I do hereby further invite and request the heads of the Executive Departments of this Government, together with all legislators, all judges and magistrates, and all other persons exercising authority in the land, whether civil, military, or naval, and all soldiers, seamen, and marines in the national service, and all the other loyal and law-abiding people of the United States, to assemble in their preferred places of public worship on that day, and there and then to render to the almighty and merciful Ruler of the Universe such homages and such confessions and to offer to Him such supplications as the Congress of the United States have in their aforesaid resolution so solemnly, so earnestly, and so reverently recommended. In testimony 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 7th day of July, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-ninth ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, _Secretary of State_. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. A PROCLAMATION. 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: