he rights and
privileges of freemen.

SEC. 13. _And be it further enacted_, That the President is hereby
authorized, at any time hereafter, by proclamation, to extend to persons
who may have participated in the existing rebellion in any State or part
thereof pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions and at such time and on
such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare.

SEC. 14. _And be it further enacted_, That the courts of the United
States shall have full power to institute proceedings, make orders and
decrees, issue process, and do all other things necessary to carry this
act into effect.

Approved, July 17, 1862.

[From Statutes at Large (Little, Brown & Co.), Vol. XII, p. 627.]

JOINT RESOLUTION explanatory of "An act to suppress insurrection, to
punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of
rebels, and for other purposes."

_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That the provisions of the
third clause of the fifth section of "An act to suppress insurrection,
to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate the property of
rebels, and for other purposes" shall be so construed as not to apply to
any act or acts done prior to the passage thereof, nor to include any
member of a State legislature or judge of any State court who has not in
accepting or entering upon his office taken an oath to support the
constitution of the so-called "Confederate States of America;" nor shall
any punishment or proceedings under said act be so construed as to work
a forfeiture of the real estate of the offender beyond his natural life.

Approved, July 17, 1862.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America and
Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and
declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for
the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between
the United States and each of the States and the people thereof in which
States that relation is or may be suspended or disturbed.

That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again
recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to
the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the
people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the Unit