on be maintained, subject only to the modifications made
necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if
any, not contravening said conditions and which may be deemed expedient
by those framing the new State government.

To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say that this
proclamation, so far as it relates to State governments, has no
reference to States wherein loyal State governments have all the while
been maintained. And for the same reason it may be proper to further say
that whether members sent to Congress from any State shall be admitted
to seats constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective Houses,
and not to any extent with the Executive. And, still further, that this
proclamation is intended to present the people of the States wherein the
national authority has been suspended and loyal State governments have
been subverted a mode in and by which the national authority and loyal
State governments may be reestablished within said States or in any of
them; and while the mode presented is the best the Executive can
suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no
other possible mode would be acceptable.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand at the city of Washington, the 8th day of December,
A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States of America the
eighty-eighth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

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

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 f