Whereas it has become necessary to call into service not only volunteers but also portions of the militia of the States by draft, in order to suppress the insurrection existing in the United States, and disloyal persons are not adequately restrained by the ordinary processes of law from hindering this measure and from giving aid and comfort in various ways to the insurrection: Now, therefore, be it ordered: First, That during the existing insurrection, and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors, within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States shall be subject to martial law, and liable to trial and punishment by court-martial or military commission. Second, That the writ of _habeas corpus_ is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prison, or other place of confinement, by any military authority, or by sentence of any court-martial or military commission. 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 twenty-fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. "By the President, "WILLIAM H. SEWARD, _Secretary of State_. By order of the Secretary of War, "L. THOMAS, _Adjutant General_." "Official." This disloyal element was rendered much more formidable by the fact of its perfect combination, through secret, oath-bound organizations under the names of Knights of the Golden Circle and Order of American Knights. These secret orders no doubt had their origin in the South, preparatory to secession and war; but after the war had been commenced it was chiefly in the North that they were useful to the rebel cause, and it was through these that the assassination of the President-elect was to have been accomplished at Baltimore when on his way to the Capital in 1861, and thus his inauguration as President was to have been prevented. We thus see the desperate character of the political leaders of the rebellion, who were ready to frustrate the expressed will of the people by resorting to assassination. We need not think strange that a rebellion which was ready to resort to such means in its incipiency should finally expire under the weight of this infamy.