ed States,
and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may
voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within
their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of
African descent with their consent upon this continent or elsewhere,
with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there,
will be continued.

That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves
within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall
then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then,
thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the
United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will
recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or
acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may
make for their actual freedom.

That the Executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by
proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which
the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the
United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall
on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United
States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the
qualified voters of such State shall have participated shall, in the
absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive
evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in
rebellion against the United States.

That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled "An act
to make an additional article of war," approved March 13, 1862, and
which act is in the words and figure following:

_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That hereafter the following
shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government
of the Army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as
such:

ART.--. All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the
United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under
their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from
service or labor who may have escaped from any persons to whom such
service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be
found guilty by a court-martial of violating this