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[336]

In a proclamation issued on the 15th,

April, 1861.
the President declared that the laws of the Republic had been for some time, and were then, opposed in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, “by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law;” and he therefore, by virtue of the power in him vested by the Constitution and the laws, called forth the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress those combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed. The President appealed to all loyal citizens to “favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.” He deemed it proper to say, that the first service assigned to the forces thereby called forth would probably be “to repossess the forts, places, and property which had been seized from the Union ;” and he assured the people that in every event the utmost care would be observed, consistently with the objects stated, to “avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens of any part of the country.” He commanded the persons composing the combinations mentioned to disperse, and retire peaceably to their respective abodes, within twenty days from the date of his proclamation.1

Impressed with the conviction that the then condition of public affairs demanded an extraordinary session of the Congress, he, in the same proclamation, summoned the Senators and Representatives

Simon Cameron.

to assemble at their respective chambers in Washington City, at noon on Thursday, the 4th day of July next ensuing, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety might seem to demand.

Simultaneously with the President's Proclamation, the Secretary of War, under the authority of an Act of Congress, approved in February, 1795,2 issued a telegraphic dispatch to the Governors of all the States of the Union, excepting those mentioned in the proclamation, requesting each of them to cause to be immediately detailed from the militia of his State the quota designated in a table, which he appended, to serve as infantry or riflemen for a period of three months (the extent allowed by law3), unless sooner

1 Proclamation of President Lincoln, April 15, 1861.

2 See The Military Laws of the United States: by John F. Callan, page 108. G. W. Childs, Philadelphia, 1868. The President's authority for the proclamation may be found in the second and third sections of the Act approved February 28, 1795.

3 The law declared that the militia should not be “compelled to serve more than three months after arrival at the place of rendezvous, in any one year.” It was hoped that three months would be sufficient time to put down the insurrection.

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