es, and to
implore Him to enlighten the mind of the nation to know and do His will,
humbly believing that it is in accordance with His will that our place
should be maintained as a united people among the family of nations; to
implore Him to grant to our armed defenders and the masses of the people
that courage, power of resistance, and endurance necessary to secure
that result; to implore Him in His infinite goodness to soften the
hearts, enlighten the minds, and quicken the consciences of those in
rebellion, that they may lay down their arms and speedily return to
their allegiance to the United States, that they may not be utterly
destroyed, that the effusion of blood may be stayed, and that unity and
fraternity may be restored and peace established throughout all our
borders:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
cordially concurring with the Congress of the United States in the
penitential and pious sentiments expressed in the aforesaid resolution
and heartily approving of the devotional design and purpose thereof, do
hereby appoint the first Thursday of August next to be observed by the
people of the United States as a day of national humiliation and prayer.

I do hereby further invite and request the heads of the Executive
Departments of this Government, together with all legislators, all
judges and magistrates, and all other persons exercising authority in
the land, whether civil, military, or naval, and all soldiers, seamen,
and marines in the national service, and all the other loyal and
law-abiding people of the United States, to assemble in their preferred
places of public worship on that day, and there and then to render to
the almighty and merciful Ruler of the Universe such homages and such
confessions and to offer to Him such supplications as the Congress of
the United States have in their aforesaid resolution so solemnly, so
earnestly, and so reverently recommended.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of
the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 7th day of July, A.D. 1864, and of
the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

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

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas at the late session Congress passed a bill "to guarantee to
certain States whose governments have been us