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 person, 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 article shall be dismissed from the
service.

"SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect fr