of the rebellion. No pecuniary sacrifice can be too great an equivalent for peace. But if should be permanent peace and embrace all subjects of discontent. It is written on the blue arch above us; the distant voices of the future, the waves that breat our coast, the skeletons that sit at our tables and fill the vacant places of desolate and morning firesides, all cry out that this war must not be repeated hereafter.

Contest in public as in social life strengthens and consolidates brotherly affection. England, France, Austria, Italy-every land fertile enough to make a history has had its desolating civil wars. It is a baseless nationality that has not tested its strength against domestic enemies. The success of local interests narrows the destiny of a people, and is followed by secession, poverty, and degradation. A divided country and perpetual war make possession a delusion and life a calamity. The triumph of national interests widens the scope of human history, and is attended with peace property and power. It is out of such contests that great nations are born.

What hallowed memories float around us! New Orleans is a shrine as sacred as Bunker Hill! On the Aroostook and Oregon the names of Washington Jackson and Taylor are breathed with as deep a reverence as on the James or the Mississippi. Let us fulfill the conditions of this last great trial, and become a nation, a grand nation, with sense enough to govern ourselves and strength enough to stand against the world united.

N. P. BANKS,

Major-General, Commanding.

[Annex.]

GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, No. 139.
Washington, September 24, 1862.

The following proclamation by the President is published for the information and government of the Army and all concerned:

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

"I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States and each of the States and the people thereof in which States that relations is or may be suspended or disturbed. That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave States, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or there-after may voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent, with their consent, upon this continent or elsewhere with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there, will be continued.

"That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then