OGDEN HOFFMAN, U. S. District Judge, San Francisco, Cal.:

The oath in the proclamation of December 8 is intended for those who may
voluntarily take it, and not for those who may be constrained to take it
in order to escape actual imprisonment or punishment. It is intended that
the latter class shall abide the granting or withholding of the pardoning
power in the ordinary way.

A. LINCOLN.

TELEGRAM TO MARY GONYEAG.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, December 15, 1863.

MOTHER MARY GONYEAG, Superior, Academy of Visitation, Keokuk, Iowa:

The President has no authority as to whether you may raffle for the
benevolent object you mention. If there is no objection in the Iowa laws,
there is none here.

A. LINCOLN.

PROCLAMATION CONCERNING DISCRIMINATING DUTIES, DECEMBER 16, 1863.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

A Proclamation.

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 concerning
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 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 said foreign nation and
the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported 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 an
official communication of Senor Don Luis Molina, Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary of the Re