General Orders
"An
inquiry has been very general among the troupe of this command for the
famous General order No. 11, current series of this Department. We
reprint it for the gratification of all concerned, merely adding that it
is in full force and effect. True, the Northern newspapers published
what purported to be a disavowal of the President of the United States
of Gen. Hunter's action in this particular matter, but we learn that no
official notification of that disavowal has been received.
GENERAL ORDERS.—NO. 11.
HEAD-QUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, HILTON HEAD, S. C. May 9, 1862.
The three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, comprising the Military Department of the South, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these three States—Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida—heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.
DAVID HUNTER, Major-General Commanding. ED. W. SMITH, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General."
The response from Lincoln via Secretary of State Seward according to Harper's Weekly:
THE
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
The
following proclamation by the President of the United States is
published:
Whereas,
there appears in the public prints what purports to be a proclamation
of Major-General Hunter, in the words and figures following, to wit:
GENERAL
ORDERS.—NO. 11.
HEAD-QUARTERS,
DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, HILTON HEAD, S. C. May 9, 1862.
The
three States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, comprising the
Military Department of the South, having deliberately declared
themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of
America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it
becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This
was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and
martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The
persons in these three States—Georgia, South Carolina, and
Florida—heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever
free.
DAVID
HUNTER, Major-General Commanding. ED. W. SMITH, Acting Assistant
Adjutant-General.
And
whereas, the same is producing some excitement and misunderstanding,
Therefore
I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, proclaim and
declare that the Government of the United States had no knowledge or
belief of an intention on the part of General Hunter to issue such a
proclamation, nor has it yet any authentic information that the
document is genuine; and, further, that neither General Hunter nor
any other commander or person has been authorized by the Government
of the United States to make proclamation declaring the slaves of any
State free, and that the supposed proclamation now in question,
whether genuine or false, is altogether void so far as respects such
declaration.
I
further make known, that whether it be competent for me, as
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any
State or States free, and whether at any time, or in any case, it
shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the
Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which,
under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I can not
feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field.
These are totally different questions from those of police
regulations in armies and camps.
On
the 6th day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to
Congress the adoption of a joint resolution, to be substantially as
follows:
Resolved,
That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may
adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State, in its
discretion, compensation for the inconveniences, public and private,
produced by such change of system.
The
resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large
majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic,
definite, and solemn proposal of the nation to the States and people
most immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of
these States I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue. I beseech you to
make the arguments for yourselves. You can not, if you would, be
blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged
consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and
partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common
object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The
change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not
rending or wrecking any thing. Will you not embrace it? So much good
has not been done by one effort in all past times as in the
Providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast
future not have to lament that you have neglected it.
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
19th day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the
eighty-sixth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President—
WM.
H. SEWARD, Secretary of State
Harper's
Weekly, May 31, 1862 p.339
