“In the matter of compensation it is provided that claims may be presented within ninety days from the passage of the act, ‘but not thereafter,’ and there is no saving for minors, _femes-covert_, insane or absent persons. I presume this is an omission by mere oversight, and I recommend that it be supplied by an amendatory or supplemental act. “April 16, 1862. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.” The President’s repudiation, by the following proclamation, of an emancipation order of General Hunter, was conclusive evidence that he was determined to keep the control of this vexed question in his own hands, and to suffer no military commander to exercise jurisdiction over it: “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: ‘Head-Quarters, Department of the South, ‘_Hilton Head, S. C._, May 9th, 1862. ‘GENERAL ORDERS No. 11. ‘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 twenty-fifth day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible. The persons in these three States, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free. ‘DAVID HUNTER, _Major-General Commanding_. ‘Official: ‘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 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 cannot 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.