ss 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 thirtieth day of March, in the
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the
independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

A. LINCOLN.

By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.

LICENSE OF COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, March 31, 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 purposes,"
all commercial intercourse between the inhabitants of such States as
should by proclamation be declared in insurrection against the United
States and the citizens of the rest of the United States was prohibited
so long as such condition of hostility 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
insurrection 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 Lincoln, President of the United States,
exercising the authority and discretion confided to