“Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws, do hereby declare, that in my judgment the public safety especially requires that the suspension of the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_, so proclaimed in the said proclamation of the fifteenth of September, 1863, be made effectual, and be duly enforced in and throughout the said State of Kentucky, and that martial law be for the present ordered therein. I do therefore hereby require of the military officers in the said State that the privilege of the writ of _habeas corpus_ be effectually suspended within the said State, according to the aforesaid proclamation, and that martial law be established therein, to take effect from the date of this proclamation, the said suspension and establishment of martial law to continue until this proclamation shall be revoked or modified, but not beyond the period when the said rebellion shall have been suppressed or come to an end. And I do hereby require and command as well military officers as all civil officers and authorities existing or found within the said State of Kentucky, to take notice of this proclamation and to give full effect to the same. The martial law herein proclaimed, and the things in that respect herein ordered, will not be deemed or taken to interfere with the holding of elections, or with the proceedings of the Constitutional Legislature of Kentucky, or with the administration of justice in the courts of law existing therein between citizens of the United States in suits or proceedings which do not affect the military operations or the constituted authorities of the Government of the United States. “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 fifth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth. “By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. “WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.” The question as to what principles should be adopted in reconstructing the rebel States, as fast as the insurrection within their limits should be suppressed, had already, as remarked upon a former page, presented itself as one to be met and disposed of. Congress having, at almost the last moment of its session, passed a bill intended to meet this case, the President issued the following proclamation, on the 9th of July, practically approving the same and accepting its spirit, but making exception in the case of Louisiana and Arkansas, which States had been reorganized according to the spirit and intent of a previous proclamation, making the will of one-tenth of the voters of a State sufficient for its return to allegiance--the bill under notice requiring the votes of a majority: