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the regulations of the War Department. The whole number to be furnished within twenty days from date of notice of the acceptance of this proposition.

IV. The troops to be clothed, armed, equipped, subsisted, transported, and paid as other United States infantry volunteers, and to serve in fortifications, or wherever their services may be required, within or without their respective States.

V. No bounty to be paid the troops, nor the service charged or credited on any draft.

VI. The draft for three years' service to go on in any State or district where the quota is not filled up; but if any officer or soldier in this special service should be drafted, he shall be credited for the service rendered. John Brough, Governor of Ohio.

O. P. Morton, Governor of Indiana.
Richard Yates, Governor of Illinois.
William M. Stone, Governor of Iowa.
James T. Lewis, Governor of Wisconsin.

INDORSEMENT.

The foregoing proposition of the governors is accepted, and the Secretary of War is directed to carry it into execution.

A. Lincoln.

Message to Congress on Relief of East Tennessee Loyalists.

APRIL 28, 1864.

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives: I have the honor to transmit herewith an address to the President of the United States, and, through him, to both Houses of Congress, on the condition and wants of the people of East Tennessee, and asking their attention to the necessity of some action on the part of the government for their relief, and which

address is presented by a committee of an organization called "The East Tennessee Relief Association." Deeply commiserating the condition of these most loyal and suffering people, I am unprepared to make any specific recommendation for their relief. The military is doing, and will continue to do, the best for them within its power. Their address represents that the construction of direct railroad communication between Knoxville and Cincinnati, by way of central Kentucky, would be of great consequence in the present emergency. It may be remembered that in the annual message of December, 1861, such railroad construction was recommended. I now add that, with the hearty concurrence of Congress, I would yet be pleased to construct the road, both for the relief of these people and for its continuing military importance.

Abraham Lincoln.

Suspension of Writ of Habeas Corpus in

Kentucky.

On July 5, 1864, the President proclaimed the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the establishment of martial law in Kentucky. The chief reasons assigned for such action were:

"Whereas many citizens of the State of Kentucky have joined the forces of the insurgents, and such insurgents have, on several occasions, entered the State of Kentucky in large force, and, not without aid and comfort furnished by disaffected and disloyal citizens of the United States residing therein, have not only disturbed the public peace, but have overborne the civil authorities and made flagrant civil war, destroy

ing property and life in various parts of that State;

"And whereas it has been made known to the President of the United States by the officers commanding the national armies, that combinations have been formed in the said State of Kentucky with a purpose of inciting rebel forces to renew the said operations of civil war within the said State, and thereby to embarrass the United States armies now operating in the said States of Virginia and Georgia, and even to endanger their safety:-"

Proclamation Concerning Reconstruction.

JULY 8, 1864.

Whereas, at the late session, Congress passed a bill to "guarantee to certain States, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown, a republican form of government," a copy of which is hereunto annexed;

And whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the United States for his approval less than one hour before the sine die adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him;

And whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration:

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known, that, while I am (as I was in

December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared, by a formal approval of this bill, to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and, while I am also unprepared to declare that the free-State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States, but am at the same time sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the nation may be adopted, nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration contained in the bill as one very proper plan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executive aid and assistance to any such people, so soon as the military resistance to the United States. shall have been suppressed in any such State, and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in which cases military governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to the bill. In testimony, etc.

By the President:

Abraham Lincoln.

William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

Announcement Concerning Terms of Peace.

JULY 18, 1864.

For explanation of the issuance of this proclamation, see the Greeley correspondence in LETTERS of the present edition.

To whom it may concern: Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the executive government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.

Abraham Lincoln.

Proclamation Calling for 500,000 Volunteers. JULY 18, 1864.

Whereas, by the act approved July 4, 1864, entitled "An act further to regulate and provide for the enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for other purposes," it is provided that the President of the United States may, "at his discretion, at any time hereafter, call for any number of men as volunteers, for the respective terms of one, two, and three years, for military service," and "that in case the quota, or any part thereof, of any town, township, ward of a city, precinct, or election district, or of a county not so subdivided, shall not be filled with

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