details for this object
will be communicated to the State authorities through the War
Department.

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid
this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the
existence of the National Union, and the perpetuity of popular
government.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused
the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city
of Washington, this 17th day of May, one thousand, eight
hundred and sixty-four, and of the independence of the United
States the eighty-eighth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

This was immediately contradicted by the Government, as follows:

To the Public.

Department of State, Washington, D. C.
May 18, 1864.

A paper purporting to be a proclamation of the President,
countersigned by the Secretary of State, and bearing date of
the 17th inst. is reported to this Department as having
appeared in the New York "World" of this date. This paper is
an absolute forgery. No proclamation of this kind has been
made, or proposed to be made, by the President, or issued, or
proposed to be issued, by the State Department, or any other
Department of the Government.

WM. H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.

Under the head "Freedom of Press" Appleton's Encyclopedia for 1864
gives twelve columns of space to this matter. The excitement resulted in
the greatest distress. Gold advanced four or five per cent., a panic
prevailed, and great calamity, of course, followed.

Soon thereafter we seized every telegraph instrument and office record
in the Department, and arrested the officers and clerks. I became so
tired with the extraordinary labor and loss of sleep, that I actually
fell asleep while standing at a desk in one of the offices. I had heard
of such experiences, but had believed it impossible.

The object of seizing the newspapers, telegraphic instruments and
records, was to prevent the disaster that must follow the further
spreading of the impression created by the bogus message, that our
Government was in dire distress.

Copperhead conspirators and Confederate agents here and in Canada, had
been and were at work to undermine us by every means. Distress to us,
however brought about, was their purpose. They sought to create in the