or
faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable
condition will be received into the armed service 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.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY THE PRESIDENT: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, _Secretary of State_.]

It recited the announcement of the September proclamation; defined its
character and authority as a military decree; designated the States and
parts of States that day in rebellion against the government; ordered
and declared that all persons held as slaves therein "are and
henceforward shall be free"; and that such persons of suitable condition
would be received into the military 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."

The conclusion of the momentous transaction was as deliberate and
simple as had been its various stages of preparation. The morning and
midday of January 1, 1863, were occupied by the half-social,
half-official ceremonial of the usual New Year's day reception at the
Executive Mansion, established by long custom. At about three o'clock in
the afternoon, after full three hours of greetings and handshakings, Mr.
Lincoln and perhaps a dozen persons assembled in the executive office,
and, without any prearranged ceremony the President affixed his
signature to the great Edict of Freedom. No better commentary will ever
be written upon this far-reaching act than that which he himself
embodied in a letter written to a friend a little more than a year
later:

"I am naturally antislavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.
I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never
understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an u