And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and henceforth shall be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free, to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defense; and I recommend to them that in all cases, when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. [L. S.] By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, _Secretary of State_. STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS was born at Brandon, Vermont, on the 23d of April, 1813. When a child he lived on a farm, working in the fields in the summer and attending the district school during the winter months. At the age of fifteen young Douglas realized his condition in life,--that his widowed mother was not in circumstances to give him an education, so he suppressed his ambition for college for the time, and apprenticed himself to a cabinet-maker in Middlebury. Here he worked with enthusiasm for two years. The following year he spent in Brandon, his native town, attending the academy. At the close of that year he moved with his mother to Canandaigua, N. Y., at once becoming a student at the fine academy located there. He remained in Canandaigua three years, applying himself diligently to his academic studies, also finding time to follow a course in the study of law. In 1833 the young man of twenty-three years removed to Winchester, Ill., to earn for himself a livelihood. For a few months he taught school and continued his law studies. The next year he was admitted to the bar in Jacksonville, where he had stopped for a short time, before reaching Winchester.