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 republican 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 the 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
twenty and forty-five years (with certain exceptions not necessary to be
here mentioned), 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
aforesaid 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
privileges 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