recognized and practically applied in the act. 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, femmes 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. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

To GOVERNOR ANDREW JOHNSON, NASHVILLE, TENN. War Department, April 27, 1862.

Your dispatch of yesterday just received, as also, in due course, was your former one. The former one was sent to General Halleck, and we have his answer, by which I have no doubt he (General Halleck) is in communication with you before this. General Halleck understands better than we can here, and he must be allowed to control in that quarter.

If you are not in communication with Halleck, telegraph him at once, freely and frankly.

A. LINCOLN.

TO FLAG OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.

Fort Monroe, Virginia, May 7, 1862.

Sir:-Major-General McClellan telegraphs that he has ascertained, by a reconnaissance, that the battery at Jamestown has been abandoned, and he again requests that gun-boats may be sent up the James river. If you have tolerable confidence that you can successfully contend with the Merrimac without the help of the Galena and two accompanying gun-boats, send

the Galena and two gun-boats up the James river at once. Please report your action on this to me at once. I shall be found either at General Wool's headquarters or on board the Miami.

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.

LETTER TO GENERAL MCCLELLAN, MAY 9, 1862. My Dear Sir:-I have just assisted the Secretary of War in forming the part of a dispatch to you relating to army corps, which dispatch, of course, will have reached you long before this will. I wish to say a few words to you privately on this subject. I ordered the army corps organization not only on the unanimous opinion of the twelve generals of division, but also on the unanimous opinion of every military man 1 could get an opinion from, and every modern military book, yourself only excepted. Of course I did not, on my own judgment, pretend to understand the subject. I now think it indispensable for you to know how your struggle against it is received in quarters which we can not entirely disregard. It is looked upon as merely an effort to pamper one or two pets, and to persecute and degrade their supposed rivals. I have had no word from Sumner, Heintzelman, or Keyes. The commanders of these corps are, of course, the three highest officials with you, but I am constantly told that you have no consultation or communication with them, that you consult and communicate with nobody but Fitz John Porter, and perhaps General Franklin. I do not say these complaints are true or just, but, at all events, it is proper that you should know of their existence.

Do the commanders of corps disobey your orders in any thing?

When you relieved General Hamilton of his command the other day you thereby lost the confidence of at least one of your best friends in the senate. And here let me say, not as applicable to you personally, that senators and representatives speak of me in their places as they please without question; and that officers of the army must cease addressing insulting letters to them for taking no greater liberty with them. But to return, are you strong enough, even with my help, to set your foot upon the neck of Sumner, Heintzelman, and Keyes, all at once? This is a practical and very serious question for you. Yours truly, A. LINCOLN.

TO FLAG OFFICER GOLDSBOROUGH.

Fort Monroe, Va., May 10, 1862. My Dear Sir:-I send you this copy of your report of yesterday for the purpose of saying to you in writing, that you are quite right in supposing the movement made by you and therein reported was made in accordance with my wishes, verbally expressed to you in advance. I avail myself of the occasion to thank you for your courtesy and all your conduct, so far as known to me, during my brief visit here.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

PROCLAMATION DECLARING MAJOR-GENERAL HUNTER'S EMANCIPATION ORDERS NULL AND VOID.

May 19, 1862.

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 a proclamation declaring the slaves of any state free, and that the supposed proclamation now in question 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 have 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 can not 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 corps.

On the 6th day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution, to be substantially as follows:

Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any state which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving aid to such state, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.

The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress; and now stands an authentic, definite and

solemn.proposal of the nation to the states and people most immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of these states I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue, I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You can not, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics.

This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking any thing. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past time, as in the providence of God it is now your high. privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.

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 19th day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-sixth. A. LINCOLN.

TO MAJOR-GENERAL MCCLELLAN.

Washington City, May 21, 1862.

Your long dispatch of yesterday (to-day) just received. You will have just such control of General McDowell and his force as you therein indicate. McDowell can reach you by land sooner than he could get aboard of boats, if the boats were ready at Fredericksburg, unless his march shall be resisted, in