eachers of
religion of all denominations and to all heads of families, to observe
and keep that day according to their several creeds and modes of worship
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, A.D. 1861, and
of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-sixth.

[SEAL.]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
_Secretary of State_.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE 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, Louisiana,
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, Arkansas, 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 a