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Odie Elliot
Quilt
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Emancipation Proclamation
The
Emancipation Proclamation
was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, immediately
following the Union victory at Antietam, and took effect January 1, 1863.
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 1st 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 shall be then, thenceforward, and forever
free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military
and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such
persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in
any efforts they may make for actual freedom.
"That such executives will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation,
designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof,
respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact
that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith
represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at
elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such 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 necessary war measure for suppressing said
rebellion, do, on this 1st 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 first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts
of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion
against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines,
Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone,
Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New
Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North
Carolina, Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as 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 services of the United States to garrison forts,
positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said
service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the
Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of
mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."
In 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 first
day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty
three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the
eighty-seventh.
By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
Major General Gordon
Granger's General Order Number 3
Issued June
19, 1865 from the balcony of Ashton Villa, Galveston, Texas.
The people of Texas are informed that in
accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all
slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of
property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore
existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer. The
freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes and work for wages. They
are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and
that they will not be supported in idleness, either there or elsewhere.
13th Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States
Ratified
December 6, 1865.
Section 1
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
Section 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation.
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