A Proclamation.
In the name and by the authority of the
Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania and
Andrew G. Curtin,
Governor of the said Commonwealth,
The
State of Pennsylvania is again threatened with invasion, and an army of rebels is approaching our borders.
The President of the
United States has issued his Proclamation calling upon the
State for fifty thousand men. I now appeal to all the citizens of
Pennsylvania who love liberty and are mindful of the history and traditions of their revolutionary fathers, and who feel that it is a sacred duty to guard and maintain the free institutions of our country, who hate treason and its abettors, and who are willing to defend their homes and firesides, and do invoke them to rise in their might and rush to the rescue in this hour of imminent peril.
The issue is one of preservation or destruction.
It involves considerations paramount to all matters of mere expediency and all questions of local interest.
All ties, social and political, all ties of a personal and partisan character, sink by comparison into insignificance.
It is now to be determined by deeds, and not by words alone, who are for us, and who are against us. That it is the purpose of the enemy to invade our borders with all the strength he can command, is now apparent.
Our only defence rests upon the determined action of the citizens of our free commonwealth.
I therefore call on the people of
Pennsylvania capable of bearing arms, to enrol themselves in military organizations, and to encourage all others to give aid and assistance to the efforts which will be put forth for the protection of the
State and the salvation of our common country.
