Now, therefore, be it known that I do set apart Thursday, the 6th day of August next, to be observed as a day for national thanksgiving, praise, and prayer, and I invite the people of the United States to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship and in the forms approved by their own consciences render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things He has done in the nation's behalf and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion, to change the hearts of the insurgents, to guide the counsels of the Government with wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency, and to visit with tender care and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land all those who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles, and sieges, have been brought to suffer in mind, body, or estate, and finally to lead the whole nation through the paths of repentance and submission to the divine will back to the perfect enjoyment of union and fraternal peace.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
[SEAL.]
Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of July, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-eighth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the Constitution of the United States has ordained that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it; and
Whereas a rebellion was existing on the 3d day of March, 1863, which rebellion is still existing; and