of the authority vested in him by the fourth section of said
act the importation and use of firearms, ammunition, and distilled spirits
into and within the said Territory, or any portion thereof, except as here-
inafter provided, is entirely prohibited, under the pains and penalties
specified in said last-named section: Provided, however, That under such
regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe, in accord-
ance with law, such articles may, in limited quantities, be shipped coast-
wise from United States ports on the Pacific coast to said port of Sitka,
and to that port only in said Territory, on the shipper giving bonds to the
collector of customs at the port of shipment, conditioned that such articles
will on their arrival at Sitka be delivered to the collector of customs, or
the person there acting as such, to remain in his possession and under his
control until sold or disposed of to such persons as the military or other
chief authority in said Territory may specially designate in permits for
that purpose signed by himself or a subordinate duly authorized by him.
Done at the city of Washington, this 22d day of August, A. D. 1868,
and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-third.
ANDREW JOHNSON, Presidefit.
668 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
SpkciaIv Orders, No. 219.
Headquarters of the Army,
Adjutant- General's Office,
Washington, September 12, 1868.
Ji« * ijc * * -J(i -J^
18. By direction of the President, Brevet Major- General L. H. Rous-
seau, brigadier-general, commanding Department of L^ouisiana, is hereby
assigned to duty according to his brevet rank of major-general. This
order to take effect when General Rousseau assumes command.
19. By direction of the President, paragraph 12 of Special Orders, No.
70, May 23, 1868, from this office, assigning Brevet Major-General R. C.
Buchanan, colonel First United States Infantry, to duty according to his
brevet rank of major-general, is hereby revoked, and he is hereby assigned
to duty according to his brevet rank of brigadier- general, in order that
he may command the District of Louisiana. This order to take effect
when General Rousseau assumes command of the Department of I^oui-
siana.
By command of General Grant: j p KELTON
Assistant Adjutant-General.
Generaiv Orders, No. 82.
Headquarters of the Army,
Adjutant- Gene RAID's Office,
Washington, October 10, 1868.
The following order has been received from the President, and by his
direction is pubhshed to the Army:
The following provisions from the Constitution and laws of the United
States in relation to the election of a President and Vice-President of the
United States, together with an act of Congress prohibiting all persons
engaged in the military and naval service from interfering in any general
or special election in any State, are published for the information and gov-
ernment of all concerned:
[Extract from Article II, section i, Constitution of the United States.]
The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
He shall hold his oflfice during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice-
President, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a
number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to
which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or
person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed "
an elector,
[Extract from Article XII, amendment to the Constitution of the United States.]
The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President
and Vice-President, one of whom at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State
Andrew Johnson
669
with themselves. They shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President,
and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President; and they shall make
distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-
President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify
and transmit sealed to the seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the
President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Sen-
ate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then
be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be the
President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed;
and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest num-
bers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as President, the House of
Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing
the President the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State
having one vote. A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members
from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a
choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President, whenever
the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the 4th day of March next follow-
ing, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other
constitutional disability of the President.
[Extract from "An act relative to the election of a President and Vice-President of the United
States, and declaring the officer who shall act as President in case of vacancies in the offices both
of President and Vice-President," approved March i, 1792.]
Sec. I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled, That * * * electors shall be appointed
in each State for the election of a President and Vice-President of the United States
* * * in every fourth year succeeding the last election, which electors shall be
equal to the number of Senators and Representatives to which the several States
may by law be entitled at the time when the President and Vice-President thus to be
chosen should come into office: Provided always, That where no apportionment of
Representati-ves shall have been made after any enumeration at the time of choosing
electors, then the number of electors shall be according to the existing apportionment
of Senators and Representatives.
["An act to establish a uniform time for holding elections for electors of President and Vice-Presi-
dent in all the States of the Union," approved January 23, 1845.]
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assem,bled. That the electors of President and Vice-President
shall be appointed in each State on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the
month of November of the year in which they are to be appointed: Provided, That
each State may by law provide for the filling of any vacancy or vacancies which may
occur in its college of electors when such college meets to give its electoral vote:
And provided also. When any State shall have held an election for the purpose of
choosing electors, and shall fail to make a choice on the day aforesaid, then the
electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the State shall
by law provide.
[Extracts from "An act relative to the election of a President and Vice-President of the United
States, and declaring the officer veho shall act as President in case of vacancies in the offices both
of President and Vice-President," approved March i, 1792.]
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted. That the electors shall meet and give their
votes on the said first Wednesday in December, at such place in each State as shall be
directed by the legislature thereof; and the electors in each State shall make and sign
three certificates of all the votes by them given, and shall seal up the same, certifying
on each that a list of the votes of such State for President and Vice-President is
contained therein, and shall, by writing under their hands or under the hands of a
majority of them, appoint a person to take charge of and deliver to the President
670 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of the Senate, at the seat of Government, before the first Wednesday in January then
next ensuing, one of the said certificates; and the said electors shall forthwith forward
by the post-office to the President of the Senate, at the seat of Government, one other
of the said certificates, and shall forthwith cause the other of the said certificates to
be delivered to the judge of that district in which the said electors shall assemble.
SKC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the executive authority of each State shall
ca:use three lists of the names of the electors of such State to be made and certified,
and to be delivered to the electors on or before the said first Wednesday in December,
and the said electors shall annex one of the said lists to each of the lists of their votes.
Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That if a list of votes from any State vshall not
have been received at the seat of Government on the said first Wednesday in January,
that then the Secretary of State shall send a special messenger to the district judge
in whose custody such list shall have been lodged, who shall forthwith transmit the
same to the seat of Government.
Sec. 5. And be it further enacted. That Congress shall-be in session on the second
Wednesday in February, 1793, and on the second Wednesday in February succeeding
every meeting of the electors, and the said certificates, or so many of them as shall
have been received, shall then be opened, the votes counted, and the persons who
shall fill the ofl&ces of President and Vice-President ascertained and declared agree-
ably to the Constitution.
Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That in case there shall be no President of the
Senate at the seat of Government on the arrival of the persons intrusted with the list
of the votes of the electors, then such persons shall deliver the lists of votes in their
custody into the ofiice of the Secretary of State, to be safely kept and delivered over
as soon as may be to the President of the Senate.
•3t -Sfr ^f -X- * ^f -X-
Sec. 8. And be it further enacted. That if any person appointed to deliver the
votes of the electors to the President of the Senate shall, after accepting of his ap-
pointment, neglect to perform the services required of him by this act, he shall
forfeit the sum of 1 1,000.
[Extract from "An act making compensation to the persons appointed by the electors to deliver
the votes for President and Vice-President," approved February 11, 1825.]
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assefnbled. That the person appointed by the electors to deliver
to the President of the Senate a list of the votes for President and Vice-President shall
be allowed, on delivery of said list, 25 cents for every mile of the estimated distance
by the most usual route from the place of meeting of the electors to the seat of Gov-
ernment of the United States, going and returning.
[Extract from "An act relative to the election of a President and Vice-President of the United
States, and declaring the officer who shall act as President in case of vacancies in the offices both
of President and Vice-President," approved March i, 1792.]
Sec. 12. And be it further enacted, That the term of four years for which a Presi-
dent and Vice-President shall be elected shall in all cases commence on the 4th day
of March next succeeding the day on which the votes of the electors shall have been
given.
["An act to prevent officers of the Army and Navy, and other persons engaged in the military and
naval service of the United States, from interfering in elections in the States," approved Febru-
ary 25, 1865.]
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled, That it shall not be lawful for any military or naval
officer of the United States, or other person engaged in the civil, military, or naval
service of the United States, to order, bring, keep, or have under his authority or
Andreiv Johnsoh 67 1
control any troops or armed men at the place where any general or special election
is held in any State of the United States of America, unless it shall be necessary to
repel the armed enemies of -the United States or to keep the peace at the polls. And
that it shall not be lawful for any officer of the Army or Navy of the United States
to prescribe or fix, or attempt to prescribe or fix, by proclamation, order, or otherwise,
the qualifications of voters in any State of the United States of America, or in any
manner to interfere with the freedom of any election in any State or with the exercise
of the free right of suffrage in any State of the United States. Any officer of the Army
or Navy of the United States, or other person engaged in the civil, military, or naval
service of the United States, who violates this section of this act shall for every such
offense be liable to indictment as for a misdemeanor in any court of the United States
having jurisdiction to hear, try, and determine cases of misdemeanor, and on convic-
tion thereof shall pay a fine not exceeding $5,000 and suffer imprisonment in the peni-
tentiary not less than three months nor more than five years, at the discretion of the
court trying the same; and any person convicted as aforesaid shall, moreover, be
disqualified from holding any office of honor, profit, or trust under the Government
of the United States: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed
as to prevent any officers, soldiers, sailors, or marines from exercising the right of suf-
frage in any election district to which he may belong, if otherwise qualified according
to the laws of the State in which he shall offer to vote.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That any officer or person in the military or
naval service of the United States who shall order or advise, or who shall, directly or
indirectly, by force, threat, menace, intimidation, or otherwise, prevent or attempt to
prevent any qualified voter of any State of the United States of America from freely
exercising the right of suffrage at any general or special election in any State of the
United States, or who shall in like manner compel or attempt to compel any officer
of an election in any such State to receive a vote from a person not legally qualified
to vote, or who shall impose or attempt to impose any rules or regulations for con-
ducting such election different from those prescribed by law, or interfere in any man-
ner with any officer of said election in the discharge of his duties, shall for any such
offense be liable to indictment as for a misdemeanor in any court of the United States
having jurisdiction to hear, try, and determine cases of misdemeanor, and on convic-
tion thereof shall pay a fine of not exceeding |5,ooo and suffer imprisonment in the
penitentiary not exceeding five years, at the discretion of the court trying the same;
and any person convicted as aforesaid shall, moreover, be disqualified from holding
any office of honor, profit, or trust under the Government of the United States.
By command of General Grant: ^ j^ TOWNSEND
A ssistant A djutant- General.
War Dkpartmbnt,
Washington City, November 4., 1868.
By direction of the President, Brevet Major- General K. R. S. Canby is
hereby assigned to the command of the Fifth Military District, created
by the act of Congress of March 2, 1867, and of the Military Department
of Texas, consisting of the State of Texas. He will, without unnecessary
delay, turn over his present command to the next officer in rank and
proceed to the command to which he is hereby assigned, and on assum-
ing the same will, when necessary to a faithful execution of the laws,
exercise any and all powers conferred by acts of Congress upon district
672 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
commanders and any and all authority pertaining to officers in command
of military departments.
Brevet Major- General J. J. Reynolds is hereby relieved from the com-
mand of the Fifth Military District.
J. M. SCHOFIEI.D,
Secretary of War.
FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.
Washington, December 9, 1868.
Fellow- Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
Upon the reassembling of Congress it again becomes my duty to call
your attention to the state of the Union and to its continued disorganized
condition under the various laws which have been passed upon the subject
of reconstruction.
It may be safely assumed as an axiom in the government of states that
the greatest wrongs inflicted upon a people are caused by unjust and
arbitrary legislation, or by the unrelenting decrees of despotic rulers,
and that the timely revocation of injurious and oppressive measures is
the greatest good that can be conferred upon a nation. The legislator
or ruler who has the wisdom and magnanimity to retrace his steps when
convinced of error will sooner or later be rewarded with the respect and
gratitude of an intelligent and patriotic people.
Our own history, although embracing a period less than a century,
affords abundant proof that most, if not all, of our domestic troubles are
directly traceable to violations of the organic law and excessive legisla-
tion. The most striking illustrations of this fact are furnished by the
enactments of the past three years upon the question of reconstruction.
After a fair trial they have substantially failed and proved pernicious
in their results, and there seems to be no good reason why they should
longer remain upon the statute book. States to which the Constitution
guarantees a republican form of government have been reduced to mili-
tary dependencies, in each of which the people have been made subject
to the arbitrary will of the commanding general. Although the Consti-
tution requires that each State shall be represented in Congress, Virginia,
Mississippi, and Texas are yet excluded from the two Houses, and, con-
trary to the express provisions of that instrument, were denied participa-
tion in the recent election for a President and Vice-President of the United
States. The attempt to place the white population under the domination
of persons of color in the South has impaired, if not destroyed, the kindly
relations that had previously existed between them; and mutual distrust
has engendered a feeling of animosity which, leading in some instances to
collision and bloodshed, has prevented that cooperation between the two
I
Andrew Johnson 673
races so essential to the success of industrial enterprise in the Southern
States. Nor have the inhabitants of those States alone suffered from the
disturbed condition of affairs growing out of these Congressional enact-
ments. The entire Union has been agitated by grave apprehensions of
troubles which might again involve the peace of the nation; its interests
have been injuriously affected by the derangement of business and labor,
and the consequent want of prosperity throughout that portion of the
country.
The Federal Constitution — the magna charta of American rights, under
whose wise and salutary provisions we have successfully conducted all our
domestic and foreign affairs, sustained ourselves in peace and in war, and
become a great nation among the powers of the earth — must assuredly be
now adequate to the settlement of questions growing out of the civil war,
waged alone for its vindication. This great fact is made most jnanifest
by the condition of the country when Congress assembled in the month
of December, 1865. Civil strife had ceased, the spirit of rebellion had
spent its entire force, in the Southern States the people had warmed into
national life, and throughout the whole country a healthy reaction in
public sentiment had taken place. By the application of the simple yet
effective provisions of the Constitution the executive department, with
the voluntary ai 1 of the States, had brought the work of restoration as
near completion as was within the scope of its authority, and the nation
was encouraged by the prospect of an early and satisfactory adjustment
of all its difficulties. Congress, however, intervened, and, refusing to
perfect the work so nearly consummated, declined to admit members frorii
the unrepresented States, adopted a series of measures which arrested the
progress of restoration, frustrated all that had been so successfully accom-
plished, and, after three years of agitation and strife, has left the country
further from the attainment of union and fraternal feeling than at the
inception of the Congressional plan of reconstruction. It needs no argu-
ment to show that legislation which has produced such baneful conse-
quences should be abrogated, or else made to conform to the genuine
principles of republican government.
Under the influence of party passion and sectional prejudice, other
acts have been passed not warranted by the Constitution. Congress has
already been made familiar with my views respecting the "tenure-of-
office bill." Experience has proved that its repeal is demanded by
the best interests of the country, and that while it remains in force the
President can not enjoin that rigid accountability of public officers so
essential to an honest and efficient execution of the laws. Its revoca-
tion would enable the executive department to exercise the power of
appointment and removal in accordance with the original design of the
Federal Constitution.
The act of March 2, 1867, making appropriations for the support of the
Army for the year ending June 30, 1868, and for other purposes, contains
]\! P— VOL, VI— 43
674 Messages and Papers of the Presidetits
provisions which interfere with the President's constitutional functions
as Commander in Chief of the Army and deny to States of the Union the
right to protect themselves by means of their own militia. These pro-
visions should be at once annulled; for while the first might, in times of
great emergency, seriously embarrass the Executive in efforts to employ
and direct the common strength of the nation for its protection and pres-
ervation, the other is contrary to the express declaration of the Consti-
tution that * ' a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of
a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed. ' '
It is believed that the repeal of all such laws would be accepted by the
American people as at least a partial return to the fundamental principles
of the Government, and an indication that hereafter the Constitution is to
be made the nation's safe and unerring guide. They can be productive
of no permanent benefit to the country, and should not be permitted to
stand as so many monuments of the deficient wisdom which has character-
ized our recent legislation.
The condition of our finances demands the early and earnest considera-
tion of Congress. Compared with the growth of our population, the pub-
lic expenditures have reached an amount unprecedented in our history.
The population of the United States in 1790 was nearly 4,000,000
people. Increasing each decade about 33 per cent, it reached in i860
31,000,000, an increase of 700 per cent on the population in 1790. In
1869 it is estimated that it will reach 38,000,000, or an increase of 868
per cent in seventy-nine years.
The annual expenditures of the Federal Government in 1791 were
$4,200,000; in 1820, $18,200,000; in 1850, forty-one millions; in i860,
sixty- three millions; in 1865, nearly thirteen hundred millions; and in
1869 it is estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury, in his last annual
report, that they will be three hundred and seventy-two millions.
By comparing the public disbursements of 1869, as estimated, with
those of 1 79 1, it will be seen that the increase of expenditure since the
beginning of the Government has been 8,618 per cent, while the increase
of the population for the same period was only 868 per cent. Again,
the expenses of the Government in i860, the year of peace immediately
preceding the war, were only sixty-three millions, while in 1869, the
year of peace three years after the war, it is estimated they will be three
hundred and seventy- two millions, an increase of 489 per cent, while the
increase of population was only 2 1 per cent for the same period.
These statistics further show that in 179 1 the annual national expenses,
compared with the population, were little more than $1 per capita, and
in i860 but $2 per capita; while in 1869 they will reach the extravagant
sum of $9.78 per capita.
It will be observed that all these statements refer to and exhibit the
disbursements of peace periods. It may, therefore, be of interest to com-
Andrew Johnson 675
pare the expenditures of the three war periods — the war with Great
Britain, the Mexican War, and the War of the RebelHon.
In 1 8 14 the annual expenses incident to the War of 18 12 reached their
highest amount — about thirty-one milhons — while our population shghtly
exceeded 8,000,000, showing an expenditure of only $3.80 per capita.
In 1847 the expenditures growing out of the war with Mexico reached
fifty-five millions, and the population about 21,000,000, giving only $2.60
per capita for the war expenses of that year. In 1865 the expenditures
called for by the rebellion reached the vast amount of twelve hundred
and ninety millions, which, compared with a population of 34,000,000,
gives $38.20 per capita.
From the 4th day of March, 1789, to the 30th of June, 1861, the entire
expenditures of the Government were $1,700,000,000. During that pe-
riod we were engaged in wars with Great Britain and Mexico, and were
involved in hostilities with powerful Indian tribes; lyouisiana was pur-
chased from France at a cost of $15,000,000; Florida was ceded to us
by Spain for five millions; California was acquired from Mexico for
fifteen millions, and the territory of New Mexico was obtained from
Texas for the sum of ten millions. Early in 186 1 the War of the Rebel-
lion commenced; and from the ist of July of that year to the 30th of
June, 1865, the public expenditures reached the enormous aggregate of
thirty-three hundred millions. Three years of peace have intervened,
and during that time the disbursements of the Government have succes-
sively been five hundred and twenty millions, three hundred and forty-six
millions, and three hundred and ninety-three millions. Adding to these
amounts three hundred and seventy-two millions, estimated as necessary
for the fiscal year ending the 30th of June, 1869, we obtain a total expend-
iture of $1,600,000,000 during the four years immediately succeeding the
war, or nearly as much as was expended during the seventy -two years
that preceded the rebellion and embraced the extraordinary expenditures
already named.
These startling facts clearly illustrate the necessity of retrenchment in
all branches of the public service. Abuses which were tolerated during
the war for the preservation of the nation will not be endured by the
people, now that profound peace prevails. The receipts from internal
revenues and customs have during the past three years gradually dimin-
ished, and the continuance of useless and extravagant expenditures will
involve us in national bankruptcy, or else make inevitable an increase of
taxes, already too onerous and in many respects obnoxious on account
of their inquisitorial character. One hundred millions annually are ex-
pended for the military force, a large portion of which is employed in the
execution of laws both unnecessary and unconstitutional; one hundred
and fifty millions are required each year to pay the interest on the public
debt; an army of taxgatherers impoverishes the nation, and public agents,
placed by Congress beyond the control of the Executive, divert from their
676 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
legitimate purposes large sums of money which they collect from the
people in the name of the Government. Judicious legislation and prudent
ecpnomy can alone remedy defects and avert evils which, if suffered to
exist, can not fail to diminish confidence in the public councils and
weaken the attachment and respect of the people toward their political
institutions. Without proper care the small balance which it is estimated
will remain in the Treasury at the close of the present fiscal year will not
be realized, and additional millions be added to a debt which is now enu-
merated by billions.
It is shown by the able and comprehensive report of the Secretary of
the Treasury that the receipts for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868,
were $405,638,083, and that the expenditures for the same period were
$377,340,284, leaving in the Treasury a surplus of $28,297,798. It is
estimated that the receipts during the present fiscal year, ending June 30,
1869, will be $341,392,868 and the expenditures $336,152,470, showing
a small balance of $5,240,398 in favor of the Government. For the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1870, it is estimated that the receipts will amount
to $327,000,000 and the expenditures to $303,000,000, leaving an esti-
mated surplus of $24,000,000.
It becomes proper in this connection to make a brief reference to our
public indebtedness, which has accumulated with such alarming rapidity
and assumed such colossal proportions.
In 1789, when the Government commenced operations under the Fed-
eral Constitution, it was burdened with an indebtedness of $75,000,000,
created during the War of the Revolution. This amount had been
reduced to $45,000,000 when, in 18 12, war was declared against Great
Britain. The three years' struggle that followed largely increased the na-
tional obligations, and in 18 16 they had attained the sum of $127,000,000.
Wise and economical legislation, however, enabled the Government to
pay the entire amount within a period of twenty years, and the extin-
guishment of the national debt filled the land with rejoicing and was
one of the great events of President Jackson's Administration. After its
redemption a large fund remained in the Treasury, which was deposited
for safe-keeping with the several States, on condition that it should be
returned when required by the public wants. In 1849 — the year after
the termination of an expensive war with Mexico — we found ourselves
involved in a debt of $64,000,000; and this was the amount owed by the
Government in i860, just prior to the outbreak of the rebellion. In the
spring of 1861 our civil war commenced. Each year of its continuance
made an enormous addition to the debt; and when, in the spring of 1865,
the nation successfully emerged from the conflict, the obligations of the
Government had reached the immense sum of $2,873,992,909. The
Secretary of the Treasury shows that on the ist day of November, 1867,
this amount had been reduced to $2,491,504,450; but at the same time
his report exhibits an increase during the past year of $35,625,102,
Andrew Johnson 677
for the debt on the ist day of November last is stated to have been
$2,527,129,552. It is estimated by the Secretary that the returns for
the past month will add to our liabilities the further sum of $11,000,000,
making a total increase during thirteen months of $46,500,000.
In my message to Congress December 4, 1865, it was suggested that a
policy should be devised which, without being oppressive to the people,
would at once begin to effect a reduction of the debt, and, if persisted in,
discharge it fully within a definite number of years. The Secretary of
the Treasury forcibly recommends legislation of this character, and justly
urges that the longer it is deferred the more difficult must become its
accomplishment. We should follow the wise precedents established in
1789 and .1816, and without further delay make provision for the pay-
ment of our obligations at as early a period as may be practicable. The
fruits of their labors should be enjoyed by our citizens rather than used
to build up and sustain moneyed monopolies in our own and other lands.
Our foreign debt is already computed by the Secretary of the Treasury
at $850,000,000; citizens of foreign countries receive interest upon a
large portion of our securities, and American taxpayers are made to con-
tribute large sums for their support. The idea that such a debt is to
become permanent should be at all times discarded as involving taxation
too heavy to be borne, and payment once in every sixteen years, at the
present rate of interest, of an amount equal to the original sum. This
vast debt, if permitted to become permanent and increasing, must even-
tually be gathered into the hands of a few, and enable them to exert a
dangerous and controlling power in the affairs of the Government. The
borrowers would become servants to the lenders, the lenders the masters
of the people. We now pride ourselves upon having given freedom to
4,000,000 of the colored race; it will then be our shame that 40,000,000
of people, by their own toleration of usurpation and profligacy, have
suffered themselves to become enslaved, and merely exchanged slave
owners for new taskmasters in the shape of bondholders and taxgath-
erers. Besides, permanent debts pertain to monarchical governments,
and, tending to monopolies, perpetuities, and class legislation, are totally
irreconcilable with free institutions. Introduced into our republican
system, they would gradually but surely sap its foundations, eventually
subvert our governmental fabric, and erect upon its ruins a moneyed aris-
tocracy. It is our sacred duty to transmit unimpaired to our posterity
the blessings of liberty which were bequeathed to us by the founders
of the Republic, and by our example teach those who are to follow us
carefully to avoid the dangers which threaten a free and independent
people.
Various plans have been proposed for the payment of the public debt.
However they may have varied as to the time and mode in which it
should be redeemed, there seems to be a general concurrence as to the
propriety and justness of a reduction in the present rate of interest. The
678
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Secretary of the Treasury in his report recommends 5 per cent; Con-
gress, in a bill passed prior to adjournment on the 27th of July last,
agreed upon 4 and 4>^ per cent; while by many 3 per cent has been held
to be an amply sufficient return for the investment. The general im-
pression as to the exorbitancy of the existing rate of interest has led to
an inquiry in the public mind respecting the consideration which the
Government has actually received for its bonds, and the conclusion is
becoming prevalent that the amount which it obtained was in real money
three or four hundred per cent less than the obligations which it issued
in return. It can not be denied that we are paying an extravagant per-
centage for the use of the money borrowed, which was paper currency,
greatly depreciated below the value of coin. This fact is made apparent
when we consider that bondholders receive from the Treasury upon each
dollar they own in Government securities 6 per cent in gold, which is
nearly or quite equal to 9 per cent in currency; that the bonds are then
converted into capital for the national banks, upon which those institu-
tions issue their circulation, bearing 6 per cent interest; and that they
are exempt from taxation by the Government and the States, and thereby
enhanced 2 per cent in the hands of the holders. We thus have an aggre-
gate of 1 7 per cent which may be received upon each dollar by the own-
ers of Government securities. A system that produces such results is
justly regarded as favoring a few at the expense of the many, and has
led to the further inquiry whether our bondholders, in view of the large
profits which they have enjoyed, would themselves be averse to a set-
tlement of our indebtedness upon a plan which would yield them a fair
remuneration and at the same time be just to the taxpayers of the nation.
Our national credit should be sacredly observed, but in making provision
for our creditors we should not forget what is due to the masses of the
people. It may be assumed that the holders of our securities have already
received upon their bonds a larger amount than their original investment,
measured by a gold standard. Upon this statement of facts it would
seem but just and equitable that the 6 per cent interest now paid by the
Government should be applied to the reduction of the principal in semi-
annual installments, which in sixteen years and eight months would
liquidate the entire national debt. Six per cent in gold would at present
rates be equal to 9 per cent in currency, and equivalent to the payment
of the debt one and a half times in a fraction less than seventeen years.
This, in connection with all the other advantages derived from their
investment, would afford to the public creditors a fair and liberal compen-
sation for the use of their capital, and with this they should be satisfied.
The lessons of the past admonish the lender that it is not well to be over-
anxious in exacting from the borrower rigid compliance with the letter
of the bond.
If provision be made for the payment of the indebtedness of the Govern-
ment in the manner suggested, our nation will rapidly recover its wonted
Andrew Johnson 679
prosperity. Its interests require that some measure should be taken to
release the large amount of capital invested in the securities of the Gov-
ernment. It is not now merely unproductive, but in taxation annually
consumes $150,000,000, which would otherwise be used by our enterpris-
ing people in adding to the wealth of the nation. Our commerce, which
at one time successfully rivaled that of the great maritime powers, has
rapidly diminished, and our industrial interests are in a depressed and
languishing condition. The development of our inexhaustible resources
is checked, and the fertile fields of the South are becoming waste for
want of means to till them. With the release of capital, new life would
be infused into the paralyzed energies of our people and activity and vigor
imparted to every branch of industry. Our people need encouragement
in their efforts to recover from the effects of the rebellion and of injudi-
cious legislation, and it should be the aim of the Government to stimulate
them by the prospect of an early release from the burdens which impede
their prosperity. If we can not take the burdens from their shoulders,
we should at least manifest a willingness to help to bear them.
In referring to the condition of the circulating medium, I shall merely
reiterate substantially that portion of my last annual message which relates
to that subject.
The proportion which the currency of any country should bear to the
whole value of the annual produce circulated by its means is a question
upon which political economists have not agreed. Nor can it be con-
trolled by legislation, but must be left to the irrevocable laws which
everywhere regulate commerce and trade. The circulating medium will
ever irresistibly flow to those points where it is in greatest demand. The
law of demand and supply is as unerring as that which regulates the
tides of the ocean; and, indeed, currency, like the tides, has its ebbs and
flows throughout the commercial world.
At the beginning of the rebellion the bank-note circulation of the coun-
try amounted to not much more than $200,000,000; now the circulation
of national-bank notes and those known as "legal-tenders" is nearly
seven hundred millions. While it is urged by some that this amount
should be increased, others contend that a decided reduction is absolutely
essential to the best interests of the country. In view of these diverse
opinions, it may be well to ascertain the real value of our paper issues
when compared with a metallic or convertible currency. For this pur-
pose let us inquire how much gold and silver could be purchased by the
seven hundred millions of paper money now in circulation. Probably
not more than half the amount of the latter; showing that when our
paper currency is compared with gold and silver its commercial value is
compressed into three hundred and fifty millions. This striking fact
makes it the obvious duty of the Government, as early as may be consist-
ent with the principles of sound political economy, to take such measures
as will enable the holders of its notes and those of the national banks to
68o
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
convert them , without loss, into specie or its equivalent. A reduction
of our paper circulating medium need not necessarily follow. This, how-
ever, would depend upon the law of demand and supply, though it vShould
be' borne in mind that by making legal-tender and bank notes convertible
into coin or its equivalent their present specie value in the hands of their
holders would be enhanced loo per cent.
lyCgislation for the accomplishment of a result so desirable is demanded
by the highest public considerations. The Constitution contemplates
that the circulating medium of the country shall be uniform in quality
and value. At the time of the formation of that instrument the country
had just emerged from the War of the Revolution, and was suffering from
the effects of a redundant and worthless paper currency. The sages of
that period were anxious to protect their posterity from the evils which
they themselves had experienced. Hence in providing a circulating me-
dium they conferred upon Congress the power to coin money and regulate
the value thereof, at the same time prohibiting the States from making
anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts.
The anomalous condition of our currency is in striking contrast with
that which was originally designed. Our circulation now embraces, first,
notes of the national banks, which are made receivable for all dues to the
Government, excluding imposts, and by all its creditors, excepting in
payment of interest upon its bonds and the securities themselves; second,
legal tender, issued by the United States, and which the law requires shall
be received as well in payment of all debts between citizens as of all
Government dues, excepting imposts; and, third, gold and silver coin.
By the operation of our present system of finance, however, the metallic
currency, when collected, is reserved only for one class of Government cred-
itors, who, holding its bonds, semiannually receive their interest in coin
from the National Treasury. There is no reason which will be accepted
as satisfactory by the people why those who defend us on the land and
protect us on the sea; the pensioner upon the gratitude of the nation,
bearing the scars and wounds received while in its service; the public
servants in the various departments of the Government; the farmer who
supplies the soldiers of the Army and the sailors of the Navy; the artisan
who toils in the nation's workshops, or the mechanics and laborers who
build its edifices and construct its forts and vessels of war, should, in pay-
ment of their just and hard-earned dues, receive depreciated paper, while
another class of their countrymen, no more deserving, are paid in coin of
gold and silver. Equal and exact justice requires that all the creditors
of the Government should be paid in a currency possessing a uniform
value. This can only be accomplished by the restoration of the currency
to the standard established by the Constitution, and by this means we
would remove a discrimination which may, if it has not already done
so, create a prejudice that may become deep-rooted and widespread and
imperil the national credit.
Andrew Johnson 68 1
The feasibility of making our currency correspond with the constitu-
tional standard may be seen by reference to a few facts derived from our
commercial statistics.
The aggregate product of precious metals in the United States from
1849 to 1867 amounted to $1,174,000,000, while for the same period
the net exports of specie were $741,000,000. This shows an excess of
product over net exports of $433,000,000. There are in the Treasury
$103,407,985 in coin; in circulation in the States on the Pacific Coast
about $40,000,000, and a few millions in the national and other banks —
in all less than $160,000,000. Taking into consideration the specie in
the country prior to 1849 and that produced since 1867, and we have
more than $300,000,000 not accounted for by exportation or by returns
of the Treasury, and therefore most probably remaining in the country.
These are important facts, and show how completely the inferior cur-
rency will supersede the better, forcing it from circulation among the
masses and causing it to be exported as a mere article of trade, to add
to the money capital of foreign lands. They show the necessity of retir-
ing our paper money, that the return of gold and silver to the avenues of
trade may be invited and a demand created which will cause the retention
at home of at least so much of the productions of our rich and inexhaust-
ible gold-bearing fields as may be sufficient for purposes of circulation.
It is unreasonable to expect a return to a sound currency so long as the
Government and banks, by continuing to issue irredeemable notes, fill
the channels of circulation with depreciated paper. Notwithstanding a
coinage by our mints since 1849 of $874,000,000, the people are now stran-
gers to the currency which was designed for their use and benefit, and
specimens of the precious metals bearing the national device are seldom
seen, except when produced to gratify the interest excited by their nov-
elty. If depreciated paper is to be continued as the permanent currency
of the country, and all our coin is to become a mere article of traffic and
speculation, to the enhancement in price of all that is indispensable to the
comfort of the people, it would be wise economy to abolish our mints,
thus saving the nation the care and expense incident to such establish-
ments, and let our precious metals be exported in bullion. The time
has come, however, when the Government and national banks should be
required to take the most efficient steps and make all necessary arrange-
ments for a resumption of specie payments. Let specie payments once
be earnestly inaugurated by the Government and banks, and the value of
the paper circulation would directly approximate a specie standard.
Specie payments having been resumed by the Government and banks,
all notes or bills of paper issued by either of a less denomination than
$20 should by law be excluded from circulation, so that the people may
have the benefit and convenience of a gold and silver currency which
in all their business transactions will be uniform in value at home and
abroad.
682 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Every man of property or industry, every man who desires to preserve what he
honestly possesses or to obtain what he can honestly earn, has a direct interest in
maintaining a safe circulating medium — such a medium as shall be real and sub-
stantial, not liable to vibrate with opinions, not subject to be blown up or blown
down by the breath of speculation, but to be made stable and secure. A disordered
currency is one of the greatest political evils. It undermines the virtues necessary
for the support of the social system and encourages propensities destructive of its
happiness; it wars against industry, frugality, and economy, and it fosters the evil
spirits of extravagance and speculation.
It has been asserted by one of our profound and most gifted statesmen
that—
Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been
more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is the most
effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's fields by the sweat of the poor
man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation — these bear lightly
on the happiness of the mass of the community compared with a fraudulent currency
and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has recorded
for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing tendency,
the injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the virtuous and well-disposed of
a degraded paper currency authorized by law or in any way countenanced by gov-
ernment.
It is one of the most successful devices, in times of peace or war, of
expansions or revulsions, to accomplish the transfer of all the precious
metals from the great mass of the people into the hands of the few,
where they are hoarded in secret places or deposited under bolts and
bars, while the people are left to endure all the inconvenience, sacrifice,
and demoralization resulting from the use of depreciated and worthless
paper.
The Secretary of the Interior in his report gives valuable information
in reference to the interests confided to the supervision of his Depart-
ment, and reviews the operations of the Land Office, Pension Office,
Patent Office, and Indian Bureau.
During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, 6,655,700 acres of public
land were disposed of. The entire cash receipts of the General Land
Office for the same period were $1,632,745, being greater by $284,883
than the amount realized from the same sources during the previous year.
The entries under the homestead law cover 2,328,923 acres, nearly one-
fourth of which was taken under the act of June 21, 1866, which applies
only to the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and
Florida.
On the 30th of June, 1868, 169,643 names were borne on the pension
rolls, and during the year ending on that day the total amount paid for
pensions, including the expenses of disbursement, was $24,010,982, being
$5,391,025 greater than that expended for like purposes during the pre-
ceding year.
During the year ending the 30th of September last the expenses of the
Andrew Johnson 683
Patent Office exceeded the receipts by $171, and, including reissues and
designs, 14,153 patents were issued.
Treaties with various Indian tribes have been concluded, and will be
submitted to the Senate for its constitutional action. I cordially sanc-
tion the stipulations which provide for reserving lands for the various
tribes, where they may be encouraged to abandon their nomadic habits
and engage in agricultural and industrial pursuits. This policy, inau-
gurated many years since, has met with signal success whenever it has
been pursued in good faith and with becoming liberality by the United
States. The necessity for extending it as far as practicable in our rela-
tions with the aboriginal population is greater now than at any preceding
period. Whilst we furnish subsistence and instruction to the Indians
and guarantee the undisturbed enjoyment of their treaty rights, we
should habitually insist upon the faithful observance of their agreement
to remain within their respective reservations. This is the only mode
by which collisions with other tribes and with the whites can be avoided
and the safety of our frontier settlements secured.
The companies constructing the railway from Omaha to Sacramento
have been most energetically engaged in prosecuting the work, and it is
believed that the line will be completed before the expiration of the next
fiscal year. The 6 per cent bonds issued to these companies amounted
on the 5th instant to $44,337,000, and additional work had been per-
formed to the extent of $3,200,000.
The Secretary of the Interior in August last invited my attention to
the report of a Government director of the Union Pacific Railroad Com-
pany who had been specially instructed to examine the location, con-
struction, and equipment of their road. I submitted for the opinion of
the Attorney- General certain questions in regard to the authority of the
Executive which arose upon this report and those which had from time
to time been presented by the commissioners appointed to inspect each
successive section of the work. After carefully considering the law of
the case, he affirmed the right of the Executive to order, if necessary, a
thorough revision of the entire road. Commissioners were thereupon
appointed to examine this and other lines, and have recently submitted a
statement of their investigations, of which the report of the Secretary of
the Interior furnishes specific information.
The report of the Secretary of War contains information of interest and
importance respecting the several bureaus of the War Department and the
operations of the Army. The strength of our military force on the 30th
of September last was 48,000 men, and it is computed that by the ist of
January next this number will be decreased to 43,000. It is the opinion
of the Secretary of War that within the next year a considerable diminu-
tion of the infantry force may be made without detriment to the interests
of the country; and in view of the great expense attending the military
684 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
peace establishment and the absolute necessity of retrenchment wherever
it can be applied, it is hoped that Congress will sanction the reduction
which his report recommends. While in i860 sixteen thousand three
hundred men cost the nation $16,472,000, the sum of $65,682,000 is esti-
mated as necessary for the support of the Army during the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1870. The estimates of the War Department for the last
two fiscal years were, for 1867, $33,814,461, and for 1868 $25,205,669.
The actual expenditures during the same periods were, respectively,
$95,224,415 and $123,246,648. The estimate submitted in December last
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, was $77,124,707; the expendi-
tures for the first quarter, ending the 30th of September last, were
$27,219, 117, and the Secretary of the Treasury gives $66,000,000 as the
amount which will probably be required during the remaining three
quarters, if there should be no reduction of the Army — making its aggre-
gate cost for the year considerably in excess of ninety-three millions.
The difference between the estimates and expenditures for the three fiscal
years which have been named is thus shown to be $175,545,343 for this
single branch of the* public service.
The report of the Secretary of the Navy exhibits the operations of that
Department and of the Navy during the year. A considerable reduction
of the force has been effected. There are 42 vessels, carrying 411 guns,
in the six squadrons which are established in different parts of the world.
Three of these vessels are returning to the United States and 4 are used
as storeships, leaving the actual cruising force 35 vessels, carrying 356
guns. The total number of vessels in the Navy is 206, mounting 1,743
guns. Eighty-one vessels of every description are in use, armed with
696 guns. The number of enlisted men in the service, including appren-
tices, has been reduced to 8,500. An increase of navy-yard facilities is
recommended as a measure which will in the event of war be promotive
of economy and security. A more thorough and systematic survey of
the North Pacific Ocean is advised in view of our recent acquisitions, our
expanding commerce, and the increasing intercourse between the Pacific
States and Asia. The naval pension fund, which consists of a moiety of
the avails of prizes captured during the war, amounts to $14,000,000.
Exception is taken to the act of 23d July last, which reduces the interest
on the fund loaned to the Government by the Secretary, as trustee, to 3
per cent instead of 6 per cent, which was originally stipulated when the
investment was made. An amendment of the pension laws is suggested
to remedy omissions and defects in existing enactments. The expendi-
tures of the Department during the last fiscal year were $20, 120,394, and
the estimates for the coming year amount to $20,993,414.
The Postmaster- General's report furnishes a full and clear exhibit of
the operations and condition of the postal service. The ordinary pos-
tal revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, was $16,292,600,
and the total expenditures, embracing all the service for which special
Andrew Johnson 685
appropriations have been made by Congress, amounted to $22,730,592,
showing an excess of expenditures of $6,437,991. Deducting from the
expenditures the sum of $1,896,525, the amount of appropriations for
ocean-steamship and other special service, the excess of expenditures
v^as $4,541,466. By using an unexpended balance in the Treasury of
$3,800,000 the actual sum for which a special appropriation is required
to meet the deficiency is $741 ,466. The causes which produced this large
excess of expenditure over revenue were the restoration of service in the
late insurgent States and the putting into operation of new service estab-
lished by acts of Congress, which amounted within the last two years and
a half to about 48,700 miles — equal to more than one- third of the whole
amount of the service at the close of the war. New postal conventions
with Great Britain, North Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzer-
land, and Italy, respectively, have been carried into effect. Under their
provisions important improvements have resulted in reduced rates of in-
ternational postage and enlarged mail facilities with European countries.
The cost of the United States transatlantic ocean mail service since
January i, 1868, has been largely lessened under the operation of these
new conventions, a reduction of over one-half having been effected under
the new arrangements for ocean mail steamship service which went into
effect on that date. The attention of Congress is invited to the practical
suggestions and recommendations made in his report by the Postmaster -
General.
No important question has occurred during the last year in our accus-
tomed cordial and friendly intercourse with Costa Rica, Guatemala, Hon-
duras, San Salvador, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal,
the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, Rome, Greece, Turkey,
Persia, Egypt, lyiberia, Morocco, Tripoli, Tunis, Muscat, Siam, Borneo,
and Madagascar.
Cordial relations have also been maintained with the Argentine and
the Oriental Republics. The expressed wish of Congress that our na-
tional good offices might be tendered to those Republics, and also to
Brazil and Paraguay, for bringing to an end the calamitous war which
has so long been raging in the valley of the La Plata, has been assidu-
ously complied with and kindly acknowledged by all the belligerents.
That important negotiation, however, has thus far been without result.
Charles A. Washburn, late United States minister to Paraguay, having
resigned, and being desirous to return to the United States, the rear-
admiral commanding the South Atlantic Squadron was early directed to
send a ship of war to Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, to receive Mr.
Washburn and his family and remove them from a situation which was
represented to be endangered by faction and foreign war. The Brazilian
commander of the allied invading forces refused permission to the Wasp
to pass through the blockading forces, and that vessel returned to its
accustomed anchorage. Remonstrance having been made against this
686 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
refusal, it was promptly overruled, and the Wasp therefore resumed her
errand, received Mr. Washburn and his family, and conveyed them to a
safe and convenient seaport. In the meantime an excited controversy
had arisen between the President of Paraguay and the late United States
minister, which, it is understood, grew out of his proceedings in giving
asylum in the United States legation to alleged enemies of that Republic.
The question of the right to give asylum is one always difficult and often
productive of great embarrassment. In states well organized and estab-
lished, foreign powers refuse either to concede or exercise that right,
except as to persons actually belonging to the diplomatic service. On
the other hand, all such powers insist upon exercising the right of asylum
in states where the law of nations is not fully acknowledged, respected,
and obeyed.
The President of Paraguay is understood to have opposed to Mr. Wash-
burn's proceedings the injurious and very improbable charge of personal
complicity in insurrection and treason. The correspondence, however,
has not yet reached the United States.
Mr. Washburn, in connection with this controversy, represents that two
United States citizens attached to the legation were arbitrarily seized at
his side, when leaving the capital of Paraguay, committed to prison, and
there subjected to torture for the purpose of procuring confessions of
their own criminality and testimony to support the President's allegations
against the United States minister. Mr. McMahon, the newly appointed
minister to Paraguay, having reached the I^a Plata, has been instructed
to proceed without delay to Asuncion, there to investigate the whole sub-
ject. The rear-admiral commanding the United States South Atlantic
Squadron has been directed to attend the new minister with a proper naval
force to sustain such just demands as the occasion may require, and to
vindicate the rights of the United States citizens referred to and of any
others who may be exposed to danger in the theater of war. With these
exceptions, friendly relations have been maintained between the United
States and Brazil and Paraguay.
Our relations during the past year with Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and
Chile have become especially friendly and cordial. Spain and the Repub-
lics of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador have expressed their willingness to
accept the mediation of the United States for terminating the war upon
the South Pacific coast. Chile has not finally declared upon the question.
In the meantime the conflict has practically exhausted itself, since no
belligerent or hostile movement has been made by either party during the
last two years, and there are no indications of a present purpose to resume
hostilities on either side. Great Britain and France have cordially sec-
onded our proposition of mediation, and I do not forego the hope that it
may soon be accepted by all the belligerents and lead to a secure estab-
lishment of peace and friendly relations between the Spanish American
Republics of the Pacific and Spain — a result which would be attended
A^idrezv Johnson 68/
with common benefits to the belHgerents and much advantage to all
commercial nations. I communicate, for the consideration of Congress,
a correspondence which shows that the Bolivian Republic has established
the extremely liberal principle of receiving into its citizenship any citizen
of the United States, or of any other of the American Republics, upon
the simple condition of voluntary registry.
The correspondence herewith submitted will be found painfully replete
with accounts of the ruin and wretchedness produced by recent earth-
quakes, of unparalleled severity, in the Republics of Peru, Ecuador, and
Bolivia. The diplomatic agents and naval officers of the United States
who were present in those countries at the time of those disasters fur-
nished all the relief in their power to the sufferers, and were promptly
rewarded with grateful and touching acknowledgments by the Congress of
Peru. An appeal to the charity of our fellow-citizens has been answered
by much liberality. In this connection I submit an appeal which has been
made by the Swiss Republic, whose Government and institutions are kin-
dred to our own, in behalf of its inhabitants, who are suffering extreme
destitution, produced by recent devastating inundations.
Our relations with Mexico during the year have been marked by an
increasing growth of mutual confidence. The Mexican Government
has not yet acted upon the three treaties celebrated here last summer
for establishing the rights of naturalized citizens upon a liberal and just
basis, for regulating consular powers, and for the adjustment of mutual
claims.
All commercial nations, as well as all friends of republican institutions,
have occasion to regret the frequent local disturbances which occur in some
of the constituent States of Colombia. Nothing has occurred, however,
to affect the harmony and cordial friendship which have for several years
existed between that youthful and vigorous Republic and our own.
Negotiations are pending with a view to the survey and construction of
a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, under the auspices of the United
States. I hope to be able to submit the results of that negotiation to the
Senate during its present session.
The very liberal treaty which was entered into last year by the United
States and Nicaragua has been ratified by the latter Republic.
Costa Rica, with the earnestness of a sincerely friendly neighbor, solicits
a reciprocity of trade, which I commend to the consideration of Congress.
The convention created by treaty between the United States and Vene-
zuela in July, 1865, for the mutual adjustment of claims, has been held,
and its decisions have been received at the Department of State. The
heretofore-recognized Government of the United States of Venezuela has
been subverted. A provisional government having been instituted under
circumstances which promise durability, it has been formally recognized.
I have been reluctantly obliged to ask explanation and satisfaction
for national injuries committed by the President of Hayti. The political
688 Messages and Papers of the Presidejits
and social condition of the Republics of Ha3^ti and St. Domingo is very
unsatisfactory and painful. The abolition of slavery, which has been
carried into effect throughout the island of St. Domingo and the entire
West Indies, except the Spanish islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, has been
followed by a profound popular conviction of the rightfulness of repub-
lican institutions and an intense desire to secure them. The attempt,
however, to establish republics there encounters many obstacles, most of
which may be supposed to result from long-indulged habits of colonial
supineness and dependence upon European monarchical powers. While
the United States have on all occasions professed a decided unwillingness
that any part of this continent or of its adjacent islands shall be made a
theater for a new establishment of monarchical power, too little has been
done by us, on the other hand, to attach the communities by which we
are surrounded to our own country, or to lend even a moral support to
the efforts they are so resolutely and so constantly making to secure
republican institutions for themselves. It is indeed a question of grave
consideration whether our recent and present example is not calculated
to check the growth and expansion of free principles, and make those
communities distrust, if not dread, a government which at will consigns
to military domination States that are integral parts of our Federal Union,
and, while ready to resist any attempts by other nations to extend to this
hemisphere the monarchical institutions of Europe, assumes to establish
over a large portion of its people a rule more absolute, harsh, and tyran-
nical than any known to civilized powers.
The acquisition of Alaska was made with the view of extending na-
tional jurisdiction and republican principles in the American hemisphere.
Believing that a further step could be taken in the same direction, I last
year entered into a treaty with the King of Denmark for the purchase of
the islands of St. Thomas and St. John, on the best terms then attainable,
and with the express consent of the people of those islands. This treaty
still remains under consideration in the Senate. A new convention has
been entered into with Denmark, enlarging the time fixed for final rati-
fication of the original treaty.
Comprehensive national policy would seem to sanction the acquisition
and incorporation into our Federal Union of the several adjacent conti-
nental and insular communities as speedily as it can be done peacefully,
lawfully, and without any violation of national justice, faith, or honor.
Foreign possession or control of those communities has hitherto hindered
the growth and impaired the influence of the United States. Chronic
revolution and anarchy there would be equally injurious. Each one of
them, when firmly established as an independent republic, or when incor-
porated into the United States, would be a new source of strength and
power. Conforming my Administration to these principles, I have on no
occasion lent support or toleration to unlawful expeditions set on foot
upon the plea of republican propagandism or of national extension or
Andrew Johnson 689
aggrandizement. The necessity, however, of repressing such unlawful
movements clearly indicates the duty which rests upon us of adapting
our legislative action to the new circumstances of a decline of European
monarchical power and influence and the increase of American republican
ideas, interests, and sympathies.
It can not be long before it will become necessary for this Government
to lend some effective aid to the solution of the political and social prob-
lems which are continually kept before the world by the two Republics
of the island of St. Domingo, and which are now disclosing themselves
more distinctly than heretofore in the island of Cuba. The subject is
commended to your consideration with all the more earnestness because
I am satisfied that the time has arrived when even so direct a proceeding
as a proposition for an annexation of the two Republics of the island of
St. Domingo would not only receive the consent of the people interested,
but would also give satisfaction to all other foreign nations.
I am aware that upon the question of further extending our posses-
sions it is apprehended by. some that our political system can not success-
fully be applied to an area more extended than our continent; but the
conviction is rapidly gaining ground in the American mind that with
the increased facilities for intercommunication between all portions of the
earth the principles of free government, as embraced in our Constitution,
if faithfully maintained and carried out, would prove of sufficient strength
and breadth to comprehend within their sphere and influence the civil-
ized nations of the world.
The attention of the Senate and of Congress is again respectfully
invited to the treaty for the establishment of commercial reciprocity with
the Hawaiian Kingdom entered into last year, and already ratified by that
Government. The attitude of the United States toward these islands is
not very different from that in which they stand toward the West Indies.
It is known and felt by the Hawaiian Government and people that their
Government and institutions are feeble and precarious; that the United
States, being so near a neighbor, would be unwilling to see the islands
pass under foreign control. Their prosperity is continually disturbed by
expectations and alarms of unfriendly political proceedings, as well from
the United States as from other foreign powers. A reciprocity treaty,
while it could not materially diminish the revenues of the United States,
would be a guaranty of the good will and forbearance of all nations until
the people of the islands shall of themselves, at no distant day, volun-
tarily apply for admission into the Union.
The Emperor of Russia has acceded to the treaty negotiated here in
January last for the security of trade-marks in the interest of manufac-
turers and commerce. I have invited his attention to the importance of
establishing, now while it seems easy and practicable, a fair and equal
regulation of the vast fisheries belonging to the two nations in the waters
of the North Pacific Ocean.
M P— vol, VI— 44
690
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
The two treaties between the United States and Italy for the regula-
tion of consular powers and the extradition of criminals, negotiated and
ratified here during the last session of Congress, have been accepted
and confirmed by the Italian Government. A liberal consular conven-
tion which has been negotiated with Belgium will be submitted to the
Senate. The very important treaties which were negotiated between
the United States and North Germany and Bavaria for the regulation
of the rights of naturalized citizens have been duly ratified and ex-
changed, and similar treaties have been entered into with the Kingdoms
of Belgium and Wurtemberg and with the Grand Duchies of Baden and
Hesse-Darmstadt. I hope soon to be able to submit equally satisfactory
conventions of the same character now in the course of negotiation with
the respective Governments of Spain, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire.
Examination of claims against the United States by the Hudsons Bay
Company and the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, on account of
certain possessory rights in the State of Oregon and Territory of Wash-
ington, alleged by those companies in virtue of provisions of the treaty
between the United States and Great Britain of June 15, 1846, has been
diligently prosecuted, under the direction of the joint international com-
mission to which they were submitted for adjudication by treaty between
the two Governments of July i, 1863, and will, it is expected, be concluded
at an early day.
No practical regulation concerning colonial trade and the fisheries can
be accomplished by treaty between the United States and Great Britain
until Congress shall have expressed their judgment concerning the prin-
ciples involved. Three other questions, however, between the United
States and Great Britain remain open for adjustment. These are the
mutual rights of naturalized citizens, the boundary question involving
the title to the island of San Juan, on the Pacific coast, and mutual
claims arising since the year 1853 of the citizens and subjects of the two
countries for injuries and depredations committed under the authority
of their respective Governments. Negotiations upon these subjects are
pending, and I am not without hope of being able to lay before the Sen-
ate, for its consideration during the present session, protocols calculated
to bring to an end these justly exciting and long-existing controversies.
We are not advised of the action of the Chinese Government upon the
liberal and auspicious treaty which was recently celebrated with its pleni-
potentiaries at this capital.
Japan remains a theater of civil war, marked by religious incidents
and political severities peculiar to that long-isolated Empire. The Exec-
utive has hitherto maintained strict neutrality among the belligerents,
and acknowledges with pleasure that it has been frankly and fully sus-
tained in that course by the enlightened concurrence and cooperation of
the other treaty powers, namely. Great Britain, France, the Netherlands,
North Germany, and Italy.
Andrew Johnson 691
Spain having recently undergone a revolution marked by extraordi-
nary unanimity and preservation of order, the provisional government
established at Madrid has been recognized, and the friendly intercourse
which has so long happily existed between the two countries remains
unchanged.
I renew the recommendation contained in my communication to Con-
gress dated the i8th July last — a copy of which accompanies this mes-
sage— that the judgment of the people should be taken on the propriety
of so amending the Federal Constitution that it shall provide —
First. For an election of President and Vice-President by a direct vote
of the people, instead of through the agency of electors, and making
them ineligible for reelection to a second term.
Second. For a distinct designation of the person who shall discharge
the duties of President in the event of a vacancy in that office by the
death, resignation, or removal of both the President and Vice-President.
Third. For the election of Senators of the United States directly by
the people of the several States, instead of by the legislatures; and
Fourth. For the limitation to a period of years of the terms of Federal
judges.
Profoundly impressed with the propriety of making these important
modifications in the Constitution, I respectfully submit them for the early
and mature consideration of Congress. We should, as far as possible,
remove all pretext for violations of the organic law, by remedying such
imperfections as time and experience may develop, ever remembering
that ' * the constitution which at any time exists until changed by an
explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory
upon all."
In the performance of a duty imposed upon me by the Constitution, I
have thus communicated to Congress information of the state of the
Union and recommended for their consideration such measures as have
seemed to me necessary and expedient. If carried into eifect, they will
hasten the accomplishment of the great and beneficent purposes for
which the Constitution was ordained, and which it comprehensively
states were * * to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domes-
tic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general wel-
fare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
In Congress are vested all legislative powers, and upon them devolves
the responsibility as well for framing unwise and excessive laws as for
neglecting to devise and adopt measures absolutely demanded by the
wants of the country. Let us earnestly hope that before the expiration
of our respective terms of service, now rapidly drawing to a close, an all-
wise Providence will so guide our counsels as to strengthen and preserve
the Federal Union, inspire reverence for the Constitution, restore pros-
perity and happiness to our whole people, and promote **on earth peace,
good will toward men. ' ' ANDREW JOHNSON.
692 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington, December 8, 1868.
To the Se7iate ayid House of Representatives:
I transmit a copy of a note of the 24th of November last addressed to
the Secretary of State by the minister of Great Britain, communicating a
decree of the district court of the United States for the southern district
of New York ordering the payment of certain sums to the defendants
in a suit against the Knghsh schooner Sibyl, libeled as a prize of war.
It is requisite for the fulfillment of the decree that an appropriation of
the sums specified therein should be made by Congress. The appropria-
tion is recommended accordingly. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 11, 1868.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 7th
instant, relating to the correspondence with the American minister at
London concerning the so-called Alabama claims, I transmit a report on
the subject from the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 16, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 14th
December instant, I transmit the accompanying report* of the Secretary
^^ ^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 16, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 14th
instant, requCvSting the correspondence which has taken place between
the United States minister at Brazil and Rear- Admiral Davis touch-
ing the disposition of the American squadron at Rio Janeiro and the
Paraguay difficulties, I transmit a report of the Secretary of State upon
that subject. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 16, 1868.
To the Senate of the United States:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 8th instant, concerning
recent transactions in the region of the La Plata affecting the political
* Relating to the sending of a commissioner from the United States to Spain.
Andrew Johnson 693
relations of the United States with Paraguay, the Argentine RepubUc,
Uruguay, and Brazil, I transmit a report of the Secretary of State, which
is accompanied by a copy of the papers called for by the resolution.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, December 18, 1868.
To the House of Representatives:
I herewith communicate a report of the Secretary of the Interior, in
answer to a resolution adopted by the House of Representatives on the
1 6th instant, making inquiries in reference to the Union Pacific Railroad
and requesting the transmission of the report of the special commission-
ers appointed to examine the construction and equipment of the road.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<2;z2^^rK ^, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in compliance with the request contained in
its resolution of the 15th ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State,
communicating information in regard to the action of the mixed commis-
sion for the adjustment of claims by citizens of the United States against
the Government of Venezuela. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 4., 1869.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary
of State, with accompanying papers, in relation to the resolution of Con-
gress approved July 20, 1867, ** declaring sympathy with the suffering
people of Crete." ANDREW JOHNSON.
[The same message was sent to the Senate.]
Washington, y(2;22^<2ri/ 4., i86p.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, an additional article to the convention of the 24th of October, 1867,
between the United States and His Majesty the King of Denmark.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 5, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention between the United States and His Hawaiian Majesty,
694 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
signed in this city on the 28th day of July last, stipulating for an exten-
sion of the period for the exchange of the ratifications of the convention
between the same parties on the subject of commercial reciprocity.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 7, 1869.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit herewith, in answer to a resolution of the House of Repre-
sentatives of the 1 6th of December last, a report* from the Secretary of
state of the 6th instant. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C.January 8, i86g.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
In conformity with the requirements of the sixth section of the act of
the 2 2d of June, i860, to carry into effect provisions of the treaty with
China and certain other Oriental nations, I transmit to Congress a copy
of eight rules agreed upon between the Chinese Imperial Government
and the minister of the United States and those of other foreign powers
accredited to that Government, for conducting the proceedings of the
joint tribunal in cases of confiscation and fines for breaches of the rev-
enue laws of that Empire. These rules, which are accompanied by cor-
respondence between our minister and Secretary of State on the subject,
are commended to the consideration of Congress with a view to their
approval. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 8, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 17th
ultimo, a report f from the Secretary of State, with an accompanying
P^P^^' ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 11, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifi-
cation, a convention between the United States and Belgium upon the
subject of naturaUzation, which was signed at Brussels on the i6th of
November last. ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Giving reasons why reductions in the number of officers and employees and in the salaries and
expenses of the Department of State should not be made.
t Relating to the exercise or claim by United States consuls in Japan of judicial powers in cases
arising between American citizens and citizens or subjects of any foreign nation other than Japan-.
etc.
i
Andrew Johnson 695
Washington, /<3;««ar)/ n^ i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention between the United States and Belgium concerning
the rights, privileges, and immunities of consuls in the two countries,
signed at Brussels on the 5th ultimo.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 11, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, an additional article of the treaty of commerce and navigation
between the United States and Belgium of the 17th of July, 1858, which
was signed at Brussels on the 20th ultimo.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 12^ i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit a copy of a convention between the United States and Peru,
signed at lyima on the 4th of last month, stipulating for a mixed commis-
sion for the adjustment of claims of citizens of the two countries. An
extract from that part of the dispatch of the minister of the United States
at Lima which accompanied the copy referred to, and which relates to
it, is also transmitted. It will be seen from this extract that it is desir-
able that the decision of the Senate upon the instrument should be given
as early as may be convenient. It is consequently recommended for con-
sideration with a view to ratification.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C,
January ij, 186 p.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded at Washington, D. C, August 13, 1868, between the
United States and the Nez Perce tribe of Indians, which treaty is supple-
mental to and amendatory of the treaty concluded with said tribe June 9,
1863. A communication from the Secretary of the Interior of the 12th
instant, inclosing a copy of a report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
of the nth instant, is also herewith transmitted.*
ANDREW JOHNSON.
♦Note by the Executive Clerk of the Senate.— " The communication from the Secretary
of the Interior and this report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs did not accompany the above
communication from the President."
696 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
W AS^T^Q'tO'^ , January i^, i86p.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, together with
the original papers accompanying the same, submitted in compHance
with the resolution of the Senate of the 5th instant, requesting such
information as is furnished by the files of the War Department in rela-
tion to the erection of fortifications at lyawrence, Kans., in 1864 and
^^^5- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fanua^y 75, 186 p.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for the opinion of the Senate as to the expediency of con-
cluding a convention based thereupon, a protocol, signed at lyondon on the
9th of October last, for regulating the citizenship of citizens of the United
States who have emigrated or who may emigrate from the United States
to the British dominions, and of British subjects who have emigrated or
who may emigrate from the British dominions to the United States of
America. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, fanuary 75, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view to its ratifica-
tion, a copy of a treaty between the United States and Great Britain,
signed yesterday at London, providing for the reference to an arbiter of
the question of difference between the United States and Great Britain
concerning the northwest line of water boundary between the United
States and the British possessions in North America. It is expected
that the original of the convention will be forwarded by the steamer
which leaves lyiverpool to-morrow. Circumstances, however, to which
it is unnecessary to advert, in my judgment make it advisable to com-
municate to the Senate the copy referred to in advance of the arrival of
the original instrument. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 75, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for consideration with a view of its ratifica-
tion, a copy of a convention between the United States and Great Britain,
signed yesterday at London, providing for the adjustment of all out-
standing claims of the citizens and subjects of the parties, respectively.
It is expected that the original of the convention will be forwarded
by the steamer which leaves Liverpool to-morrow. Circumstances, how-
Andrew Johnson 697
ever, to which it is unnecessary to advert, in my judgment make it advis-
able to communicate to the Senate the copy referred to in advance of the
arrival of the original instrument.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. Q.., January 18, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
The resolution adopted on the 5th instant, requesting the President
* ' to transmit to the Senate a copy of any proclamation of amnesty made
by him since the last adjournment of Congress, and also to communicate
to the Senate by what authority of law the same was made," has been
received.
I accordingly transmit herewith a copy of a proclamation dated the
25th day of December last. The authority of law by which it was made
is set forth in the proclamation itself, which expressly affirms that it was
issued ' * by virtue of the power and authority in me vested by the Con-
stitution, and in the name of the sovereign people of the United States,"
and proclaims and declares "unconditionally and without reservation,
to all and to every person who, directly or indirectly, participated in the
late insurrection or rebellion, a full pardon and amnesty for the offense
of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies dur-
ing the late civil war, wnth restoration of all rights, privileges, and immu-
nities under the Constitution and the laws which have been made in
pursuance thereof. ' '
The Federal Constitution is understood to be and is regarded by the
Executive as the supreme law of the land. The second section of article
second of that instrument provides that the President ' ' shall have power
to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States,
except in cases of impeachment. ' ' The proclamation of the 25th ultimo
is in strict accordance with the judicial expositions of the authority thus
conferred upon the Executive, and, as will be seen by reference to the
accompanying papers, is in conformity with the precedent established by
Washington in 1795, and followed by President Adams in 1800, Madison
in 18 1 5, and Eincoln in 1863, and by the present Executive in 1865, 1867,
^^^ ^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 20, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, made in com-
pliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 19th ultimo, requesting
information in reference to the payment of rent for the use of the build-
ing known as the Libby Prison, in the city of Richmond, Va.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
698 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, January 22, i86p.
To the Senate of the U^iited States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, an additional article to the convention between the United States
and His Majesty the King of Italy for regulating the jurisdiction of
^°^^"^®- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<3!W2^«rj/ 22, i86g.
To the Senate of the U^iited States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratifica-
tion, an additional article to the convention between the United States
and His Majesty the King of Italy for the mutual extradition of crimi-
nals fugitives from justice. ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCuTivK Mansion, January 23, 1869,
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for the constitutional action of that
body, a treaty concluded at the council house on the Cattaraugus Res-
ervation, in Erie County, N. Y., on the 4th day of December, 1868, by
Walter R. Irwin, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the
duly authorized representatives of the several tribes and bands of Indians
residing in the State of New York, A copy of a letter from the Secretary
of the Interior, dated the 22d instant, and the papers therein referred to,
in relation to the treaty, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<2;z««rj/ 26, 186 p.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit for the consideration of Congress, in conformity with the
requirements of the sixth section of the act of the 2 2d of June, i860, a
copy of certain regulations for the consular courts in China, prohibiting
steamers sailing under the flag of the United States from using or passing
through the Straw Shoe Channel on the river Yangtse, decreed by S.
Wells Williams, charge d'affaires, on the ist of June, and promulgated
by George F. Seward, consul-general at Shanghai, on the 25th of July,
1868, with the assent of five of the United States consuls in China, G. H.
Colton Salter dissenting. His objections to the regulations are set forth
in the accompanying copy of a communication of the loth of October
last, inclosed in Consul- General Seward's dispatch of the 14th of the
^me month to the Secretary of State, a copy of which is also transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Andrew Johnson 699
Washington, D. Q,., January 26, i86g.
To the Senate and House oj Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a report from the Secretary of State, with accom-
panying documents, in relation to the gold medal presented to Mr. George
Peabody pursuant to the resolution of Congress of March 16, 1867.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, /<2;2z^ar>/ ^7, i86g.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolution
of the 23d instant, the accompanying report* from the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 2y, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of War, upon
the subject of the resolution of the Senate of the 21st instant, requesting
a copy of the report of Brevet Major- General William S. Harney upon the
Sioux and other Indians congregated under treaties made with them by
the special peace commission. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January 29, i86g.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to a resolution
of the House of Representatives without date, received at the Executive
Mansion on the loth of December, calling for correspondence in relation
to the cases of Messrs. Costello and Warren, naturalized citizens of the
United States imprisoned in Great Britain, a report from the Secretary
of State and the papers to which it refers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExECuTivB Mansion, /<a:«2^ar)/ 2g, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its consideration in connection
with the treaty with the New York Indians concluded November 4, 1868,
which is now before that body for its constitutional action, an additional
article of said treaty as an amendment.
A communication, dated the 28th instant, from the Secretary of the
Interior, and a copy of a report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
explaining the object of the amendment, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
* Relating to buildings occupied in Washington by Departments of the Government,
700 Messages and Papers of the Preside^its
Washington, February z, i86g.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the
1 6th of December last, in relation to the arrest of American citizens in
Paraguay, I transmit a report of the Secretary of State.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February z, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
In further answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 8th of Decem-
ber last, concerning recent transactions in the region of the La Plata
affecting the political relations of the United States with Paraguay, the
Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Brazil, I transmit a report from the
Secretary of State. ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCUTivB Mansion, February 2, 186 p.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
two treaties made by the commissioners appointed under the act of Con-
gress of 20th July, 1867, to establish peace with certain hostile tribes, viz:
A treaty concluded at Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory, on the 29th
April, 1868, with various bands of the Sioux or Dakota Nation of Indians.
A treaty concluded at Fort Bridger, Utah Territory, on the 3d day of
July, 1868, with the Shoshone (eastern band) and Bannock Indians.
A communication from the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 2d
instant, inclosing a copy of a letter to him from the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs of the 28th ultimo, together with the correspondence
therein referred to, relating to said treaties, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February j, i86p.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit, for the consideration of Congress, a report from the Sec-
retary of State, and the papers which accompany it, in relation to the
encroachments of agents of the Hudsons Bay Company upon the trade
and territory of Alaska. ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCUTivK Mansion, February ^, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for the constitutional action of that
body thereon, the following treaties, concluded with various bands and
Andrew Johnson 701
tribes of Indians by William I. CuUen, special agent for Indians in Mon-
tana, viz:
Treaty concluded at Fort Hawley on the 13th July, 1868, with the
Gros Ventres.
Treaty concluded at Fort Hawley on the 15th July, 1868, with the
River Crow Indians.
Treaty concluded at Fort Benton September i, 1868, with the Blackfeet
Nation (composed of the tribe of that name and the Blood and Piegan
tribes).
Treat}^ with the mixed bands of Shoshones, Bannocks, and Sheepeaters,
concluded at Virginia City September 24, 1868.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 3d instant, and the
report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated the 2d instant, ex-
plaining the provisions of the several treaties and suggesting an amend-
ment of some of them, and submitting maps and papers connected with
said treaties, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 4, 186 p.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 23d
January ultimo, I transmit a report* of the Secretary of State, which is
accompanied by a copy of the correspondence called for by the resolu-
^^°°- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 8, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
Referring to my communications of the i6th of December, 1868, and
of the ist of February instant, addressed to the Senate in answer to the
resolution of that body of the 8th of December last, concerning recent
transactions in the region of the La Plata, I transmit a report of the
Secretary of State and the papers which accompany it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February p, i86p.
To the House of Representatives:
In answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 13th
ultimo, requesting information as to expenditures by the northwestern
boundary commission, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State on
the subject, and the papers which accompanied it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
♦Relating to the claim of William T. Harris, a United States citizen, to property withheld by the
Brazilian Government.
702 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
ExECUTivK Mansion, February p, iS6p.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for the constitutional action of that
body thereon, a treaty concluded on the 2d day of September, 1868, be-
tween the United States and the Creek Nation of Indians by their duly
authorized delegates.
A letter from the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 8th instant, and
a report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated the 6th instant, in
relation to said treaty, are also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 11, 186 p.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 21st
ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers,
in relation to the establishment of the Robert College at Constantinople.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February ij, 186 g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for their action thereon, a mutual
relinquishment of the agreement between the Ottawa and Chippewa
Indians of Kansas, which agreement is appended to a treaty now before
the Senate between the United States and the Swan Creek and Black
River Chippewas and the Munsee or Christian Indians, concluded on the
ist of June, 1868.
A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the nth instant, together
with the papers therein referred to, is also herewith transmitted.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 75, i86p.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate with a view to ratifica-
tion, a convention between the United States of America and the United
States of Colombia for facilitating and securing the construction of a ship
canal between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the continental
isthmus lying without the jurisdiction of the United States of Colombia,
which instrument was signed at Bogota on the 14th instant.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCuTivK Mansion, February //, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith lay before the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon,
a treaty concluded on the i itli instant, in the city of Washington, between
Andrew Johnson 703
the United States and the Sac and Fox Indians of the Missouri and the
Iowa tribe of Indians. A letter of the Secretary of the Interior of the
1 6th instant, together with the letters therein referred to, accompany
the treaty. For reasons stated in the accompanying communications,
I request to withdraw from the Senate a treaty with the Sac and Fox
Indians of the Missouri, concluded February 19, 1867, now pending before
that body. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February ly, i86g.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a report from the Secretary of State, with
accompanying documents, in relation to the gold medal presented to
Mr. Cyrus W. Field pursuant to the resolution of Congress of March 2,
^^^7- ANDREW JOHNSON.
ExKCuTivK Mansion,
February z/, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I herewith present, for the consideration of the Senate in connection
with the treaty with the Brule and other bands of Sioux Indians now
pending before that body, a communication from the Secretary of the
Interior, dated the i6th instant, and accompanying letters from the Com-
missioner of Indian Affairs and P. H. Conger, United States Indian agent
for the Yankton Sioux, requesting that the benefits of said treaty may be
extended to the Yankton Sioux and all the bands and individuals of the
Dakota Sioux. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February ly, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their rCvSolution of the 19th
ultimo, relating to fisheries, a report from the Secretary of State and the
documents which accompanied it.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C,
February 18, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, for its constitutional action, a treaty concluded
on the 13th instant between the United States and the Otoe and Mis-
souria tribe of Indians, together with the accompanying papers.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
704 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Washington, February ig, i86g.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a correspondence which has taken
place between the Secretary of State and the minister of the United
States at Paris, in relation to the use of passports by citizens of the
United States in France. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 20, i86g.
To the House of Representatives:
I transmit an additional report from the Secretary of State, represent-
ing that Messrs. Costello and Warren, citizens of the United States im-
prisoned in Ireland, have been released.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February 2j, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of the Treasury, on the
subject of the resolution of the Senate of the 13th January last, request-
ing ' ' that the President direct the Secretary of the Treasury to detail an
officer to select from the public lands such permanent points upon the
coast of Oregon, Washington Territory, and Alaska as in his judgment
may be necessary for light-house purposes, in view of the future commer-
cial necessity of the Pacific Coast, and to reserve the' same for exclusive
use of the United States. ■ ' ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 2j, i86g.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
Referring to my communication to Congress of the 26th ultimo, con-
cerning a decree made by the United States charge d'affaires in China,
on I St of June last, prohibiting steamers sailing under the flag of the
United States from using or passing through the Straw Shoe Channel
on the Yangtse River, I now transmit a copy of a dispatch of the 2 2d of
August last, No. 25, from S. Wells Williams, esq., and of such of the
papers accompanying it as were not contained in my former communica-
tion. I also transmit a copy of the reply of the 6th instant made by the
Secretary of State to the above-named dispatch.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, February 2^, i86g.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a convention between the United
States and the Mexican Republic, providing for the adjustment of the
claims of citizens of either country against the other, signed on the 4th
day of July last, and the ratifications of which were exchanged on the ist
instant.
Andrew Johjtson 705
It is recommended that such legislation as may be necessary to carry
this convention into effect shall receive early consideration.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, March z, 1869.
To the Senate of the United States:
In compliance with the request of the Senate of the 27th ultimo, I
return herewith their resolution of the 26th February, calhng for a state-
ment of internal-revenue stamps issued by the Government since the
passage of the act approved July i, 1862.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
VETO MESSAGES.
Washington, D. C, February zj, i86g.
To the Senate of the United States:
The bill entitled "An act transferring the duties of trustees of colored
schools of Washington and Georgetown" is herewith returned to the
Senate, in which House it originated, without my approval.
The accompanying paper exhibits the fact that the legislation which
the bill proposes is contrary to the wishes of the colored residents of
Washington and Georgetown, and that they prefer that the schools for
their children should be under the management of trustees selected by
the Secretary of the Interior, whose term of office is for four years, rather
than subject to the control of bodies whose tenure of office, depending
merely upon political considerations, may be annually affected by the
elections which take place in the two cities.
The colored people of Washington and Georgetown are at present not
represented by a person of their own race in either of the boards of trus-
tees of public schools appointed by the municipal authorities. Of the
three trustees, however, who, under the act of July 11, 1862, compose
the board of trustees of the schools for colored children, two are persons
of color. The resolutions transmitted herewith show, that they have per-
formed their trust in a manner entirely satisfactory to the colored people
of the two cities, and no good reason is known to the Executive why the
duties which now devolve upon them should be transferred as proposed
in the bill.
With these brief suggestions the bill is respectfully returned, and the
consideration of Congress invited to the accompanying preamble and
resolutions. ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, D. C, February 22, i86p.
To the House of Representatives:
The accompanying bill, entitled "An act regulating the duties on im-
ported copper and copper ores, "is, for the following reasons, returned,
M P— vol, VI— 45
7o6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
without my approval, to the House of Representatives, in which branch
of Congress it originated.
Its immediate effect will be to diminish the public receipts, for the
object of the bill can not be accomplished without seriously affecting
the importation of copper and copper ores, from which a considerable
revenue is at present derived. While thus impairing the resources of
the Government, it imposes an additional tax upon an already overbur-
dened people, who should not be further impoverished that monopolies
may be fostered and corporations enriched.
It is represented — and the declaration seems to be sustained by evi-
dence— that the duties for which this bill provides are nearly or quite
sufficient to prohibit the importation of certain foreign ores of copper. Its
enactment, therefore, will prove detrimental to the shipping interests of
the nation, and at the same time destroy the business, for many years suc-
cessfully established, of smelting home ores in connection with a smaller
amount of the imported articles. This business, it is credibly asserted,
has heretofore yielded the larger share of the copper production of the
country, and thus the industry which this legislation is designed to en-
courage is actually less than that which will be destroyed by the passage
of this bill.
It seems also to be evident that the effect of this measure will be to
enhance by 70 per cent the cost of blue vitriol — an article extensively
used in dyeing and in the manufacture of printed and colored cloths. To
produce such an augmentation in the price of this commodity will be to
discriminate against other great branches of domestic industry, and by
increasing their cost to expose them most unfairly to the effects of for-
eign competition I^egislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks
the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many
and varied interests at least equally important and equally deserving the
consideration of Congress. Indeed, it is difficult to find any reason
which will justify the interference of Government with any legitimate
industry, except so far as may be rendered necessary by the requirements
of the revenue. As has already been stated, however, the legislative
intervention proposed in the present instance will diminish, not increase,
the public receipts.
The enactment of such a law is urged as necessary for the relief of
certain mining interests upon Lake Superior, which, it is alleged, are in
a greatly depressed condition, and can only be sustained by an enhance-
ment of the price of copper. If this result should follow the passage of
the bill, a tax for the exclusive benefit of a single class would be imposed
upon the consumers of copper throughout the entire country, not war-
ranted by any need of the Government, and the avails of which would
not in any degree find their way into the Treasury of the nation. If the
miners of Lake Superior are in a condition of want, it can not be justly
affirmed that the Government should extend charity to them in prefer-
Andrew Johnson 707
ence to those of its citizens who in other portions of the country suffer
in like manner from destitution. I^east of all should the endeavor to aid
them be based upon a method so uncertain and indirect as that contem-
plated by the bill, and which, moreover, proposes to continue the exercise
of its benefaction through an indefinite period of years. It is, besides,
reasonable to hope that positive suffering from want, if it really exists,
will prove but temporary in a region where agricultural labor is so much
in demand and so well compensated. A careful examination of the sub
ject appears to show that the present low price of copper, which alone
has induced any depression the mining interests of lyake Superior may
have recently experienced, is due to causes which it is wholly impolitic,
if not impracticable, to contravene by legislation. These causes are, in
the main, an increase in the general supply of copper, owing to the dis-
covery and working of remarkably productive mines and to a coincident
restriction in the consumption and use of copper by the substitution of
other and cheaper metals for industrial purposes. It is now sought to
resist by artificial means the action of natural laws; to place the people
of the United States, in respect to the enjoyment and use of an essential
commodity, upon a different basis from other nations, and especially to
compensate certain private and sectional interests for the changes and
losses which are always incident to industrial progress.
Although providing for an increase of duties, the proposed law does not
even come within the range of protection, in the fair acceptation of the
term. It does not look to the fostering of a young and feeble interest
with a view to the ultimate attainment of strength and the capacity of
self-support. It appears to assume that the present inability for success-
ful production is inherent and permanent, and is more likely to increase
than to be gradually overcome; yet in spite of this it proposes, by the exer-
cise of the lawmaking power, to sustain that interest and to impose it in
hopeless perpetuity as a tax upon the competent and beneficent industries
of the country.
The true method for the mining interests of Lake Superior to obtain
relief, if relief is needed, is to endeavor to make their great natural
resources fully available by reducing the cost of production. Special or
class legislation can not remedy the evils which this bill is designed to
meet. They can only be overcome by laws which will effect a wise, hon-
est, and economical administration of the Government, a reestablishment
of the specie standard of value, and an early adjustment of our system of
State, municipal, and national taxation (especially the latter) upon the
fundamental principle that all taxes, whether collected under the inter-
nal revenue or under a tariff, shall interfere as little as possible with the
productive energies of the people.
The bill is therefore returned, in the belief that the true interests of the
Government and of the people require that it should not become a law.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
7o8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
PROCLAMATION.
By thk Prksidknt of the) United States of America.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the President of the United States has heretofore set forth
several proclamations offering amnesty and pardon to persons who had
been or were concerned in the late rebellion against the lawful authority
of the Government of the United States, which proclamations were sev-
erally issued on the 8th day of December, 1863, on the 26th day of March,
1864, on the 29th day of May, 1865, on the 7th day of September, 1867,
and on the 4th day of July, in the present year; and
Whereas the authority of the Federal Government having been rees-
tablished in all the States and Territories within the jurisdiction of the
United States, it is believed that such prudential reservations and excep-
tions as at the dates of said several proclamations were deemed necessary
and proper may now be wisely and justly relinquished, and that an uni-
versal amnesty and pardon for participation in said rebellion extended to
all who have borne any part therein will tend to secure permanent peace,
order, and prosperity throughout the land, and to renew and fully restore
confidence and fraternal feeling among the whole people, and their re-
spect for and attachment to the National Government, designed by its
patriotic founders for the general good:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested by
the Constitution and in the name of the sovereign people of the United
States, do hereby proclaim and declare, unconditionally and without res-
ervation, to all and to every person who, directly or indirectly, participated
in the late insurrection or rebellion a full pardon and amnesty for the
offense of treason against the United States or of adhering to their ene-
mies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges,
and immunities under the Constitution and the laws which have been
made in pursuance thereof.
In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and
have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto
afiixed.
[seal.] Done at the city of Washington, the 25th day of December,
A. D. 1868, and of the Independence of the United States of
America the ninety-third. ANDREW JOHNSON.
By the President:
F. W. Seward,
Acting Secretary of State.
Andrew Johnson 709
IMPEACHMENT OF ANDREW JOHNSON, PRESI-
DENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
On the 24th of February, 1868, the House of Representatives of the
Congress of the United States resolved to impeach Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors, of
which the Senate was apprised, and arrangements were made for the
trial. On the 2d and 3d of March articles of impeachment were agreed
upon by the House of Representatives, and on the 4th they were pre-
sented to the Senate by the managers on the part of the House, Mr. John
A. Bingham, Mr. George S. Boutwell, Mr. James F. Wilson, Mr. Benja-
min F. Butler, Mr. Thomas WilHams, Mr. John A. Logan, and Mr. Thad-
deus Stevens, who were accompanied by the House as a Committee of
the Whole. The articles are as follows:
In the House of Rkpreskntativks, United States,
March 2, 1868.
Articles Exhibited by the House of Representatives of the
United States, in the Name of Themselves and All the Peo-
ple OF THE United States, against Andrew Johnson, President
OF THE United States, in Maintenance and Support of Their
Impeachment against Him for High Crimes and Misdemeanors
IN Office.
Article I. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
on the 2ist day of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District
of Columbia, unmindful of the high duties of his office, of his oath of
office, and of the requirement of the Constitution that he should take
care that the laws be faithfully executed, did unlawfully and in violation
of the Constitution and laws of the United States issue an order in writ-
ing for the removal of Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary for
the Department of War, said Edwin M. Stanton having been theretofore
duly appointed and commissioned, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate of the United States, as such Secretary; and said Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States, on the 12th day of August, A. D.
1867, and during the recess of said Senate, having suspended by his order
Edwin M. Stanton from said office, and within twenty days after the first
day of the next meeting of said Senate — that is to say, on the 12th day
of December, in the year last aforesaid — having reported to said Senate
such suspension, with the evidence and reasons for his action in the case
and the name of the person designated to perform the duties of such
office temporarily until the next meeting of the. Senate; and said Senate
7IO Messages and Papers of the Presidents
thereafterwards, on the 13th day of Januar}^, A. D. 1868, having duly
considered the evidence and reasons reported by said Andrew Johnson
for said suspension, and having refused to concur in said suspension,
whereby and by force of the provisions of an act entitled "An act regu-
lating the tenure of certain civil offices," passed March 2, 1867, said
Edwin M. Stanton did forthwith resume the functions of his office,
whereof the said Andrew Johnson had then and there due notice; and
said Edwin M. Stanton, by reason of the premises, on said 21st day of
February, being lawfully entitled to hold said office of Secretary for the
Department of War; which said order for the removal of said Edwin M.
Stanton is in substance as follows; that is to say:
Executive Mansion,
Washington^ D. C, February 21, 1868.
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,
Washington, D. C.
Sir: By virtue of the power and authority vested in me as President by the Con-
stitution and laws of the United States, you are hereby removed from office as Secre-
tary for the Department of War, and your functions as such will terminate upon the
receipt of this communication.
You will transfer to Brevet Major-General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant-General of
the Army, who has this day been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary
of War ad interim, all records, books, papers, and other public property now in your
custody and charge.
Respectfully, yours,
ANDREW JOHNSON.
which order was unlawfully issued with intent then and there to violate
the act entitled *'An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices,"
passed March 2, 1867, and with the further intent, contrary to the pro-
visions of said act, in violation thereof, and contrary to the provisions of
the Constitution of the United States, and without the advice and consent
of the Senate of the United States, the said Senate then and there being
in session, to remove said Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary
for the Department of War, the said Edwin M. Stanton being then and
there Secretary for the Department of War, and being then and there
in the due and lawful execution and discharge of the duties of said office;
whereby said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, did then
and there commit and was guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.
Art. II. That on said 21st day of February, A. D. 1868, at Washing-
ton, in the District of Columbia, said Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, unmindful of the high duties of his office, of his oath of
office, and in violation of the Constitution of the Uiiited States, and con-
trary to the provisions of an act entitled "An act regulating the tenure of
certain civil offices," passed March 2, 1867, without the advice and con-
sent of the Senate of the United States, said Senate then and there being
in session, and without authority of law, did, with intent to violate the
Andrew Johnson 711
Constitution of the United States and the act aforesaid, issue and deliver
to one lyorenzo Thomas a letter of authority in substance as follows; that
is to say:
ExECuTivK Mansion,
Washington, D. C, February 21, r868.
Brevet Major-General Lorenzo Thomas,
Adjutant-General United States Army, Washington, D. C.
Sir: The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having been this day removed from office as
Secretary for the Department of War, you are hereby authorized and empowered to
act as Secretary of War ad interim, and will immediately enter upon the discharge
of the duties pertaining to that office.
Mr. Stanton has been instructed to transfer to you all the records, books, papers,
and other public property now in his custody and charge.
Respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
then and there being no vacancy in said office of Secretary for the De-
partment of War; whereby said Andrew Johnson, President of the United
States, did then and there commit and was guilty of a high misdemeanor
in office.
Art. III. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
on the 2ist day of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District
of Columbia, did commit and was guilty of a high misdemeanor in office
in this, that without authority of law, while the Senate of the United
States was then and there in session, he did appoint one Lorenzo Thomas
to be Secretary for the Department of War ad i^iterim, without the advice
and consent of the Senate, and with intent to violate the Constitution of
the United States, no vacancy having happened in said office of Secretary
for the Department of War during the recess of the Senate, and no vacancy
existing in said office at the time, and which said appointment, so made
by said Andrew Johnson, of said Lorenzo Thomas, is in substance as fol-
lows; that is to say:
Executive Mansion,
Washington, D. C, February 21, 1868.
Brevet Major-General Lorenzo Thomas,
Adjutant-General United States Army, Washington, D. C.
Sir: The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having been this day removed from office as
Secretary for the Department of War, you are hereby authorized and empowered to
act as Secretary of War ad interim, and will immediately enter upon the discharge
of the duties pertaining to that office.
Mr. Stanton haij been instructed to transfer to you all the records, books, papers,
and other public property now in his custody and charge.
Respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
Art. IV. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
unmindful of the high duties of his office and his oath of office, in viola-
tion of the Constitution and laws of the United States, on the 21st day
of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District of Columbia, did
unlawfully conspire with one Lorenzo Thomas, and with other persons
712 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
to the House of Representatives unknown, with intent, by intimidation
and threats, unlawfully to hinder and prevent Edwin M. Stanton, then and
there the Secretary for the Department of War, duly appointed under
the laws of the United States, from holding said office of Secretary for the
Department of War, contrary to and in violation of the Constitution of
the United States and of the provisions of an act entitled "An act to
define and punish certain conspiracies," approved July 31, 1861; whereby
said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, did then and there
commit and was guilty of a high crime in office.
Art. V. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
unmindful of the high duties of his office and of his oath of office, on the
2ist day of February, A. D. 1868, and on divers other days and times in
said year before the 2d day of March, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the
District of Columbia, did unlawfully conspire with one Lorenzo Thomas,
and with other persons to the House of Representatives unknown, to pre-
vent and hinder the execution of an act entitled "An act regulating the
tenure of certain civil offices," passed March 2, 1867, and in pursuance
of said conspiracy did unlawfully attempt to prevent Edwin M. Stanton,
then and there being Secretary for the Department of War, duly ap-
pointed and commissioned under the laws of the United States, from
holding said office; w^hereby the said Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, did then and there commit and was guilty of a high mis-
demeanor in office.
Art. VI. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
unmindful of the high duties of his office and of his oath of office, on the
2ist day of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District of Colum-
bia, did unlawfully conspire with one Lorenzo Thomas by force to seize,
take, and possess the property of the United States in the Department of
War, and then and there in the custody and charge of Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary for said Department, contrary to the provisions of an act entitled
"An act to define and punish certain conspiracies," approved July 31,
1 86 1, and with intent to violate and disregard an act entitled "An act
regulating the tenure of certain civil offices," passed March 2, 1867;
whereby said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, did then
and there commit a high crime in office.
Art. VII. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
unmindful of the high duties of his office and of his oath of office, on
the 2ist day of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District of
Columbia, did unlawfully conspire with one Lorenzo Thomas with intent
unlawfully to seize, take, and possess the property of the United States
in the Department of War, in the custody and charge of Edwin M. Stan-
ton, Secretary for said Department, with intent to violate and disregard
the act entitled "An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices,"
passed March 2, 1867; whereby said Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, did then and there commit a high misdemeanor in office.
Andrew Johnson 713
Art. VIII. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
unmindful of the high duties of his office and of his oath of office, with
intent unlawfully to control the disbursement of the moneys appropriated
for the military service and for the Department of War, on the 21st day
of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District of Columbia, did
unlawfully, and contrar>^ to the provisions of an act entitled ' 'An act regu-
lating the tenure of certain civil ofiices," passed March 2, 1867, and in
violation of the Constitution of the United States, and without the advice
and consent of the Senate of the United States, and while the Senate was
then and there in session, there being no vacancy in the office of Secre-
tary for the Department of War, and with intent to violate and disregard
the act aforesaid, then and there issue and deliver to one Lorenzo Thomas
a letter of authority, in writing, in substance as follows; that is to say:
ExEcuTrvE Mansion,
Washington, D. C, February 21, 1868.
Brevet Major-General Lorknzo Thomas,
Adjutant-General United States Army, Washington, D. C.
Sir: The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton having been this day removed from office as
Secretary for the Department of War, you are hereby authorized and empowered to
act as Secretary of War ad interim, and will immediately enter upon the discharge
of the duties pertaining to that office.
Mr. Stanton has been instructed to transfer to you all the records, books, papers,
and other public property now in his custody and charge.
Respectfully, yours, ANDREW JOHNSON.
whereby said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, did then
and there commit and was guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.
Art. IX. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
on the 22d day of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District
of Columbia, in disregard of the Constitution and the laws of the United
States duly enacted, as Commander in Chief of the Army of the United
States, did bring before himself then and there William H. Emory, a
major-general by brevet in the Army of the United States, actually in
command of the Department of Washington and the military forces
thereof, and did then and there, as such Commander in Chief, declare to
and instruct said Emory that part of a law of the United States, passed
March 2, 1867, entitled "An act making appropriations for the support
of the Army for the year ending June 30, 1868, and for other purposes,"
especially the second section thereof, which provides, among other things,
that ' * all orders and instructions relating to military operations issued
by the President or Secretary of War shall be issued through the Gen-
eral of the Army, and in case of his inability through the next in rank,"
was unconstitutional and in contravention of the commission of said
Emory, and which said provision of law had been theretofore duly and
legally promulgated by general order for the government and direction
of the Army of the United States, as the said Andrew Johnson then and
there well knew, with intent thereby to induce said Emory, in his official
714 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
capacity as commandei of the Department of Washington, to violate the
provisions of said act and to take and receive, act upon, and obey such
orders as he, the said Andrew Johnson, might make and give, and
which should not be issued through the General of the Army of the
United States, according to the provisions of said act, and with the fur-
ther intent thereby to enable him, the said Andrew Johnson, to prevent
the execution of the act entitled "An act regulating the tenure of certain
civil offices," passed March 2, 1867, and to unlawfully prevent Edwin M.
Stanton, then being Secretary for the Department of War, from holding
said office and discharging the duties thereof; whereby said Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States, did then and there commit and
was guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.
And the House of Representatives, by protestation, saving to them-
selves the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter any further articles
or other accusation or impeachment against the said Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, and also of replying to his answers which
he shall make unto the articles herein preferred against him, and of offer-
ing proof to the -same, and every part thereof, and to all and every other
article, accusation, or impeachment which shall be exhibited by them, as
the case shall require, do demand that the said Andrew Johnson may be
put to answer the high crimes and misdemeanors in office herein charged
against him, and that such proceedings, examinations, trials, and judg-
ments may be thereupon had and given as may be agreeable to law and
^^^^^^^- SCHUYLER COLFAX,
Speaker of the House of Representative s»
^*^^^*' EDWARD Mcpherson,
Clerk of the House of Representatives.
In Tim HousB OF Rk^rksknt-ativks, Unite-d States,
March j, 1868.
The following additional articles of impeachment were agreed to, viz:
Art. X. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
unmindful of the high duties of his office and the dignity and proprieties
thereof, and of the harmony and courtesies which ought to exist and be
maintained between the executive and legislative branches of the Gov-
ernment of the United States, designing and intending to set aside the
rightful authority and powers of Congress, did attempt to bring into dis-
grace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach the Congress of the United
States and the several branches thereof, to impair and destroy the regard
and respect of all the good people of the United States for the Congress
and legislative power thereof (which all officers of the Government ought
inviolably to preserve and maintain), and to exeite the odium and resent-
ment of all the good people of tlie United States against Congress and
the laws by it duly and constitutionally enacted; and, in pursuance of his
Andrew Johnson 71 r
said design and intent, openly and publicly, and before divers assemblages
of the citizens of the United States, convened in divers parts thereof to
meet and receive said Andrew Johnson as the Chief Magistrate of the
United States, did, on the i8th day of August, A. D. 1866, and on divers
other days and times, as well before as afterwards, make and deliver with
a loud voice certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues,
and did therein utter loud threats and bitter menaces, as well against Con-
gress as the laws of the United States, duly enacted thereby, amid the
cries, jeers, and laughter of the multitudes then assembled and in hear-
ing, which are set forth in the several specifications hereinafter written
in substance and effect; that is to say:
Specification first'. — In this, that at Washington, in the District of Colum-
bia, in the Executive Mansion, to a committee of citizens who called upon
the President of th^ United States, speaking of and concerning the Con-
gress of the United States, said Andrew Johnson, President of the United
States, heretofore, to wit, on the 18th day of August, A. D. 1866, did in
a loud voice declare in substance and effect, among other things; that is
to say:
So far as the executive department of the Government is concerned, the effort has
been made to restore the Union, to heal the breach, to pour oil into the wounds which
were consequent upon the struggle, and (to speak in common phrase) to prepare, as
the learned and wise physician would, a plaster heaUng in character and coextensive
with the wound. We thought and we think that we had partially succeeded; but as
the work progresses, as reconstruction seemed to be taking place and the country
was becoming reunited, we found a disturbing and marring element opposing us.
In alluding to that element I shall go no further than your convention and the dis-
tinguished gentleman who has delivered to me the report of its proceedings. I shall
make no reference to it that I do not believe the time and the occasion justify.
We have witnessed in one department of the Government every endeavor to pre-
vent the restoration of peace, harmony, and union. We have seen hanging upon the
verge of the Government, as it were, a body called, or which assumes to be, the Con-
gress of the United States, while in fact it is a Congress of only a part of the States.
We have seen this Congress pretend to be for the Union, when its every step and
act tended to perpetuate disunion and make a disruption of the States inevitable.
* * ■* We have seen Congress gradually encroach, step by step, upon constitu-
tional rights, and violate, day after day and month after month, fundamental prin-
ciples of the Government. We have seen a Congress that seemed to forget that
there was a limit to the sphere and scope of legislation. We have seen a Congress
in a minority assumje to exercise power which, allowed to be consummated, would
result in despotism or monarchy itself^
Specification second, — In this, that at Cleveland, in the State of Ohio,
heretofore, to wit, on the 3d day of September, A. D. 1866, before a public
a«ssemblage of citizens and others, said Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, speaking of and concerning the Congress of the United
States, did in a loud voice declare in substance and effect, among other
things; that is to .say:
I will tell you what I did do. I called upon your Congress that is trying to break
up the Government.
^ * » * * * *
7i6 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
In conclusion, besides that, Congress had taken much pains to poison their con-
stituents against him. But what had Congress done ? Have they done anything
to restore the Union of these States ? No. On the contrary, they have done every-
thing to prevent it. And because he stood now where he did when the rebellion
commenced, he had been denounced as a traitor. Who had run greater risks or
made greater sacrifices than himself ? But Congress, factious and domineering, had
undertaken to poison the minds of the American people.
Specification third. — In this, that at St. I^ouis, in the State of Missouri,
heretofore, to wit, on the 8th day of September, A. D. 1866, before a public
aSvSemblage of citizens and others, said Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, speaking of and concerning the Congress of the United
States, did in a loud voice declare in substance and effect, among other
things; that is to say :
Go on. Perhaps if you had a word or two on the subject of New Orleans you
might understand more about it than you do. And if you will go baqk — if you will
go back and ascertain the cause of the riot at New Orleans, perhaps you will not
be so prompt in calling out ' * New Orleans, ' ' If you will take up the riot at New
Orleans and trace it back to its source or its immediate cause, you will find out who
was responsible for the blood that was shed there. If you will take up the riot at
New Orleans and trace it back to the Radical Congress, you will find that the riot
at New Orleans was substantially planned. If you will take up the proceedings in
their caucuses, you will understand that they there knew that a convention was to
be called which was extinct by its power having expired; that it was said that the
intention was that a new government was to be organized, and on the organization
of that government the intention was to enfranchise one portion of the population,
called the colored population, who had just been emancipated, and at the same time
disfranchise white men. When you design to talk about New Orleans, you ought
to understand what you are talking about. When you read the speeches that were
made and take up the facts on the Friday and Saturday before that convention sat,
you will there find that speeches were made, incendiary in their character, exciting
that portion of the population — the black population — to arm themselves and pre-
pare for the shedding of blood. You will also find that that convention did assem-
ble, in violation of law, and the intention of that convention was to supersede the
reorganized authorities in the State government of Louisiana, which had been rec-
ognized by the Government of the United States; and every man engaged in that
rebellion in that convention, with the intention of superseding and upturning the
civil government which had been recognized by the Government of the United
States, I say that he was a traitor to the Constitution of the United States; and
hence you find that another rebellion was commenced, having its origin in the
Radical Congress.
■3t * * * -X- * -Jfr
So much for the New Orleans riot. And there was the cause and the origin of
the blood that was shed; and every drop of blood that was shed is upon their skirts,
and they are responsible for it. I could test this thing a little closer, but will not
do it here to-night. But when you talk about the causes and consequences that
resulted from proceedings of that kind, perhaps, as I have been introduced here,
and you have provoked questions of this kind — though it does not provoke me — I
will tell you a few wholesome things that have been done by this Radical Congress
in connection with New Orleans and the extension of the elective franchise.
I know that I have been traduced and abused. I know it has come in advance of
me, here as elsewhere, that I have attempted to exercise an arbitrary power in resist-
ing laws that were intended to be forced upon the Government; that I had exer-
Andrew Johnson yiy
cised that power; that I had abandoned the party that elected nie, and that I was a
traitor, because I exercised the veto power in attempting and did arrest for a time
a bill that was called a " Freedmen's Bureau" bill; yes, that I was a traitor. And
I have been traduced, I have been slandered, I have been maligned, I have been
called Judas Iscariot and all that. Now, my countrymen, here to-night, it is very
easy to indulge in epithets; it is easy to call a man a Judas and cry out "traitor;" but
when he is called upon to give arguments and facts he is very often found wanting.
Judas Iscariot— Judas. There was a Judas, and he was one of the twelve apostles.
Oh, yes; the twelve apostles had a Christ. The twelve apostles had a Christ, and he
never could have had a Judas unless he had had twelve apostles. If I have played
the Judas, who has been my Christ that I have played the Judas with? Was it Thad.
Stevens? Was it Wendell Phillips? Was it Charles Sumner? These are the men
that stop and compare themselves with the Savior, and everybody that differs with
them in opinion, and to try to stay and arrest their diabolical and nefarious policy,
is to be denounced as a Judas.
* * -sfr ^fr ^f * *
Well, let me say to you, if you will stand by me in this action, if you will stand by
me in trying to give the people a fair chance— soldiers and citizens — to participate in
these offices, God being willing I will kick them out. I will kick them out just as
fast as I can.
Ivct me say to you in concluding that what I have said I intended to say. I was
not provoked into this, and I care not for their menaces, the taunts and the jeers.
I care not for threats. I do not intend to be bullied by my enemies nor overawed
by my friends. But, God willing, with yom: help I will veto their measiu-es when-
ever any of them come to me.
which said utterances, declarations, threats, and harangues, highly cen-
surable in any, are peculiarly indecent and unbecoming in the Chief Mag-
istrate of the United States, by means whereof said Andrew Johnson has
brought the high office of the President of the United States into con-
tempt, ridicule, and disgrace, to the great scandal of all good citizens;
whereby said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, did com-
mit and was then and there guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.
Art. XI. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
unmindful of the high duties of his office and of his oath of office, and in
disregard of the Constitution and laws of the United States, did here-
tofore, to wit, on the i8th day of August, A. D. 1866, at the city of
Washington, in the District of Columbia, by public speech, declare and
affirm in substance that the Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States
was not a Congress of the United- States authorized by the Constitution
to exercise legislative power under the same, but, on the contrary, was a
Congress of only part of the States; thereby denying and intending to
deny that the legislation of said Congress was valid or obligatory upon
him, the said Andrew Johnson, except in so far as he saw fit to approve
the same, and also thereby denying and intending to deny the power
of the said Thirty-ninth Congress to propose amendments to the Constitu-
tion of the United States; and in pursuance of said declaration the said
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, afterwards, to wit, on
the 2 1 St day of February, A. D. 1868, at the city of Washington, in the
District of Columbia, did unlawfully, and in disregard of the requirement
7i8 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of the Constitution that he should take care that the laws be faithfully
executed, attempt to prevent the execution of an act entitled "An act
regulating the tenure of certain civil offices,' passed March 2, 1867, by
unlawfully devising and contriving, and attempting to devise and con-
trive, means by which he should prevent Edwin M. Stanton from forth-
with resuming the functions of the office of Secretary for the Department
of War, notwithstanding the refusal of the Senate to concur in the sus-
pension theretofore made by said Andrew Johnson of said Edwin M.
Stanton from said office of Secretary for the Department of War, and
also by further unlawfully devising and contriving, and attempting to
devise and contrive, means then and there to prevent the execution of an
act entitled "An act making appropriations for the support of the Army
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868 and for other purposes, ' ' approved
March 2, 1867, and also to prevent the execution of an act entitled "An
act to provide for the more efiicient government of the rebel States,"
passed March 2, 1867, whereby the said Andrew Johnson, President of
the United States, did then, to wit, on the 21st day of February, AD.
1868, at the city of Washington, commit and was guilty of a high mis-
demeanor in office. SCHUYI.ER COLFAX,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
^*^^^^- EDWARD Mcpherson,
Clerk of the House of Representatives.
In thb Se)natk, March 4., 1868.
The President pro tempore laid before the Senate the following letter
from the Hon. Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
the United States:
Washington, March 4., 1868.
To the Senate oj the United States:
Inasmuch as the sole power to try impeachments is vested by the Con-
stitution in the Senate, and it is made the dut5^ of the Chief Justice to
preside when the President is on trial, I take the liberty of submitting,
very respectfully, some observations in respect to the proper mode of pro-
ceeding upon the impeachment which has been preferred by the House of
Representatives against the President now in office.
That when the Senate sits for the trial of an impeachment it sits as a
court seems unquestionable.
That for the trial of an impeachment of the President this court must
be constituted of the members of the Senate, with the Chief Justice pre-
siding, seems equally unquestionable.
The Federalist is regarded as the highest contemporary authority on
the construction of the Constitution, and in the sixty-fourth number the
functions of the Senate "sitting in their judicial capacity as a court for
the trial of impeachments ' ' are examined.
Andrew Johnson 710
In a paragraph explaining the reasons for not uniting ' ' the Supreme
Court with the Senate in the formation of the court of impeachments ' ' it
is observed that —
To a certain extent the benefits of that union will be obtained from making the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court the president of the court of impeachments, as
is proposed by the plan of the Convention, while the inconveniences of an entire
incorporation of the former into the latter will be substantially avoided. This was,
perhaps, the prudent mean.
This authority seems to leave no doubt upon either of the propositions
just stated; and the statement of them will serve to introduce tlie ques-
tion upon which I think it my duty to state the result of my reflections
to the Senate, namely, At what period, in the case of an impeachment of
the President, should the court of impeachment be organized under oath,
as directed by the Constitution ?
It will readily suggest itself to anyone who reflects upon the abilities
and the learning in the law which distinguish so many Senators that
besides the reason assigned in the Federalist there must have been still
another for the provision requiring the Chief Justice to preside in the
court of impeachment. Under the Constitution, in case of a vacancy in
the ofiice of President, the Vice-President succeeds, and it was doubtless
thought prudent and befitting that the next in succession should not
preside in a proceeding through which a vacancy might be created.
It is not doubted that the Senate, while sitting in its ordinary capacity,
must necessarily receive from the House of Representatives some notice
of its intention to impeach the President at its bar, but it does not seem
to me an unwarranted opinion, in view of this constitutional provision,
that the organization of the Senate as a court of impeachment, under the
Constitution, should precede the actual announcement of the impeach-
ment on the part of the House.
And it may perhaps be thought a still less unwarranted opinion that
articles of impeachment should only be presented to a court of impeach-
ment; that no summons or other process should issue except from the
organized court, and that rules for the government of the proceedings of
such a court should be framed only by the court itself.
I have found myself unable to come to any other conclusions than these.
I can assign no reason for requiring the Senate to organize as a court
under any other than its ordinary presiding officer for the latter proceed-
ings upon an impeachment of the President which does not seem to me
to apply equally to the earlier.
I am informed that the Senate has proceeded upon other views, and it
is not my purpose to contest what its superior wisdom may have directed.
All good citizens will fervently pray that no occasion may ever arise
when the grave proceedings now in progress will be cited as a precedent;
but it is not impossible that such an occasion may come.
Inasmuch, therefore, as the Constitution has charged the Chief Justice
720 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
with an important function in the trial of an impeachment of the Presi-
dent, it has seemed to me fitting and obhgatory, where he is unable to
concur in the views of the Senate concerning matters essential to the
tri^l, that his respectful dissent should appear.
S. P. CHASE,
Chief Justice of the United States.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE SENATE SITTING FOR THE TRIAL
OF THE IMPEACHMENT OF ANDREW JOHNSON, PRESI-
DENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1868.
Thk United States vs. Andrew Johnson, President.
The Chief Justice of the United States entered the Senate Chamber and
was conducted to the chair by the committee appointed by the Senate for
that purpose.
The following oath was administered to the Chief Justice by Associate
Justice Nelson, and by the Chief Justice to the members of the Senate:
I do solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeach-
ment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, now pending, I will do
impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws. So help me God.
FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1868.
The United States vs. Andrew Johnson, President.
To accord with the conviction of the Chief Justice* that the court
should adopt its own rules, those adopted on March 2 "by the Senate sit-
ting in its legislative capacity were readopjted by the Senate sitting as a
court of impeachment. The rules are as follows:
Rui,e:s of Proc^durk and Practice in the; Sbnatk whkn Sitting
ON THK TrIAI. of ImPEACHMKNTS.
I. Whensoever the Senate shall receive notice from the House of
Representatives that managers are appointed on their part to conduct
an impeachment against any person, and are directed to carry articles of
impeachment to the Senate, the Secretary of the Senate shall immediately
inform the House of Representatives that the Senate is ready to receive
the managers for the purpose of exhibiting such articles of impeachment
agreeably to said notice.
II. When the managers of an impeachment shall be introduced at the
bar of the Senate and shall signify that they are ready to exhibit articles
* See letter from the Chief Justice, pp. 718-720.
Andrew Johnson 721
of impeachment against any person, the Presiding Officer of the Senate
shall direct the Sergeant-at-Arms to make proclamation, who shall, after
making proclamation, repeat the following words, viz:
All persons are commanded to keep silence, on pain of imprisonment, while the
House of Representatives is exhibiting to the Senate of the United States articles of
impeachment against .
after which the articles shall be exhibited; and then the Presiding Officer
of the Senate shall inform the managers that the Senate will take proper
order on the subject of the impeachment, of which due notice shall be
given to the House of Representatives.
III. Upon such articles being presented to the Senate, the Senate
shall, at I o'clock afternoon of the day (Sunday excepted) following
such presentation, or sooner if so ordered by the Senate, proceed to the
consideration of such articles, and shall continue in session from day to
day (Sundays excepted) after the trial shall commence (unless other-
wise ordered by the Senate) until final judgment shall be rendered, and
so much longer as may in its judgment be needful. Before proceeding to
the consideration of the articles of impeachment the Presiding Officer
shall administer the oath hereinafter provided to the members of the
Senate then present, and to the other members of the Senate as they shall
appear, whose duty it shall be to take the same.
IV. When the President of the United States, or the Vice-President of
the United States upon whom the powers and duties of the office of Presi-
dent shall have devolved, shall be impeached, the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States shall preside; and in a case requir-
ing the said Chief Justice to preside notice shall be given to him by the
Presiding Officer of the Senate of the time and place fixed for the consider-
ation of the articles of impeachment as aforesaid, with a request to attend;
and the said Chief Justice shall preside over the Senate during the con-
sideration of said articles and upon the trial of the person impeached
therein.
V. The Presiding Officer shall have power to make and issue, by him-
self or by the Secretary of the Senate, all orders, mandates, writs, and pre-
cepts authorized by these rules or by the Senate, and to make and enforce
such other regulations and orders in the premises as the Senate may
authorize or provide.
VI. The Senate shall have power to compel the attendance of witnesses,
to enforce obedience to its orders, mandates, writs, precepts, and judg-
ments, to preserve order, and to punish in a summary way contempts of
and disobedience to its authority, orders, mandates, writs, precepts, or
judgments, and to make all lawful orders, rules, and regulations which
it may deem essential or conducive to the ends of justice; and the Ser
geant-at-Arms, under the direction of the Senate, may employ such aid
and assistance as may be necessary to enforce, execute, and carry into
effect the lawful orders, mandates, writs, and precepts of the Senate.
M P— vol, VI— 46
722 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
VII. The Presiding Officer of the Senate shall direct all necessary
preparations in the Senate Chamber, and the presiding officer upon the
trial shall direct all the forms of proceeding while the Senate are sitting
for the purpose of trying an impeachment and all forms during the trial
not otherwise speciall}^ provided for. The presiding officer may, in the
first instance, submit to the Senate, without a division, all questions of
evidence and incidental questions; but the same shall, on the demand
of one-fifth of the members present, be decided by yeas and nays.
VIII. Upon the presentation of articles of impeachment and the organ-
ization of the Senate as hereinbefore provided, a writ of summons shall
issue to the accused, reciting said articles and notifying him to appear
before the Senate upon a day and at a place to be fixed by the Senate,
and named in such writ, and file his answer to said articles of impeach-
ment, and to stand to and abide the orders and judgments of the Senate
thereon, which writ shall be served by such officer or person as shall be
named in the precept thereof such number of days prior to the day fixed
for such appearance as shall be named in such precept, either by the
delivery of an attested copy thereof to the person accused or, if that can
not conveniently be done, by leaving such copy at the last known place
of abode of such person or at his usual place of business, in some con-
spicuous place therein; or, if such service shall be, in the judgment of
the Senate, impracticable, notice to the accused to appear shall be given
in such other manner, by publication or otherwise, as shall be deemed
just; and if the writ aforesaid shall fail of service in the manner afore-
said, the proceedings shall not thereby abate, but further service may be
made in such manner as the Senate shall direct. If the accused, after
service, shall fail to appear, either in person or by attorney, on the day
so fixed therefor as aforesaid, or, appearing, shall fail to file his answer
to such articles of impeachment, the trial shall proceed, nevertheless, as
upon a plea of not guilty. If a plea of guilty shall be entered, judgment
may be entered thereon without further proceedings.
IX. At 12 o'clock and 30 minutes afternoon of the day appointed for
the return of the summons against the person impeached the legislative
and executive business of the Senate shall be suspended and the Secre-
tary of the Senate shall administer an oath to the returning officer in the
form following, viz:
I, , do solemnly swear that the return made by me upon the process
issued on the day of by the Senate of the United States against
is truly made, and that I have performed such service as herein described.
So help me God.
which oath shall be entered at large on the records.
X. The person impeached shall then be called to appear and answer
the articles of impeachment against him. If he appear, or any person for
him, the appearance shall be recorded, stating particularly if by himself
or by agent or attorney, naming the person appearing and the capacity in
Andrew Johnson 723
which he appears. If he do not appear, either personally or by agent or
attorney, the same shall be recorded.
XI. At 12 o'clock and 30 minutes afternoon of the day appointed for
the trial of an impeachment the legislative and executive business of the
Senate shall be suspended and the Secretary shall give notice to the House
of Representatives that the Senate is ready to proceed upon the impeach-
ment of , in the Senate Chamber, which chamber is prepared
with accommodations for the reception of the House of Representatives.
XII. The hour of the day at which the Senate shall sit upon the trial
of an impeachment shall be (unless otherwise ordered) 12 o'clock m., and
when the hour for such sitting shall arrive the Presiding Officer of the
Senate shall so announce; and thereupon the presiding officer upon such
trial shall cause proclamation to be made, and the business of the trial
shall proceed. The adjournment of the Senate sitting in said trial shall
not operate as an adjournment of the Senate, but on such adjournment
the Senate shall resume the considferation of its legislative and executive
business.
XIII. The Secretary of the Senate shall record the proceedings in
cases of impeachment as in the case of legislative proceedings, and the
same shall be reported in the same manner as the legislative proceedings
of the Senate.
XIV. Counsel for the parties shall be admitted to appear and be heard
upon an impeachment.
XV. All motions made by the parties or their counsel shall t)e ad-
dressed to the presiding officer, and if he or any Senator shall require it
they shall be committed to writing and read at the Secretary's table.
XVI. Witnesses shall be examined by one person on behalf of the
party producing them and then cross-examined by one person on the other
side.
XVII. If a Senator is called as a witness, he shall be sworn and give
his testimony standing in his place.
XVIII. If a Senator wishes a question to be put to a witness, or to
offer a motion or osder (except a motion to adjourn), it shall be reduced
to writing and put by the presiding officer.
XIX. At all times while the Senate is sitting upon the trial of an im-
peachment the doors of the Senate shall be kept open, unless the Senate
shall direct the doors to be closed while deliberating upon its decisions.
XX. All preliminary or interlocutory questions and all motions shall
be argued for not exceeding one hour on each side, unless the Senate
shall by order extend the time.
XXI. The case on each side shall be opened by one person. The final
argument on the merits may be made by two persons on each side (unless
otherwise ordered by the Senate, upon application for that purpose), and.
the argument shall be opened and closed on the part of the House of
Representatives .
724 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
XXII. On the final question whether the impeachment is sustained
the yeas and nays shall be taken on each article of impeachment sepa-
rately, and if the impeachment shall not, upon any of the articles pre-
sented, be sustained by the votes of two-thirds of the members present a
judgment of acquittal shall be entered; but if the person accused in such
articles of impeachment shall be convicted upon any of said articles by
the votes of two- thirds of the members present the Senate shall proceed
to pronounce judgment, and a certified copy of such judgment shall be
deposited in the office of the Secretary of State.
XXIII. All the orders and decisions shall be made and had by yeas
and nays, which shall be entered on the record, and without debate, except
when the doors shall be closed for deliberation, and in that case no member
shall speak more than once on one question, and for not more than ten
minutes on an interlocutory question, and for not more than fifteen min-
utes on the final question, unless by consent of the Senate, to be had with-
out debate; but a motion to adjourn may be decided without the yeas
and nays, unless they be demanded by one-fifth of the members present.
XXIV. Witnesses shall be sworn in the following form, viz:
You, ,do swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that the evidence you
shall give in the case now depending between the United States and
shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you God.
which oath shall be administered by the Secretary or any other duly
authorized person.
Form of subpoena to be issued on the application of the managers o^
the impeachment, or of the party impeached, or of his counsel:
To ^greeting:
You and each of you are hereby commanded to appear before the Senate of the
United States on the day of , at the Senate Chamber, in the city of Wash-
ington, then and there to testify your knowledge in the cause which is before the
Senate in which the House of Representatives have impeached .
Fail not.
Witness , and Presiding Officer of the Senate, at the city of Washing-
ton, this day of , A. D. , and of the Independence of the United States
the .
Form of direction for the service of said subpoena:
The Senate of the United States to , greeting:
You are hereby commanded to serve and return the within subpoena according
to law.
Dated at Washington, this day of , A. D. , and of the Independ-
ence of the United States the .
Secretary of the Senate.
Form of oath to be administered to the members of the Senate sitting
in the trial of impeachments:
I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that in all things appertaining
to the trial of the impeachment of , now pending, I will do impartial
justice according to the Constitution and laws. So help me God.
Andrew Johnson 72s
Form of summons to be issued and served upon the person impeached:
The United States of America, ss:
The Senate of the United States to , greeting:
Whereas the House of Representatives of the United States of America did on the
day of exhibit to the Senate articles of impeachment against you, the said
, in the words following:
[Here insert the articles.]
And demand that you, the said , should be put to answer the accusa-
tions as set forth in said articles, and that such proceedings, examinations, trials, and
judgments might be thereupon had as are agreeable to law and justice:
You, the said , are therefore hereby summoned to be and appear before
the Senate of the United States of America, at their chamber, in the city of Washing-
ton, on the day of , at 12 o'clock and 30 minutes afternoon, then and there to
answer to the said articles of impeachment, and then and there to abide by, obey, and
perform such orders, directions, and judgments as the Senate of the United States
shall make in the premises, according to the Constitution and laws of the United
States.
Hereof you are not to fail.
Witness , and Presiding Officer of the said Senate, at the city of Wash-
ington, this day of , A. D. , and of the Independence of the United
States the .
Form of precept to be indorsed on said writ of summons:
The United States of America, ss:
The Senate 0/ the United States to , greeting:
You are hereby commanded to deliver to and leave with , if conven-
iently to be found, or, if not, to leave at his usual place of abode or at his usual place
of business, in some conspicuous place, a true and attested copy of the within writ of
summons, together with a like copy of this precept; and in whichsoever way you per-
form the service, let it be done at least days before the appearance day mentioned
in said writ of summons.
Fail not, and make return of this writ of summons and precept, with your proceed-
ings thereon indorsed, on or before the appearance day mentioned in the said writ of
summons.
Witness , and Presiding Officer of the Senate, at the city of Washing-
ton, this day of , A. D. , and of the Independence of the United States
the .
All process shall be served by the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate
unless otherwise ordered by the court.
XXV. If the Senate shall at any time fail to sit for the consideration
of articles of impeachment on the day or hour fixed therefor, the Senate
may by an order, to be adopted without debate, fix a day and hour for
resuming such consideration.
On March 31 Rule VII was amended to read as follows:
VII. The Presiding Officer of the Senate shall direct all necessary
preparations in the Senate Chamber, and the presiding officer on the trial
shall direct all the forms of proceeding while the Senate are sitting for
the purpose of trying an impeachment, and all forms during the trial not
otherwise specially provided for, and the presiding ofi&cer on the trial
726 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
may rule all questions of evidence and incidental questions, which ruling
shall stand as the judgment of the Senate, unless some member of the
Senate shall ask that a formal vote be taken thereon, in which case it
shall be submitted to the Senate for decision; or he may, at his option,
in the first instance submit any such question to a vote of the members
of the Senate.
On April 3 Rule VII was further amended by inserting at the end
thereof the following :
Upon all such questions the vote shall be without a division, unless the
yeas and nays be demanded by one- fifth of the members present, when
the same shall be taken.
On March 13 Rule XXIII was amended to read as follows:
XXIII. All the orders and decisions shall be made and had by yeas
and nays, which shall be entered on the record, and without debate, sub-
ject, however, to the operation of Rule VII, except when the doors shall
be closed for deliberation, and in that case no member shall speak more
than once on one question, and for not more than ten minutes on an
interlocutory question, and for not more than fifteen minutes on the final
question, unless by consent of the Senate, to be had without debate; but
a motion to adjourn may be decided without the yeas and nays, unless
they be demanded by one-fifth of the members present.
On May 7 Rule XXIII was further amended by adding thereto the
following:
The fifteen minutes herein allowed shall be for the whole deliberation
on the final question, and not to the final question on each article of
impeachment.
FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 1868.
The United States vs. Andrew Johnson, President.
Mr. Henry Stanbery, in behalf of Andrew Johnson, the respondent,
read the following paper:
In the matter of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States.
Mr. Chikf Justice: I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
having been served with a summons to appear before this honorable court,
sitting as a court of impeachment, to answer certain articles of impeach-
ment found and presented against me by the honorable the House of Rep-
resentatives of the United States, do hereby enter my appearance by my
counsel, Henry Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, Jere^niah S. Black, William
M. Evarts, and Thomas A R. Nelson, who have my warrant and author-
ity therefor, and who are instructed by me to ask of this honorable court a
reasonable time for the preparation of my answer to said articles. After
a careful examination ot the articles of impeachment and consultation
Andrew Johnson 727
with my counsel, I am satisfied that at least forty days will be necessary
for the preparation of my answer, and I respectfully ask that it be allowed.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
Mr. Stanbery then submitted the following motion:
In the matter of the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States.
Henry Stanbery, Benjamin R. Curtis, Jeremiah S. Black, William M.
Kvarts, and Thomas A. R. Nelson, of counsel for the respondent, move the
court for the allowance of forty days for the preparation of the answer to
the articles of impeachment, and in support of the motion make the fol-
lowing professional statement:
The articles are eleven in number, involving many questions of law and
fact. We have during the limited time and opportunity afforded us con-
sidered as far as possible the field of investigation which must be explored
in the preparation of the answer, and the conclusion at which we have
arrived is that with the utmost diligence the time we have asked is rea-
sonable and necessary.
The precedents as to time for answer upon impeachments before the
Senate to which we have had opportunity to refer are those of Judge
Chase and Judge Peck.
In the case of Judge Chase time was allowed from the 3d of January
until the 4th of February next succeeding to put in his answer — a period
of thirty-two days; but in this case there were only eight articles, and
Judge Chase had been for a year cognizant of most of the articles, and had
been himself engaged in preparing to meet them.
In the case of Judge Peck there was but a single article. Judge Peck
asked for time from the loth to the 25th of May to put in his answer, and
it was granted. It appears that Judge Peck had been long cognizant of
the ground laid for his impeachment, and had been present before the
committee of the House upon the examination of the witnesses, and had
been permitted by the Jlouse of Representatives to present to that body
an elaborate answer to the charges.
It is apparent that the President is fairly entitled to more time than
was allowed in either of the foregoing cases. It is proper to add that
the respondents in these cases were lawyers, fully capable of preparing
their own answers, and that no pressing official duties interfered with their
attention to that business; whereas the President, not being a lawyer,
must rely on his counsel. The charges involve his acts, declarations,
and intentions, as to all which his counsel must be fully advised upon
consultation with him, step by step, in the preparation of his defense.
It is seldom that a case requires such constant communication between
client and counsel as this, and yet vSUch communication can only be had
at such intervals as are allowed to the President from the usual hours
that must be devoted to his high official duties.
728 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
We further beg leave to suggest for the consideration of this honorable
court that, as counsel careful as well of their own reputation as of the
interests of their client in a case of such magnitude as this, so out of
the ordinary range of professional experience, where so much responsi-
bility is felt, they submit to the candid consideration of the court that
they have a right to ask for themselves such opportunity to discharge
their duty as seems to them to be absolutely necessary.
HENRY STANBERY,
B. R. CURTIS,
JEREMIAH S. BI.ACK,
WIIvIvIAM M. EVARTS, | ^^^ ^' ^'
THOMAS A. R. NELSON,
Of Counsel for the Respondent.
The above motion was denied, and the Senate adopted the following
orders:
Ordered, That the respondent file answer to the articles of impeach-
ment on or before Monday, the 23d day of March instant.
Ordered, That unless otherwise ordered by the Senate, for cause shown,
the trial of the pending impeachment shall proceed immediately after
replication shall be filed.
MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1868.
The United States vs. Andrew Johnson, President.
The answer of the respondent to the articles of impeachment was sub-
mitted by his counsel, as follows:
Senate of the United States, sitting as a court of impeachment for the
trial of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States.
The Answer of the Said Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, to the Articles of Impeachment Exhibited
AGAINST Him by the House of Representatives of the United .
States.
Answer to Article I. — Eor answer to the first article he says that
Edwin M. Stanton was appointed Secretary for the Department of War
on the 15th day of January, A. D. 1862, by Abraham Lincoln, then
President of the United States, during the first term of his Presidency,
and was commissioned, according to the Constitution and laws of the
United States, to hold the said office during the pleasure of the Presi-
dent; that the office of Secretary for the Department of War was created
by an act of the First Congress in its first session, passed on the 7th day
of August, A. D. 1789, and in and by that act it was provided and
enacted that the said Secretary for the Department of War shall perform
and execute such duties as shall from time to time be enjoined on and
Andrew Johnson 729
intrusted to him by the President of the United States, agreeably to the
Constitution, relative to the subjects within the scope of the said Depart-
ment; and, furthermore, that the said Secretary shall conduct the busi-
ness of the said Department in such a manner as the President of the
United States shall from time to time order and instruct.
And this respondent, further answering, says that by force of the act
aforesaid and by reason of his appointment aforesaid the said Stanton
became the principal officer in one of the Executive Departments of the
Government within the true intent and meaning of the second section of
the second article of the Constitution of the United States and according
to the true intent and meaning of that provision of the Constitution of
the United States; and, in accordance with the settled and uniform prac-
tice of each and every President of the United States, the said Stanton
then became, and so long as he should continue to hold the said office
of Secretary for the Department of War must continue to be, one of the
advisers of the President of the United States, as well as the person
intrusted to act for and represent the President in matters enjoined upon
him or intrusted to him by the President touching the Department afore-
said, and for whose conduct in such capacity, subordinate to the Presi-
dent, the President is by the Constitution and laws of the United States
made responsible.
And this respondent, further answering, says he succeeded to the office
of President of the United States upon and by reason of the death of
Abraham Lincoln, then President of the United States, on the 15th day
of April, 1865, and the said Stanton was then holding the said office of
Secretary for the Department of War under and by reason of the appoint-
ment and commission aforesaid; and not having been removed from the
said office by this respondent, the said Stanton continued to hold the same
under the appointment and commission aforesaid, at the pleasure of the
President, until the time hereinafter particularly mentioned, and at no
time received any appointment or commission save as above detailed.
' And this respondent, further answering, says that on and prior to the
5th day of August, A. D. 1867, this respondent, the President of the United
States, responsible for the conduct of the Secretary for the Department of
War, and having the constitutional right to resort to and rely upon the
person holding that office for advice concerning the great and difficult
public duties enjoined on the President by the Constitution and laws of
the United States, became satisfied that he could not allow the said Stan-
ton to continue to hold the office of Secretary for the Department of War
without hazard of the public interest; that the relations between the said
Stanton and the President no longer permitted the President to resort to
him for advice or to be, in the judgment of the President, safely respon-
sible for his conduct of the affairs of the Department of War, as by law
required, in accordance with the orders and instructions of the Presi-
dent; and thereupon, by force of the Constitution and laws of the United
J2P Messages and Papers of the Presidents
States, which devolve on the President the power and the duty to control
the conduct of the business of that Executive Department of the Govern-
ment, and by reason of the constitutional duty of the President to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed, this respondent did necessarily
consider and did determine that the said Stanton ought no longer to
hold the said office of Secretary for the Department of War. And this
respondent, by virtue of the power and authority vested in him as Presi-
dent of the United States by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, to give effect to such his decision and determination, did, on the
5th day of August, A. D. 1867, address to the said Stanton a note of
which the following is a true copy:
Sir: Public considerations of a high character constrain me to say that your resig-
nation as Secretary of War will be accepted.
To which note the said Stanton made the following reply:
War Dbpar'Tment,
Washington, August 5, iSS"^.
Sir: Your note of this day has been received, stating that ** public considerations
of a high character constrain ' ' you ' ' to say that ' ' my ' ' resignation as Secretary of
War will be accepted. ' '
In reply I have the honor to say that public considerations of a high character,
which alone have induced me to continue at the head of this Department, constrain
me not to resign the office of Secretary of War before the next meeting of Congress.
Very respectfully, yours, EDWIN M. STANTON.
This respondent, as President of the United States, was thereon of opin-
ion that, having regard to the necessary official relations and duties of the
Secretary for the Department of War to the President of the United States,
according to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and having
regard to the responsibility of the President for the conduct of the said
Secretary, and having regard to the permanent executive authority of
the office which the respondent holds under the Constitution and laws
of the United States, it was impossible, consistently with the public inter-
ests, to allow the said Stanton to continue to hold the said office of Sec-
retary for the Department of War; and it then became the official duty
of the respondent, as President of the United States, to consider and decide
what act or acts should and might lawfully be done by him, as Presi-
dent of the United States, to cause the said Stanton to surrender the said
ofiice.
This respondent was informed and verily believed that it was practi-
cally settled by the First Congress of the United States, and had been so
considered and uniformly and in great numbers of instances acted on by
each Congress and President of the United States, in succession, from
President Washington to and including President Lincoln, and from the
First Congress to the Thirty-ninth Congress, that the Constitution of
the United States conferred on the President, as part of the executive
power and as one of the necessary means and instruments of performing
Andrew Johnson 70 j
the executive duty expressly imposed on him by the Constitution of tak-
ing care that the laws be faithfully executed, the power at any and all
times of removing from office all executive officers for cause to be judged
of by the President alone. This respondent had, in pursuance of the Con-
stitution, required the opinion of each principal officer of the Executive
Departments upon this question of constitutional executive power and
duty, and had been advised by each of them, including the said Stanton,
Secretary for the Department of War, that under the Constitution of the
United States this power was lodged by the Constitution in the Presi-
dent of the United States, and that, consequently, it could be lawfully
exercised by him, and the Congress could not deprive him thereof; and
this respondent, in his capacity of President of the United States, and
because in that capacity he was both enabled and bound to use his best
judgment upon this question, did, in good faith and with an earnest
desire to arrive at the truth, come to the conclusion and opinion, and did
make the same known to the honorable the Senate of the United States
by a message dated on the 2d day of March, 1867 (a true copy whereof is
hereunto annexed and marked A) , that the power last mentioned was
conferred and the duty of exercising it in fit cases was imposed on the
President by the Constitution of the United States, and that the Presi-
dent could not be deprived of this power or relieved of this duty, nor
could the same be vested by law in the President and the Senate jointly,
either in part or whole; and this has ever since remained and was the
opinion of this respondent at the time when he was forced as aforesaid to
consider and decide what act or acts should and might lawfully be done
by this respondent, as President of the United States, to cause the said
Stanton to surrender the said office.
This respondent was also then aware that by the first section of ' 'An
act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices," passed March 2, 1867,
by a constitutional majority of both Houses of Congress, it was enacted
as follows:
That every person holding any civil office to which he has been appointed by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter be
appointed to any such office and shall become duly qualified to act therein, is and
shall be entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been in like manner
appointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided: Provided, That
the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War, of the Navy, and of the Interior, the
Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-General shall hold their offices, respectively,
for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed
and one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of
the Senate,
This respondent was also aware that this act was understood and
intended to be an expression of the opinion of the Congress by which
that act was passed that the power to remove executive officers for cause
might by law be taken from the President and vested in him and the
Senate jointly; and although this respondent had arrived at and still
']'X,2, Messages and Papers of the Presidents
retained the opinion above expressed, and verily believed, as he still
believes, that the said first section of the last-mentioned act was and is
wholly inoperative and void by reason of its conflict with the Constitu-
tion of the United States, 3^et, inasmuch as the same had been enacted by
the constitutional majority in each of the two Houses of that Congress,
this respondent considered it to be proper to examine and decide whether
the particular case of the said Stanton, on which it was this respondent's
duty to act, was within or without the terms of that first section of the
act, or, if within it, whether the President had not the power, accord-
ing to the terms of the act, to remove the said Stanton from the ofhce
of Secretary for the Department of War; and having, in his capacity of
President of the United States, so examined and considered, did form the
opinion that the case of the said Stanton and his tenure of office were
not affected by the first section of the last-named act.
And this respondent, further answering, says that although a case thus
existed which, in his judgment, as President of the United States, called
for the exercise of the executive power to remove the said Stanton from
the office of Secretary for the Department of War; and although this re-
spondent was of opinion, as is above shown, that under the Constitution
of the United States the power to remove the said Stanton from the said
office was vested in the President of the United States; and although this
respondent was also of the opinion, as is above shown, that the case of the
said Stanton was not affected by the first section of the last-named act;
and although each of the said opinions had been formed by this respond-
ent upon an actual case, requiring him, in his capacity of President of the
United States, to come to some judgment and determination thereon, yet
this respondent, as President of the United States, desired and determined
to avoid, if possible, any question of the construction and effect of the
said first section of the last-named act, and also the broader question of
the executive power conferred upon the President of the United States
by the Constitution of the United States to remove one of the principal
officers of one of the Executive Departments for cause seeming to him
sufficient; and this respondent also desired and determined that if, from
causes over which he could exert no control, it should become absolutely
necessary to raise and have in some way determined either or both of the
said last-named questions, it was in accordance with the Constitution of
the United States, and was required of the President thereby, that ques-
tions of so much gravity and importance, upon which the legislative and
executive departments of the Government had disagreed, which involved
powers considered by all branches of the Government, during its entire
history down to the year 1867, to have been confided by the Constitution
of the United States to the President, and to be necessary for the com-
plete and proper execution of his constitutional duties, should be in some
proper way submitted to that judicial department of the Government
intrusted by the Constitution with the power, and subjected by it to the
Andrew Johnson 733
duty, not only of determining finally the construction and effect of all
acts of Congress, but of comparing them with the Constitution of the
United States and pronouncing them inoperative when found in conflict
with that fundamental law which the people have enacted for the gov-
ernment of all their servants. And to these ends, first, that through the
action of the Senate of the United States the absolute duty of the Presi-
dent to substitute some fit person in place of Mr. Stanton as one of his
advisers, and as a principal subordinate officer whose official conduct he
was responsible for and had lawful right to control, might, if possible, be
accomplished without the necessity of raising any one of the questions
aforesaid; and, second, if this duty could not be so performed, then that
these questions, or such of them as might necessarily arise, should be judi-
cially determined in manner aforesaid, and for no other end or purpose,
this respondent, as President of the United States, on the 12th day of
August, 1867, seven days after the reception of the letter of the said Stan-
ton of the 5th of August, hereinbefore stated, did issue to the said Stanton
the order following, namely:
BxKCuTivE Mansion,
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Washington, August 12, 1867.
Secretary of War.
Sir: By virtue of the power and authority vested in me as President by the Consti-
tution and laws of the United States, you are hereby suspended from office as Secre-
tary of War, and will cease to exercise any and all functions pertaining to the same.
You wi 1 at once tran.sfer to General Ulysses S. Grant, who has this day been
authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War ad interim, all records, books,
papers, and other public property now in your custody and charge.
To which said order the said Stanton made the following reply:
War Department,
The President. Washington City, August 12, 1867.
Sir: Your note of this date has been received, informing me that by virtue of the
powers vested in you as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States
I am suspended from office as Secretary of War, and will cease to exercise any and
all functions pertaining to the same; and also directing me at once to transfer to
General Ulysses S. Grant, who has this day been authorized and empowered to act as
Secretary of War ad interim, all records, books, papers, and other public property now
in my custody and charge.
Under a sense of public duty, I am compelled to deny your right under the Con-
stitution and laws of the United States, without the advice and consent of the Senate
and without legal cause, to suspend me from office as Secretary of War, or the exer-
cise of any or all functions pertaining to the same, or without such advice and consent
to compel me to transfer to any person the records, books, papers, and public property
in my custody as Secretary.
But inasmuch as the General Commanding the armies of the United States has been
appointed ad interim, and has notified me that he has accepted the appointment, I
have no alternative but to submit, under protest, to superior force.
And this respondent, further answering, says that it is provided in and
by the second section of "An act regulating the tenure of certain civil
offices ' ' that the President may suspend an officer from the performance
734 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
of the duties of the office held by him, for certain causes therein desig-
nated, until the next meeting of the Senate and until the case shall be
acted on by the Senate; that this respondent, as President of the United
States, was advised, and he verily believed, and still believes, that the
executive power of removal from office confided to him by the Consti-
tution as aforesaid includes the power of suspension from office at the
pleasure of the President; and this respondent, by the order aforesaid,
did suspend the said Stanton from office, not until the next meeting of
the Senate or until the Senate should have acted upon the case, but, by
force of the power and authority vested in him by the Constitution and
laws of the United States, indefinitely and at the pleasure of the Presi-
dent; and the order, in form aforesaid, was made known to the Senate
of the United States on the 12th day of December, A. D. 1867, as will be
more fully hereinafter stated.
And this respondent, further answering, says that in and by the act of
February 13, 1795, it was, among other things, provided and enacted
that in case of vacancy in the ofiice of Secretary for the Department of
War it shall be lawful for the President, in case he shall think it neces-
sary, to authorize any person to perform the duties of that office until a
successor be appointed or such vacancy filled, but not exceeding the term
of six months; and this respondent, being advised and believing that
such law was in full force and not repealed, by an order dated August
12, 1867, did authorize and empower Ulysses S. Grant, General of the
armies of the United States, to act as Secretary for the Department of
War ad interim^ in the form in which similar authority had theretofore
been given, not until the next meeting of the Senate and until the Senate
should act on the case, but at the pleasure of the President, subject only
to the limitation of six months in the said last-mentioned act contained;
and a copy of the last-named order was made known to the Senate of
the United States on the 12th day of December, A. D. 1867, as will be
hereinafter more fully stated; and in pursuance of the design and inten-
tion aforesaid, if it should become necessary, to submit the said questions
to a judicial determination, this respondent, at or near the date of the
last-mentioned order, did make known such his purpose to obtain a judi-
cial decision of the said questions, or such of them as might be necessary.
And this respondent, further answering, says that in further pursuance
of his intention and design, if possible, to perform what he judged to be
his imperative duty, to prevent the said Stanton from longer holding
the office of Secretary for the Department of War, and at the same time
avoiding, if possible, any question respecting the extent of the power of
removal from executive office confided to the President by the Constitu-
tion of the United States, and any question respecting the construction
and effect of the first section of the said "Act regulating the tenure of
certain civil offices," while he should not by any act of his abandon and
relinquish either a power which he believed the Constitution had con-
Andrew Johnson h-ic
f erred on the President of the United States to enable him to perform the
duties of his office or a power designedly left to him by the first section of
the act of Congress last aforesaid, this respondent did, on the 12th day
of December, 1867, transmit to the Senate of the United States a message,
a copy whereof is hereunto annexed and marked B, wherein he made
known the orders aforesaid and the reasons which had induced the same,
so far as this respondent then considered it material and necessary that
the same should be set forth, and reiterated his views concerning the
constitutional power of removal vested in the President, and also expressed
his views concerning the construction of the said first section of the last-
mentioned act, as respected the power of the President to remove the said
Stanton from the said office of Secretary for the Department of War, well
hoping that this respondent could thus perform what he then believed,
and still believes, to be his imperative duty in reference to the said Stanton
without derogating from the powers which this respondent beUeved were
confided to the President by the Constitution and laws, and without the
necessity of raising judicially any questions respecting the same.
And this respondent, further answering, says that this hope not having
been realized, the President was compelled either to allow the said Stan-
ton to resume the said office and remain therein contrary to the settled
convictions of the President, formed as aforesaid, respecting the powers
confided to him and the duties required of him by the Constitution of the
United States, and contrary to the opinion formed as aforesaid that the
first section of the last-mentioned act did not affect the case of the said
Stanton, and contrary to the fixed belief of the President that he could
no longer advise with or trust or be responsible for the said Stanton in
the said office of Secretary for the Department of War, or else he was
compelled to take such steps as might in the judgment of the President
be lawful and necessary to raise for a judicial decision the questions
affecting the lawful right of the said Stanton to resume the said office
or the power of the said Stanton to persist in refusing to quit the said
office if he should persist in actually refusing to quit the same; and to
this end, and to this end only, this respondent did, on the 21st day of
February, 1868, issue the order for the removal of the said Stanton, in
the said first article mentioned and set forth, and the order authoriz-
ing the said Lorenzo Thomas to act as Secretary of War ad interim, in
the said second article set forth.
And this respondent, proceeding to answer specifically each substantial
allegation in the said first article, says: He denies that the said Stanton, on
the 2 1 St day of February, 1868, was lawfully in possession of the said office
of Secretary for the Department of War. He denies that the said Stanton,
on the day last mentioned, was lawfully entitled to hold the said office
against the will of the President of the United States. He denies that the
said order for the removal of the said Stanton was unlawfully issued. He
denies that the said order was issued with intent to violate the act entitled
736 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
'*An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices." He denies that
the said order was a violation of the last-mentioned act. He denies that the
said order was a violation of the Constitution of the* United States, or of
any law thereof, or of his oath of office. He denies that the said order was
issued with an intent to violate the Constitution of the United States, or
any law thereof, or this respondent's oath of office; and he respectfully
but earnestly insists that not only was it issued by him in the perform-
ance of what he believed to be an imperative official duty, but in the per-
formance of what this honorable court will consider was, in point of fact,
an imperative official duty. And he denies that any and all substantive
matters in the said first article contained, in manner and form as the
same are therein stated and set forth, do by law constitute a high misde-
meanor in office within the true intent and meaning of the Constitution
of the United States.
Answer to Article II. — And for answer to the second article this re-
spondent says that. he admits he did issue and deliver to said Lorenzo
Thomas the said writing set forth in said second article, bearing date at
Washington, D. C, February 21, 1868, addressed to Brevet Major- Gen-
eral Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant- General United States Army, Washing-
ton, D. C, and he further admits that the same was so issued without the
advice and consent of the Senate of the United States, then in session;
but he denies that he thereby violated the Constitution of the United
States or any law thereof, or that he did thereby intend to violate the
Constitution of the United States or the provisions of any act of Con-
gress; and this respondent refers to his answer to said first article for a
full statement of the purposes and intentions with which said order was
issued, and adopts the same as part of his answer to this article; and he
further denies that there was then and there no vacancy in the said office
of Secretary for the Department of War, or that he did then and there
commit or was guilty of a high misdemeanor in office; and this respond-
ent maintains and will insist —
1. That at the date and delivery of said writing there was a vacancy
existing in the office of Secretary for the Department of War.
2. That notwithstanding the Senate of the United States was then in
session, it was lawful and According to long and well-established usage
to empower and authorise the Said Thomas to act as Secretary of War
ad interim.
3. That if the said act regulating the tenure of civil offices be held to
be a valid law, no provision of the same was violated by the issuing of said
order or by the designation of said Thomas to act as Secretary of War
ad interim.
Answer to Article III. — And for answer to said third article this re-
spondent says that he abides by his answer to said first and second arti-
cles in so far as the same are responsive to the allegations contained in
the said third article, and, without here again repeating the same answer,
Andrew Johnson 707
prays the same be taken as an answer to this third article as fully as if
here again set out at length; and as to the new allegation contained
in said third article, that this respondent did appoint the said Thomas to
be Secretary for the Department of War ad interim, this respondent denies
that he gave any other authority to said Thomas than such as appears in
said written authority, set out in said article, by which he authorized and
empowered said Thomas to act as Secretary for the Department of War
ad interim; and he denies that the same amounts to an appointment, and
insists that it is only a designation of an officer of that Department to act
temporarily as Secretary for the Department of War ad iyiterim until an
appointment should be made. But whether the said written authority
amounts to an appointment or to a temporary authority or designation,
this respondent denies that in any sense he did thereby intend to vio-
late the Constitution of the United States, or that he thereby intended to
give the said order the character or effect of an appointment in the con-
stitutional or legal sense of that term. He further denies that there was
no vacancy in said office of Secretary for the Department of War existing
at the date of said written authority.
Answer to Article IV. — And for answer to said fourth article this
respondent denies that on the said 21st day of February, 1868, at Wash-
ington aforesaid, or at any other time or place, he did unlawfully con-
spire with the said I^orenzo Thomas, or with the said Thomas and any
other person or persons, with intent, by intimidations and threats, unlaw-
fully to hinder and prevent the said Stanton from holding said office of
Secretary for the Department of War, in violation of the Constitution of
the United States or of the provisions of the said act of Congress in said
article mentioned, or that he did then and there commit or was guilty of
a high crime in office. On the contrary thereof, protesting that the said
Stanton was not then and there lawfully the Secretary for the Depart-
ment of War, this respondent states that his sole purpose in authorizing
the said Thomas to act as Secretary for the Department of War ad
interim was, as is fully stated in his answer to the said first article, to
bring the question of the right of the said Stanton to hold said office, not-
withstanding his said suspension, and notwithstanding the said order of
removal, and notwithstanding the said authority of the said Thomas to
act as Secretary of War ad interim, to the test of a final decision by the
Supreme Court of the United States in the earliest practicable mode by
which the question could be brought before that tribunal.
This respondent did not conspire or agree with the said Thomas, or any
other person or persons, to use intimidation or threats to hinder or prevent
the said Stanton from holding the said office of Secretary for the Depart-
ment of War, nor did this respondent at any time command or advise the
said Thomas, or any other person or persons, to resort to or use either
threats or intimidation- for that purpose. The only means in the contem-
plation or purpose^ of respondent to be used are set forth fully in the said
^I P— vol, VI— 47
738 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
orders of February 21, the first addressed to Mr. Stanton and the second
to the said Thomas. By the first order the respondent notified Mr.
Stanton that he was removed from the said office and that his func-
tions as Secretary for the Department of War were to terminate upon
the receipt of that order; and he also thereby notified the said Stanton
that the said Thomas had been authorized to act as Secretary for the
Department of War ad interim^ and ordered the said Stanton to transfer
to him all the records, books, papers, and other public property in his
custody apd charge; and by the second order this respondent notified the
said Thomas of the removal from ofiice of the said Stanton, and author-
ized him to act as Secretary for the Department of War ad interim, and
directed him to immediately enter upon the discharge of the duties per-
taining to that office and to receive the transfer of all the records, books,
papers, and other public property from Mr. Stanton then in his custody
and charge.
Respondent gave no instructions to the said Thomas to use intimida-
tion or threats to enforce obedience to these orders. He gave him no
authority to call in the aid of the military or any other force to enable
him to obtain possession of the ofiice or of the books, papers, records, or
property thereof. The only agency resorted to, or intended to be resorted
to, was by means of the said Executive orders requiring obedience. But
the Secretary for the Department of War refused to obey these orders,
and still holds undisturbed possession and custody of that Department
and of the records, books, papers, and other public property therein.
Respondent further states that in execution of the orders so by this
respondent given to the said Thomas he, the said Thomas, proceeded in a
peaceful manner to demand of the said Stanton a surrender to him of the
public property in the said Department, and to vacate the possession of
the same, and to allow him, the said Thomas, peaceably to exercise the
duties devolved upon him by authority of the President. That, as this
respondent has been informed and believes, the said Stanton peremptorily
refused obedience to the orders so issued. Upon such refusal no force or
threat of force was used by the said Thomas, by authority of the Presi-
dent or otherwise, to enforce obedience, either then or at any subsequent
time.
This respondent doth here except to the sufficiency of the allegations
contained in said fourth article, and states for ground of exception that
it is not stated that there was any agreement between this respondent
and the said Thomas, or any other person or persons, to use intimidation
and threats, nor is there any allegation as to the nature of said intimida-
tion and threats, or that there was any agreement to carry them into
execution, or that any step was taken or agreed to be taken to carry them
into execution; and that the allegation in said article that the intent of
said conspiracy was to use intimidation and threats is wholly insufficient,
inasmuch as it is not alleged that the said intent formed the basis or
Andrew Johnson 739
became part of any agreement between the said alleged conspirators; and,
furthermore, that there is no allegation of any conspiracy or agreement
to use intimidation or threats.
Answer to Article V. — And for answer to the said fifth article this
respondent denies that on the said 21st day of February, 1868, or at any
other time or times in the same year before the said 2d day of March,
1868, or at any prior or subsequent time, at Washington aforesaid, or at
any other place, this respondent did unlawfully conspire with the said
Thomas, or with any other person or persons, to prevent or hinder the
execution of the said act entitled "An act regulating the tenure of cer-
tain civil offices," or that, in pursuance of said alleged conspiracy, he did
unlawfully attempt to prevent the said Edwin M. Stanton from holding
the said ofiice of Secretary for the Department of War, or that he did
thereby commit, or that he was thereby guilty of, a high misdemeanor in
oSice. Respondent, protesting that said Stanton was not then and there
Secretary for the Department of War, begs leave to refer to his answer
given to the fourth article and to his answer to the first article as to his
intent and purpose in issuing the orders for the removal of Mr. Stanton
and the authority given to the said Thomas, and prays equal benefit there-
from as if the same were here again repeated and fully set forth.
And this respondent excepts to the sufiiciency of the said fifth article,
and states his ground for such exception that it is not alleged by what
means or by what agreement the said alleged conspiracy was formed or
agreed to be carried out, or in what way the same was attempted to be
carried out, or what were the acts done in pursuance thereof.
Answer to Article VI. — And for answer to the said sixth article this
respondent denies that on the said 21st day of February, 1868, at Wash-
ington aforesaid, or at any other time or place, he did unlawfully con-
spire with the said Thomas by force to seize, take, or possess the prop-
erty of the United States in the Department of War, contrary to the
provisions of the said acts referred to in the said article, or either of them,
or with intent to violate either of them. Respondent, protesting that
said Stanton was not then and there Secretary for the Department of
War, not only denies the said conspiracy as charged, but also denies any
unlawful intent in reference to the custody and charge of the property
of the United States in the said Department of War, and again refers
to his former answers for a full statement of his intent and purpose in
the premises.
Answer to Article VII . — And for answer to the said seventh article
respondent denies that on the said 21st day of February, 1868, at Wash-
ington aforesaid, or at any other time and place, he did unlawfully con-
spire with the said Thomas with intent unlawfully to seize, take, or
possess the property of the United States in the Department of War, with
intent to violate or disregard the said act in the said seventh article
referred to, or that he did then and there commit a high misdemeanor in
740 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
office. Respondent, protesting that the said Stanton was not then and
there Secretary for the Department of War, again refers to his former
answers, in so far as they are applicable, to show the intent with which
he proceeded in the premises, and prays equal benefit therefrom as if
the same were here again fully repeated. Respondent further takes
exception to the sufficiency of the allegations of this article as to the
conspiracy alleged upon the same grounds as stated in the exception set
forth in his answer to said article fourth.
Answer to Article VIII . — And for answer to the said eighth article this
respondent denies that on the 21st day of February, 1868, at Washing-
ton aforesaid, or at any other time and place, he did issue and deliver to
the said Thomas the said letter of authority set forth in the said eighth
article with the intent unlawfully to control the disbursements of the
money appropriated for the military service and for the Department of
War. This respondent, protesting that there was a vacancy in the office
of Secretary of War, admits that he did issue the said letter of author-
ity, and he denies that the same was with any unlr.wful intent whatever,
either to violate the Constitution of the United States or any act of Con-
gress. On the contrary, this respondent again affirms that his sole intent
was to vindicate his authority as President of the United States, and by
peaceful means to bring the question of the right of the said Stanton to
continue to hold the said office of Secretary of War to a final decision
before the Supreme Court of the United States, as has been hereinbefore
set forth; and he prays the same benefit from his answer in the premises
as if the same were here again repeated at length.
Answer to Article IX. — And for answer to the said ninth article the
respondent states that on the said 2 2d day of February, 1868, the follow-
ing note was addressed to the said Emory by the private secretary of
the respondent:
Executive Mansion,
Washington, D. C,
February 22, 1868.
Generai,: The President directs me to say that he will be pleased to have you
call upon him as early as practicable.
Respectfully and truly, yours,
WILI/IAM G. MOORE,
United States Army.
General Emory called at the Executive Mansion according to this re-
quest. The object of respondent was to be advised by General Emory,
as commander of the Department of Washington, what changes had been
made in the military affairs of the department. Respondent had been
informed that various changes had been made which in no wise had
been brought to his notice or reported to him from the Department of
War or from any other quarter, and desired to ascertain fhe facts. After
the said Emory had explained in detail the changes which had taken
Andrew Johnson 741
place, said Emory called the attention of respondent to a general order
which he referred to, and which this respondent then sent for, when it
was produced. It is as follows:
Generai, Orders, No, 17.
War Department,
Adjutant-Generai^'s Office,
Washington, March 14, 1867.
The following acts of Congress are pubHshed for the information and government
of all concerned:
" II.— PUBWC— No. 85.
"AN ACT making appropriations for the support of the Army for the year ending June 30, 1868,
and for other purposes.
^ ***** ^
"Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the headquarters of the General of the
Army of the United States shall be at the city of Washington, and all orders and
instructions relating to military operations issued by the President or Secretary of
War shall be issued through the General of the Army, and in case of his inability
through the next in rank. The General of the Army shall not be removed, sus-
pended, or relieved from command, or assigned to duty elsewhere than at said
headquarters, except at his own request, without the previous approval of the Senate;
and any orders or instructions relating to military operations issued contrary to the
requirements of this section shall be null and void* and any officer who shall issue
orders or instructions contrary to the provisions of this section shall be deemed
guilty of a misdemeanor in office; and any officer of the Army who shall transmit,
convey, or obey any orders or instructions so issued contrary to the provisions of this
section, knowing that such orders were so issued, shall be liable to imprisonment for
not less than two nor more than twenty years upon conviction thereof in any court
of competent jurisdiction.
* * * * * * *
"Approved, March 2, 1867."
*******
By order of the Secretary of War:
Official:
B. D. TOWNSEND,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
Assistant Adjutant-General.
General Emory not only called the attention of respondent to this
order, but to the fact that it was in conformity with a section contained
in an appropriation act passed by Congress. Respondent, after reading
the order, observed:
This is not in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, which makes
me Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, or of the language of the commission
which you hold.
General Emory then stated that this order had met the respondent's
approval. Respondent then said in reply, in substance:
Am I to understand that the President of the United States can not give an order
but through the General in Chief, or General Grant?
742 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
General Emory again reiterated the statement that it had met respond-
ent's approval, and that it was the opinion of some of the leading lawyers
of the country that this order was constitutional. With some further
conversation, respondent then inquired the names of the lawyers who had
given the opinion, and he mentioned the names of two. Respondent then
said that the object of the law was very evident, referring to the clause
in the appropriation act upon which the order purported to be based.
This, according to respondent's recollection, was the substance of the
conversation had with General Emory.
Respondent denies that any allegations in the said article of any in-
structions or declarations given to the said Emory then or at any other
time contrary to or in addition to what is hereinbefore set forth are true.
Respondent denies that in said conversation with said Emory he had any
other intent than to express the opinion then given to the said Emory,
nor did he then or at any time request or order the said Emory to dis-
obey any law or any order issued in conformity with any law, or intend
to offer any inducement to the said Emory to violate any law. What
this respondent then said to General Emory was simply the expression
of an opinion which he then fully believed to be sound, and which he yet
believes to be so, and that is that by the express provisions of the Con-
stitution this respondent, as President, is made the Commander in Chief
of the armies of the United States, and as such he is to be respected, and
that his orders, whether issued through the War Department, or through
the General in Chief, or by any other channel of communication, are en-
titled to respect and obedience, and that such constitutional power can
not be taken from him by virtue of any act of Congress. Respondent
doth therefore deny that by the expression of such opinion he did com-
mit or was guilty of a high misdemeanor in office; and the respondent
doth further say that the said Article IX lays no foundation whatever
for the conclusion stated in the said article, that the respondent, by reason
of the allegations therein contained, was guilty of a high misdemeanor in
office.
In reference to the statement made by General Emory that this re-
spondent had approved of said act of Congress containing the section
referred to, the respondent admits that his formal approval was given to
said act, but accompanied the same by the following message, addressed
and sent with the act to the House ot Representatives, in which House
the said act originated, and from which it came to respondent:
To the House of Representatives: Washington, D. C, March 2, 1867.
The act entitled "An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for
the year ending June 30, 1868, and for other purposes," contains provisions to which
I must call attention. These provisions are contained in the second section, which
in certain cases virtually deprives the President of his constitutional functions as
Commander in Chief of the Army, and in the sixth section, which denies to ten
States of the Union their constitutional right to protect themselves in any emer-
Andrew Johnson yA-i
gency by means of their own militia. These provisions are out of place in an ap-
propriation act, but I am compelled to defeat these necessary appropriations if I
withhold my signature from the act. Pressed by these considerations, I feel con-
strained to return the bill with my signature, but to accompany it with my earnest
protest against the sections which I have indicated.
Respondent, therefore, did no more than to express to said Emory the
same opinion which he had so expressed to the House of Representatives.
Answer to Article X. — And in answer to the tenth article and specifi-
cations thereof the respondent says that on the 14th and 15 th days of
August, in the year 1866, a poHtical convention of delegates from all or
most of the States and Territories of the Union was held in the city of
Philadelphia, under the name and style of the National Union Conven-
tion, for the purpose of maintaining and advancing certain political views
and opinions before the people of the United States, and for their support
and adoption in the exercise of the constitutional suffrage in the elections
of Representatives and Delegates in Congress which were soon to occur
in many of the States and Territories of the Union; which said conven-
tion, in the course of its proceedings, and in furtherance of the objects
of the same, adopted a ' * Declaration of principles ' ' and * 'An address to
the people of the United States," and appointed a committee of two of its
members from each State and of one from each Territory and one from
the District of Columbia to wait upon the President of the United States
and present to him a copy of the proceedings of the convention; that on
the 1 8th day of said month of August this committee waited upon the
President of the United States at the Executive Mansion, and was received
by him in one of the rooms thereof, and by their chairman, Hon. Reverdy
Johnson, then and now a Senator of the United States, acting and speak-
ing in their behalf, presented a copy of the proceedings of the convention
and addressed the President of the United States in a speech of which a
copy (according to a published report of the same, and, as the respondent
believes, substantially a correct report) is hereto annexed as a part of this
answer, and marked Exhibit C.
That thereupon, and in reply to the address of said committee by their
chairman, this respondent addressed the said committee so waiting upon
him in one of the rooms of the Executive Mansion; and this respondent
believes that this his address to said committee is the occasion referred
to in the first specification of the tenth article; but this respondent does
not admit that the passages therein set forth, as if extracts from a speech
or address of this respondent upon said occasion, correctly or justly pre-
sent his speech or address upon said occasion, but, on the contrary, this
respondent demands and insists that if this honorable court shall deem
the said article and the said first specification thereof to contain allega-
tion of matter cognizable by this honorable court as a high misdemeanor
in office within the intent and meaning of the Constitution of the United
States, and shall receive or allow proof in support of the same, that proof
744 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
shall be required to be made of the actual speech and address of this
respondent on said occasion, which this respondent denies that said article
and specification contain or correctly or justly represent.
And this respondent, further answering the tenth article and the speci-
fications thereof, says that at Cleveland, in the State of Ohio, and on the
3d day of September, in the year 1866, he was attended by a large assem-
blage of his fellow-citizens, and in deference and obedience to their call
and demand he addressed them upon matters of public and political con-
sideration; and this respondent believes that said occasion and address
are referred to in the second specification of the tenth article; but this
respondent does not admit that the passages therein set forth, as if ex-
tracts from a speech of this respondent on said occasion, correctly or
justly present his speech or address upon said occasion, but, on the con-
trary, this respondent demands and insists that if this honorable court
shall deem the said article and the said second specification thereof to
contain allegation of matter cognizable by this honorable court as a high
misdemeanor in office within the intent and meaning of the Constitution
of the United States, and shall receive or allow proof in support of the
same, that proof shall be required to be made of the actual speech and
address of this respondent on said occasion, which this respondent denies
that said article and specification contain or correctly or justly represent.
And this respondent, further answering the tenth article and the speci-
fications thereof, says that at St. Louis, in the State of Missouri, and on
the 8th day of September, in the year 1866, he was attended by a nu-
merous assemblage of his fellow-citizens, and in deference and obedience
to their call and demand he addressed them upon matters of public and
political consideration; and this respondent believes that said occasion
and address are referred to in the third specification of the tenth article;
but this respondent does not admit that the passages therein set forth, as
if extracts from a speech of this respondent on said occasion, correctly
or justly present his speech or address upon said occasion, but, on the
contrary, this respondent demands and insists that if this honorable court
shall deem the said article and the said third specification thereof to con-
tain allegation of matter cognizable by this honorable court as a high
misdemeanor in office within the intent and meaning of the Constitu-
tion of the United States, and shall receive or allow proof in support of
the same, that proof shall be required to be made of the actual speech
and address of this respondent on said occasion, which this respondent
denies that the said article and specification contain or correctly or justly
represent.
And this respondent, further answering the tenth article, protesting
that he has not been unmindful of the high duties of his office or of the
harmony or courtesies which ought to exist and be maintained between
the executive and legislative branches of the Government of the United
States, denies that he has ever intended or designed to set aside the right-
Andrew Johnson 74^
ful authority or powers of Congress, or attempted to bring into disgrace,
ridicule, hatred, contempt, or reproach the Congress of the United States,
or either branch thereof, or to impair or destroy the regard or tespect of
all or any of the good people of the United States for the Congress or the
rightful legislative power thereof, or to excite the odium or resentment
of all or any of the good people of the United States against Congress
and the laws by it duly and constitutionally enacted. This respondent
further says that at all times he has, in his official acts as President,
recognized the authority of the several Congresses of the United States
as constituted and organized during his administration of the office of
President of the United States.
And this respondent, further answering, says that he has from time to
time, under his constitutional right and duty as President of the United
States, communicated to Congress his views and opinions in regard to
such acts or resolutions thereof as, being submitted to him as President
of the United States in pursuance of the Constitution, seemed to this re-
spondent to require such communications; and he has from time to time,
in the exercise of that freedom of speech which belongs to him as a citi-
zen of the United States, and, in his political relations as President of the
United States to the people of the United States, is upon fit occasions a
duty of the highest obligation, expressed to his fellow-citizens his views
and opinions respecting the measures and proceedings of Congress; and
that in such addresses to his fellow-citizens and in such his communica-
tions to Congress he has expressed his views, opinions, and judgment of
and concerning the actual constitution of the two Houses of Congress,
without representation therein of certain States of the Union, and of the
effect that in wisdom and justice, in the opinion and judgment of this
respondent, Congress in its legislation and proceedings should give to
this political circumstance; and whatsoever he has thus communicated
to Congress or addressed to his fellow-citizens or any assemblage thereof
this respondent says was and is within and according to his right and
privilege as an American citizen and his right and duty as President of
the United States.
And this respondent, not waiving or at all disparaging his right of
freedom of opinion and of freedorn of speech, as hereinbefore or here-
inafter more particularly set forth, but claiming and insisting upon the
same, further answering the said tenth article, says that the views and
opinions expressed by this respondent in his said addresses to the assem-
blages of his fellow-citizens, as in said articles or in this answer thereto
mentioned, are not and were not intended to be other or different from
those expressed by him in his communications to Congress — that the
eleven States lately in insurrection never had ceased to be States of the
Union, and that they were then entitled to representation in Congress
by loyal Representatives and Senators as fully as the other States of the
Union, and that consequently the Congress as then constituted was not in
746 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
fact a Congress of all the States, but a Congress of only a part of the States.
This respondent, always protesting against the unauthorized exclusion
therefrom of the said eleven States, nevertheless gave his assent to all
laws passed by said Congress which did not, in his opinion and judgment,
violate the Constitution, exercising his constitutional authority of return-
ing bills to said Congress with his objections when they appeared to him
to be unconstitutional or inexpedient.
And further, this respondent has also expressed the opinion, both in his
communications to Congress and in his addresses to the people, that the
policy adopted by Congress in reference to the States lately in insurrec-
tion did not tend to peace, harmony, and union, but, on the contrary, did
tend to disunion and the permanent disruption of the States, and that in
following its said policy laws had been passed by Congress in violation
of the fundamental principles of the Government, and which tended to
consolidation and despotism; and such being his deliberate opinions, he
would have felt himself unmindful of the high duties of his oflQce if he
had failed to express them in his communications to Congress or in his
addresses to the people when called upon by them to express his opinions
on matters of public and political consideration.
And this respondent, further answering the tenth article, says that he
has always claimed and insisted, and now claims and insists, that both in
the personal and private capacity of a citizen of the United States and
in the political relations of the President of the United States to the peo-
ple of the United States, whose servant, under the duties and responsibili-
ties of the Constitution of the United States, the President of the United
States is and should always remain, this respondent had and has the full
right, and in his office of President of the United States is held to the high
duty, of forming, and on fit occasions expressing, opinions of and concern-
ing the legislation of Congress, proposed or completed, in respect of its
wisdom, expediency, justice, worthiness, objects, purposes, and public and
political motives and tendencies, and within and as a part of such right
and duty to form, and on fit occasions to express, opinions of and concern-
ing the public character and conduct, views, purposes, objects, motives,
and tendencies of all men engaged in the public service, as well in Congress
as otherwise, and under no other rules or limits upon this right of freedom
of opinion and of freedom of speech, or of responsibility and amenability
for the actual exercise of such freedom of opinion and freedom of speech,
than attend upon such rights and their exercise on the part of all other
citizens of the United States and on the part of all their public servants.
And this respondent, further answering said tenth article, says that
the several occasions on which, as is alleged in the several specifications
of said article, this respondent addressed his fellow-citizens on subjects of
public and political considerations were not, nor was any one of them,
sought or planned by this respondent, but, on the contrary, each of said
occasions arose upon the exercise of a lawful and accustomed right of the
Andrew Johnson 747
people of the United States to call upon their public servants and express
to them their opinions, wishes, and feehngs upon matters of public and
political consideration, and to invite from such their public servants an
expression of their opinions, views, and feehngs on matters of public and
political consideration; and this respondent claims and insists before this
honorable court, and before all the people of the United States, that of or
concerning this his right of freedom of opinion and of freedom of speech,
and this his exercise of such rights on all matters of public and political
consideration, and in respect of all public servants or persons whatsoever
engaged in or connected therewith, this respondent, as a citizen or as
President of the United States, is not subject to question, inquisition,
impeachment, or inculpation in any form or manner whatsoever.
And this respondent saj^s that neither the said tenth article nor any spec-
ification thereof nor any allegation therein contained touches or relates to
any official act or doing of this respondent in the office of President of the
United States or in the discharge of any of its constitutional or legal duties
or responsibilities; but said article and the vSpecifications and allegations
thereof, wholly and in every part thereof, question only the discretion or
propriety of freedom of opinion or freedom of speech as exercised by this
respondent as a citizen of the United States in his personal right and
capacity, and without allegation or imputation against this respondent
of the violation of any law of the United States -touching or relating to
freedom of speech or its exercise by the citizens of the United States or
by this respondent as one of the said citizens or otherwise; and he denies
that by reason of any matter in said article or its specifications alleged he
has said or done anything indecent or unbecoming in the Chief Magistrate
of the United States, or that he has brought the high office of President of
the United States into contempt, ridicule, or disgrace, or that he has com-
mitted or has been guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.
Answer to Article XL — And in answer to the eleventh article this
respondent denies that on the i8th day of August, in the year 1866, at the
city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, he did, by public speech
or otherwise, declare or affirm, in substance or at all, that the Thirty-
ninth Congress of the United States was not a Congress of the United
States authorized by the Constitution to exercise legislative power under
the same, or that he did then and there declare or affirm that the said
Thirty-ninth Congress was a Congress of only part of the States in any
sense or meaning other than that ten States of the Union were denied
representation therein, or that he made any or either of the declarations
or affirmations in this behalf in the said article alleged as denying or
intending to deny that the legislation of said Thirty-ninth Congress was
valid or obligatory upon this respondent except so far as this respondent
saw fit to approve the same; and as to the allegation in said article that
he did thereby intend or mean to be understood that the said Congress had
not power to propose amendments to the Constitution, this respondent
748 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
says that in said address he said nothing in reference to the subject
of amendments of the Constitution, nor was the question of the com-
petency of the said Congress to propose such amendments, without the
participation of said excluded States, at the time of said address in any
way mentioned or considered or referred to by this respondent, nor in
what he did say had he any intent regarding the same; and he denies
the allegations so made to the contrary thereof. But this respondent,
in further answer to and in respect of the said allegations of the said
eleventh article hereinbefore traversed and denied, claims and insists
upon his personal and official right of freedom of opinion and freedom of
speech, and his duty in his political relations as President of the United
States to the people of the United States in the exercise of such freedom
of opinion and freedom of speech, in the same manner, form, and effect
as he has in this behalf stated the same in his answer to the said tenth
article, and with the same effect as if he here repeated the same; and he
further claims and insists, as in said answer to said tenth article he has
claimed and insisted, that he is not subject to question, inquisition, im-
peachment or inculpation, in any form or manner, of or concerning such
rights of freedom of opinion or freedom of speech, or his said alleged
exercise thereof.
And this respondent further denies that on the 21st day of February,
in the year 1868, or at -any other time, at the city of Washington, in the
District of Columbia, in pursuance of any such declaration as in that
behalf in said eleventh article alleged, or otherwise, he did unlawfully,
and in disregard of the requirement of the Constitution that he should
take care that the laws should be faithfully executed, attempt to prevent
the execution of an act entitled "An act regulating the tenure of certain
civil offices," passed March 2, 1867, by unlawfully devising or contriving,
or attempting to devise or contrive, means by which he should prevent
Edwin M. Stanton from forthwith resuming the functions of Secretary
for the Department of War, or by unlawfully devising or contriving, or
attempting to devise or contrive, means to prevent the execution of an
act entitled "An act making appropriations for the support of the Army
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1868, and for other piirposes, " approved
March 2, 1867, or to prevent the execution of an act entitled "An act to
provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States," passed
March 2, 1867.
And this respondent, further answering the said eleventh article, says
that he has in his answer to the first article set forth in detail the acts,
steps, and proceedings done and taken by this respondent to and toward
or in the matter of the suspension or removal of the said Edwin M. Stan-
ton in or from the office of Secretary for the Department of War, with
the times, modes, circumstances, intents, views, purposes, and opinions
of official obligations and duty under and with which such acts, steps,
and proceedings were done and taken; and he makes answer to this
Andrew Johnson 740
eleventh article of the matters in his answer to the first article pertain-
ing to the suspension or removal of said Edwin M. Stanton, to the same
intent and effect as if they were here repeated and set forth.
And this respondent, further answering the said eleventh article,
denies that by means or reason of anything in said article alleged this
respondent, as President of the United States, did, on the 21st day of
February, 1868, or at any other day or time, commit or that he was guilty
of a high misdemeanor in office.
And this respondent, further answering the said eleventh article, says
that the same and the matters therein contained do not charge or allege
the commission of any act whatever by this respondent in his office of
President of the United States, nor the omission by this respondent
of any act of official obligation or duty in his office of President of the
United States; nor does the said article nor the matters therein contained
name, designate, describe, or define any act or mode or form of attempt, de-
vice, contrivance, or means, or of attempt at device, contrivance, or means,
whereby this respondent can know or understand what act or mode or
form of attempt, device, contrivance, or means, or of attempt at device,
contrivance, or means, are imputed to or charged against this respondent
in his office of President of the United States, or intended so to be, or
whereby this respondent can more fully or definitely make answer unto
the said article than he hereby does.
And this respondent, in submitting to this honorable court this his
answer to the articles of impeachment exhibited against him, respectfully
reserves leave to amend and add to the same from time to time, as may
become necessary or proper, and when and as such necessity and propriety
shall appear. ANDREW JOHNSON.
HENRY STANBERY,
B. R. CURTIS,
THOMAS A. R. NELSON,
WILLIAM M. EVARTS,
W. S. GROESBECK,
Of Counsel.
[For Exhibits A and B see veto message of March 2, 1867, pp. 492-498,
and special message of December 12, 1867, pp. 583-594-]
Exhibit C.
Address to the President by Hon. Reverdy Johnson, August, 18, 1866.
Mr. President: We are before you as a committee of the National
Union Convention, which met in Philadelphia on Tuesday, the 14th
instant, charged with the duty of presenting you with an authentic copy
of its proceedings.
750 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Before placing it in your hands you will permit us to congratulate you
that in the object for which the convention was called, in the enthu-
siasm with which in every State and Territory the call was responded
to, in the unbroken harmony of its deliberations, in the unanimity with
which the principles it has declared were adopted, and more especially in
the patriotic and constitutional character of the principles themselves, we
are confident that you and the country will find gratifying and cheering
evidence that there exists among the people a public sentiment which
renders an early and complete restoration of the Union as established
by the Constitution certain and inevitable. Party faction, seeking the
continuance of its misrule, may momentarily delay it, but the principles
of political liberty for which our fathers successfully contended, and to
secure which they adopted the Constitution, are so glaringly inconsistent
with the condition in which the country has been placed by such misrule
that it will not be permitted a much longer duration.
We wish, Mr. President, you could have witnessed the spirit of con-
cord and brotherly aif ection which animated every member of the conven-
tion. Great as your confidence has ever been in the intelligence and
patriotism of your fellow-citizens, in their deep devotion to the Union
and their present determination to reinstate and maintain it, that confi-
dence would have become a positive conviction could you have seen and
heard all that was done and said upon the occasion. Every heart was
evidently full of joy; every eye beamed with patriotic animation; de-
spondency gave place to the assurance that, our late dreadful civil strife
ended, the blissful reign of peace, under the protection, not of arms, but
of the Constitution and laws, would have sway, and be in every part of
our land cheerfully acknowledged and in perfect good faith obeyed. You
would not have doubted that the recurrence of dangerous domestic insur-
rections in the future is not to be apprehended.
If you could have seen the men of Massachusetts and South Carolina
coming into the convention on the first day of its meeting hand in hand,
amid the rapturous applause of the whole body, awakened by heartfelt
gratification at the event, filling the eyes of thousands with tears of joy,
which they neither could nor desired to repress, you would have felt, as
every person present felt, that the time had arrived when all sectional or
other perilous dissensions had ceased, and that nothing should be heard
in the future but the voice of harmony proclaiming devotion to a common
country, of pride in being bound together by a common Union, existing
and protected by forms of government proved by experience to be emi-
nently fitted for the exigencies of either war or peace.
In the principles announced by the convention and in the feeling there
manifested we have every assurance that harmonj^ throughout our entire
land will soon prevail. We know that as in former days, as was elo-
quently declared by Webster, the nation's most gifted statesman, Massa-
chusetts and South Carolina went "shoulder to shoulder through the
Andrew Johnson ^ci
Revolution" and stood hand in hand "around the Administration of
Washington and felt his own great arm lean on them for support," so
will they again, with like magnanimity, devotion, and power, stand round
your Administration and cause you to feel that you may also lean on
them for support.
In the proceedings, Mr. President, which we are to place in your hands
you will find that the convention performed the grateful duty imposed
upon them by their knowledge of your "devotion to the Constitution
and laws and interests of your country," as illustrated by your entire
Presidential career, of declaring that in you they "recognize a Chief
Magistrate worthy of the nation and equal to the great crisis upon which
your lot is cast;" and in this declaration it gives us marked pleasure to
add we are confident that the convention has but spoken the intelligent
and patriotic sentiment of the country. Ever inaccessible to the low
influences which often control the mere partisan, governed alone by an
honest opinion of constitutional obligations and rights and of the duty of
looking solely to the true interests, safety, and honor of the nation, such
a class is incapable of resorting to any bait for popularity at the expense
of the public good.
In the measures which you have adopted for the restoration of the
Union the convention saw only a continuance of the policy which for
the same purpose was inaugurated by your immediate predecessor. In
his reelection by the people, after that policy had been fully indicated
and had been made one of the issues of the contest, those of his political
friends who are now assailing you for sternly pursuing it are forgetful or
regardless of the opinions which their support of his reelection neces-
sarily involved. Being upon the same ticket with that much-lamented
public servant, whose foul assassination touched the heart of the civilized
world with grief and horror, you would have been false to obvious duty
if you had not endeavored to carry out the same policy; and, judging
'now by the opposite one which Congress has pursued, its wisdom and
patriotism are indicated by the fact that that of Congress has but con-
tinued a broken Union by keeping ten of the States in which at one time
the insurrection existed (as far as they could accomplish it) in the condi-
tion of subjugated provinces, denying to them the right to be represented,
while subjecting their people to every species of legislation, including
that of taxation. That such a state of things is at war with the ver}^
genius of our Government, inconsistent with every idea of political free-
dom, and most perilous to the peace and safety of the country no reflect-
ing man can fail to believe.
We hope, sir, that the proceedings of the convention will cause you to
adhere, if possible, with even greater firmness to the course which you
are pursuing, by satisfying you that the people are with you, and that
the wish which lies nearest to their heart is that a perfect restoration of
our Union at the earliest moment be attained, and a conviction that the
752 Afessages and Papers of the Presidents
result can only be accomplished by the measures which you are pursuing.
And in the discharge of the duties which these impose upon you we, as
did every member of the convention, again for ourselves individually
tender to you our profound respect and assurance of our cordial and sin-
cere support.
With a reunited Union, with no foot but that of a freeman treading or
permitted to tread our soil, with a nation's faith pledged forever to a
strict observance of all its obligations, with kindness and fraternal love
everywhere prevailing, the desolations of war will soon be removed; its
sacrifices of life, sad as they have been, will, with Christian resignation,
be referred to a providential purpose of fixing our beloved country on a
firm and enduring basis, which will forever place our liberty and happi-
ness beyond the reach of human peril.
Then, too, and forever, will our Government challenge the admiration
and receive the respect of the nations of the world, and be in no danger
of any efforts to impeach our hojior-
And permit me, sir, in conclusion, to add that, great as is your solici-
tude for the restoration of our domestic peace and your labors to that
end, you have also a watchful eye to the rights of the nation, and that
any attempt by an assumed or actual foreign power to enforce an illegal
blockade against the Government or citizens of the United States, to use
your own mild but expressive words, ' * will be disallowed. ' ' In this de-
termination I am sure you will receive the unanimous approval of your
fellow-citizens.
Now, sir, as the chairman of this committee, and in behalf of the con-
vention, I have the honor to present you with an authentic copy of its
proceedings.
Counsel for the respondent submitted the following motion:
To the Senate of the United States sitting as a court of impeachment:
And now, on this 23d day of March, in the year 1868, the counsel for
the President of the United States, upon reading and filing his answer
to the articles of impeachment exhibited against him, respectfully repre-
sent to the honorable court that after the replication shall have been filed
to the said answer the due and proper preparation of and for the trial of
the cause will require, in the opinion and judgment of such counsel, that
a period of not less than thirty days should be allowed to the President
of the United States and his counsel for such preparation, and before the
said trial should proceed.
HENRY STANBERY,
B. R. CURTIS,
THOMAS A. R. NEI^SON,
WM. M. EVARTS,
W. S. GROESBECK,
Of Counsel.
Andrew Johnson 753
TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 1868.
The United States vs. Andrew Johnson, President.
Rkplication by the House of Rkprkskntativks of the United
States to the Answer of Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, to the Artici.es of Impeachment Exhibited
AGAINST Him by the House of Representatives.
The House of Representatives of the United States have considered the
several answers of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, to
the several articles of impeachment against him, by them exhibited in
the name of themselves and of all the people of the United States, and
reserving to themselves all advantage of exception to the insufficiency of
his answer to each and all of the several articles of impeachment exhibited
against said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do deny each
and every averment in said several answers, or either of them, which denies
or traverses the acts, intents, crimes, or misdemeanors charged against said
Andrew Johnson in the said articles of impeachment, or either of them,
and for replication to the said answer do say that said Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, is guilty of the high crimes and misdemean-
ors mentioned in said articles, and that the House of Representatives are
ready to prove the same. SCHUYLER COLFAX,
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
EDW'D Mcpherson,
Clerk of the House of Representatives.
The motion of the counsel for the respondent, submitted on March
23, ''that a period of not less than thirty days should be allowed to the
President of the United States and his counsel for such preparation and
before the said trial should proceed," was denied, and it was
Ordered, That the Senate will commence the trial of the President
upon the articles of impeachment exhibited against him on Monday, the
30th of March instant, and proceed therein with all convenient dispatch
under the rules of the Senate sitting upon the trial of an impeachment.
MONDAY, MAY ii, 1868.
The United States vs. Andrew Johnson, President.
The Chief Justice stated that in compliance with the desire of the Sen-
ate he had prepared the question to be addressed to Senators upon each
article of impeachmenj:, and that he had reduced his views thereon to
writing, which he read, as follows:
Senators: In conformity with what seemed to be the general wish of
the Senate when it adjourned last Thursday, the Chief Justice, in taking
M P— voi^ VI— 48
754 Messages and Papers of the Presidents
the vote on the articles of impeachment, will adopt the mode sanctioned
by the practice in the cases of Chase, Peck, and Humphreys.
He will direct the Secretary to read the several articles successively,
and after the reading of each article will put the question of guilty or
not guilty to each Senator, rising in his place, in the form used in the
case of Judge Chase:
■ Mr. Senator , how say you? Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, President
of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as charged in this
article ?
In putting the question on Articles IV and VI, each of which charges
a crime, the word * ' crime ' ' will be substituted for the word ' ' misde-
meanor."
The Chief Justice has carefully considered the suggestion of the Sena-
tor from Indiana (Mr. Hendricks) , which appeared to meet the approval
of the Senate, that in taking the vote on the eleventh article the question
should be put on each clause, and has found himself unable to divide the
article as suggested. The article charges several facts, but they are so
connected that they make but one allegation and they are charged as
constituting one misdemeanor.
The first fact charged is, in substance, that the President publicly de-
clared in August, 1866, that the Thirty-ninth Congress was a Congress
of only part of the States and not a constitutional Congress, intending
thereby to deny its constitutional competency to enact laws or propose
amendments of the Constitution; and this charge seems to have been
made as introductory, and as qualifying that which follows, namely, that
the President, in pursuance of this declaration, attempted to prevent the
execution of the tenure-of-ofiice act by contriving and attempting to
contrive means to prevent Mr. Stanton from resuming the functions
of Secretary of War after the refusal of the Senate to concur in his sus-
pension, and also by contriving and attempting to contrive means to
prevent the execution of the appropriation act of March 2, 1867, and
also to prevent the execution of the rebel States governments act of the
same date.
The gravamen of the article seems to be that the President attempted
to defeat the execution of the tenure-of -office act, and that he did this in
pursuance of a declaration which was intended to deny the constitutional
competency of Congress to enact laws or propose constitutional amend-
ments, and by contriving means to prevent Mr. Stanton from resuming
his office of Secretary, and also to prevent the execution of the appro-
priation act and the rebel States governments act.
The single substantive matter charged is the attempt to prevent the
execution of the tenure-of -office act, and the other facts are alleged either
as introductory and exhibiting this general purpose or as showing the
means contrived in furtherance of that attempt.
This single matter, connected with the other matters previously and
Andrew Johnson 755
subsequently alleged, is charged as the high misdemeanor of which the
President is alleged to have been guilty.
The general question, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as
charged, seems fully to cover the whole charge, and vdll be put as to
this article as well as to the others, unless the Senate direct some mode
of division.
In the tenth article the division suggested by the Senator from New
York (Mr. Conkling) may be more easily made. It contains a general
allegation to the effect that on the i8th of August and on other days
the President, with intent to set aside the rightful authority of Congress
and bring it into contempt, delivered certain scandalous harangues, and
therein uttered loud threats and bitter menaces against Congress and the
laws of the United States enacted by Congress, thereby bringing the office
of President into disgrace, to the great scandal of all good citizens, and sets
forth in three distinct specifications the harangues, threats, and menaces
complained of.
In respect to this article, if the Senate sees fit so to direct, the question
of guilty or not guilty of the facts charged may be taken in respect to
the several specifications, and then the question of guilty or not guilty of
a high misdemeanor, as charged in the article, can also be taken.
The Chief Justice, however, sees no objection to putting the general
question on this article in the same manner as on the others; for, whether
particular questions be put on the specifications or not, the answer to the
final question must be determined by the judgment of the Senate whether
or not the facts alleged in the specifications have been sufficiently proved,
and whether, if sufficiently proved, they amount to a high misdemeanor
within the meaning of the Constitution.
On the whole, therefore, the Chief Justice thinks that the better prac-
tice will be to put the general question on each article without attempting
to make any subdivision, and will pursue this course if no objection is
made. He will, however, be pleased to conform to such directions as the
Senate may see fit to give in this respect.
Whereupon it was
Ordered, That the question be put as proposed by the Presiding. Offi-
cer of the Senate, and each Senator shall rise in his place and answer
' ' guilty " or " not guilty ' ' only.
SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1868.
The United States vs. Andrew Johnson, President.
The Chief Justice stated that, in pursuance of the order of the Senate,
he would first proceed to take the judgment of the Senate on the eleventh
article. The roll of the Senate was called, with the following result:
The Senators who voted * * guilty ' ' are Messrs. Anthony, Cameron, Cat-
tell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Edmunds,
75^ Messages and Papers of the Presidents
Ferry, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Howard, Howe, Morgan, Morrill of Maine,
Morrill of Vermont, Morton, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy,
Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Wade,
Williams, Willey, Wilson, and Yates — 35.
The Senators who voted "not guilty" are Messrs. Bayard, Buckalew,
Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Hen-
dricks, Johnson, McCreery, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Sauls-
bury, Trumbull, Van Winkle, and Vickers — 19.
The Chief Justice announced that upon this article thirty-five Senators
had voted "guilty" and nineteen Senators "not guilty," and declared
that two-thirds of the Senators present not having pronounced him
guilty, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, stood acquitted
of the charges contained in the eleventh article of impeachment.
TUESDAY, MAY 26, 1868.
The United States vs. Andrew Johnson, President.
The Senate ordered that the vote be taken upon the second article of
impeachment. The roll of the Senate was called, with the following
result:
The Senators who voted "guilty" are Messrs. Anthony, Cameron, Cat-
tell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Edmunds,
Ferry, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Howard, Howe, Morgan, Morrill of Maine,
Morrill of Vermont, Morton, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy,
Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Wade,
Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates — 35.
The Senators who voted "not guilty" are Messrs. Bayard, Buckalew,
Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Hen-
dricks, Johnson, McCreery, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Sauls-
bury, Trumbull, Van Winkle, and Vickers — 19.
The Chief Justice announced that upon this article thirty-five Senators
had voted "guilty" and nineteen Senators had voted "not guilty," and
declared that two-thirds of the Senators present not having pronounced
him guilty, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, stood ac-
quitted of the charges contained in the second article of impeachment.
The Senate ordered that the vote be taken upon the third article of
impeachment. The roll of the Senate was called, with the following
result:
The Senators who voted "guilty" are Messrs. Anthony, Cameron, Cat-
tell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Edmunds,
Ferry, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Howard, Howe, Morgan, Morrill of Maine,
Morrill of Vermont, Morton, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy,
Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Wade,
Willey, Wilhams, Wilson, and Yates — 35.
Andrew Johnson 757
The Senators who voted **not guilty" are Messrs. Bayard, Buckalew,*
Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Fowler, Grimes, Henderson, Hen-
dricks, Johnson, McCreery, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Sauls-
bury, Trumbull, Van Winkle, and Vickers — 19.
The Chief Justice announced that upon this article thirty-five Senators
had voted "guilty" and nineteen Senators had voted "not guilty," and
declared that two-thirds of the Senators present not having pronounced
him guilty, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, stood ac-
quitted of the charges contained in the third article.
No objection being made, the secretary, by direction of the Chief Jus-
tice, entered the judgment of the Senate upon the second, third, and
eleventh articles, as follows:
The Senate having tried Andrew Johnson, President of the United
States, upon articles of impeachment exhibited against him by the House
of Representatives, and two-thirds of the Senators present not having
found him guilty of the charges contained in the second, third, and
eleventh articles of impeachment, it is therefore
Ordered and adjudged. That the said Andrew Johnson, President of
the United States, be, and he is, acquitted of the charges in said articles
made and set forth.
A motion "that the Senate sitting for the trial of the President upon
articles of impeachment do now adjourn without day " was adopted by a
vote of 34 yeas to 16 nays.
Those who voted in the affirmative are Messrs. Anthony, Cameron,
Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Edmunds,
Ferry, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Howard, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Mor-
rill of Vermont, Morton, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy,
Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Van Win-
kle, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates.
Those who voted in the negative are Messrs. Bayard, Buckalew, Davis,
Dixon, Doolittle, Fowler, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, McCreery,
Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Saulsbury, Trumbull, and Vickers.
The Chief Justice declared the Senate sitting as a court of impeach-
ment for the trial of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States,
upon articles of impeachment exhibited against him by the House oi
Representatives, adjourned without day.
758
Messages and Papers of the Presidents
ADDENDA.
[An injunction of secrecy having been placed upon the following messages by the Senate, they
were not printed in the Executive Journal covering their period, but were found in the unprinted
Executive Journal of the Forty-first Congress while searching for copy for Volume VII, and con-
sequently too late for insertion in their proper places in this volume.]
-p fj ^ / . Washington, January 2p, i86p.
Referring to the three Executive communications of the 15th instant,
with which were transmitted to the Senate, respectively, a copy of a con-
vention between the United States and Great Britain upon the subject of
claims, a copy of a convention between the same parties in relation to the
question of boundary, and a protocol of a treaty between the same parties
concerning the rights of naturalized citizens and subjects of the respec-
tive parties, I now transmit a copy of such correspondence upon those
subjects as has not been heretofore communicated to the Senate.
In the progress of the negotiation the three subjects became to such a
degree associated with each other that it would be difficult to present
separately the correspondence upon each. The papers are therefore
transmitted in the order in which they are mentioned in the accompany-
^^^ ^^^^' . ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January jo, 186^.
To the Senate of the U7iited States:
Referring to the Executive communication of the 15th instant, which
was accompanied by a copy of a convention between the United States
and Great Britain for the settlement of all outstanding claims, I now
transmit to the Senate the original of that instrument, and a report of
the Secretary of State pointing out the differences between the copy as
submitted to the Senate and the original as signed by the plenipoten-
^^^^^^^- ANDREW JOHNSON.
Washington, January jo, 186 p.
To the Senate of the United States:
Referring to the Executive communication of the 15th instant, which
was accompanied by a copy of a convention between the United States
and Great Britain providing for the reference to an arbiter of the ques-
tion of difference between the United States and Great Britain concerning
the northwest line of water boundary between the United States and the
British possessions in North America, I now transmit to the Senate the
original of that instrument, and a report of the Secretary of State point-
ing out the differences between the copy as submitted to the Senate and
the original as signed by the plenipotentiaries.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
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