Weekly Trinity journal., 1871-05-13
SATURDAY, MAY I3, 1871
PROCLAMATION BY THE PREsnENr.--O

| PROCLAMATION BY THE PREsIpENT.--On the
4th day of May the following proclamation wa.
| issued:
| By the President of the United States of Amer
ica-a proclamation; The act of Congress, enti.
tied an act to enforce the provisions of the Four
teenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, and for other purposes, approved
April goth, A. D., 1871, being law of extraor-
dinary public Importance, consider it my duty
to issue this, my proclamation, calling the at
tention of the people of the United States thereto
enjoining on all good citizens, and especially
upon public officers, to be Jealous in the enforce
ment thereof, and warning all persons to abstain
from committing any of the acts thereby prohib-
tied. The law of Congress applies to ali parts
of the United States, and will be enforced every
where to the extent of the powers vested in the
Executive but inasmuch as the necessity
therefor is well known to have been caused
chiefly by persistent violations of the rights OF
citizens of the United States by combinations OF
lawless and dsaifected persons in certain locali-
ties lately the theater of insurrecton and mill
tary conflict do particularly exhort the people
of those parts of the country to suppress all
such combinations by their own voluntary eff
| FORTS through the agency of local laws, and t
maintain the rights Of all citizens of the United
States, and to secure to all such citizens theil
equal protection of the laws
| Fully sensible or the responsibility imposed
upon the Executive by the act of Congress to
which public attention is now called, and reluct-
ant to call into exercise any of the extraordinary
powers thereby conferred upon me, except in
cases of imperative necessity l do nevertheless
deem it my duty to make known that | will not
hesitate to exhaust the power thus vested in the
Executive whenever and wherever it shall be-
come necessary to do so, for the purpose of Sc
curing to citizens of the United States the peace
full enjoyment of the rights guaranteed to them
by the Constitution and laws. 1t is my earnest
wish that peace and cheerful obedience to the
law may prevail throughout the land, and that
all traces of our late unhappy civil struggle may
be speedily removed. These ends can be easily
reached by acquiescence in the results of the
conflict, now written in our Constitution, and
by the due and proper enforcement of equal,
just and impartial laws in every part Of our
country.
The failure of locaf communities to furnish
such means for the attainment of results so ear.
| nestly desired, imposes upon the National Gov
ernment the duty of putting forth all its ener
| gies for the protection of its citizens of ever
race and color and for the restoration of peac
and order throughout the entire country.
| In testimony whereof | have hereunto set my
hand and caused the seal of the United States t
| be affixed Done at the city of ofWashington, thi
Sd day of May, in the year of our Lord, one thou
sand eight hundred and seventy-one, and of the
independence of the United States the ninety
| fifth. U. s. GRANT.
| By the President
HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State.