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A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 3

PROCLAMATIONS.

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BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas information has been received by me that sundry persons, citizens of the United States and others resident therein, are preparing, within the jurisdiction of the same, to enlist, or enter themselves, or to hire or retain others to participate in military operations within the State of Nicaragua:

Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, do warn all persons against connecting themselves with any such enterprise or undertaking, as being contrary to their duty as good citizens and to the laws of their country and threatening to the peace of the United States.

I do further admonish all persons who may depart from the United States, either singly or in numbers, organized or unorganized, for any such purpose, that they will thereby cease to be entitled to the protection of this Government.

I exhort all good citizens to discountenance and prevent any such disreputable and criminal undertaking as aforesaid, charging all officers, civil and military, having lawful power in the premises, to exercise the same for the purpose of maintaining the authority and enforcing the laws of the United States.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 8th day of December, 1855, and of the Independence of the United States the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas on the second section of an act of the Congress of the United States approved the 5th day of August, 1854, entitled "An act to carry into effect a treaty between the United States and Great Britain signed on the 5th day of June, 1854," it is provided that whenever the island of Newfoundland shall give its consent to the application of the stipulations and provisions of the said treaty to that Province and the legislature thereof and the Imperial Parliament shall pass the necessary laws for that purpose, grain, flour, and breadstuffs of all kinds; animals of all kinds; fresh, smoked, and salted meats; cotton wool, seeds and vegetables, undried fruits, dried fruits, fish of all kinds, products of fish and all other creatures living in the water, poultry, eggs; hides, furs, skins, or tails, undressed; stone or marble in its crude or unwrought state, slate, butter, cheese, tallow, lard, horns, manures, ores of metals of all kinds, coal, pitch, tar, turpentine, ashes; timber and lumber of all kinds, round, hewed, and sawed, unmanufactured in whole or in part; firewood; plants, shrubs, and trees; pelts, wool, fish oil, rice, broom corn, and bark; gypsum, ground or unground; hewn or wrought or unwrought burr or grind stones, dyestuffs; flax, hemp, and tow, unmanufactured; unmanufactured tobacco, and rags—shall be admitted free of duty from that Province into the United States from and after the date of a proclamation by the President of the United States declaring that he has satisfactory evidence that the said Province has consented in a due and proper manner to have the provisions of the treaty extended to it and to allow the United States the full benefits of all the stipulations therein contained; and

Whereas I have satisfactory evidence that the Province of Newfoundland has consented in a due and proper manner to have the provisions of the aforesaid treaty extended to it and to allow the United States the full benefits of all the stipulations therein contained, so far as they are applicable to that Province:

Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that from this date the articles enumerated in the preamble of this proclamation, being the growth and produce of the British North American colonies, shall be admitted from the aforesaid Province of Newfoundland into the United States free of duty so long as the aforesaid treaty shall remain in force.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 12th day of December, A.D. 1855, and of the Independence of the United States the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas indications exist that public tranquillity and the supremacy of law in the Territory of Kansas are endangered by the reprehensible acts or purposes of persons, both within and without the same, who propose to direct and control its political organization by force. It appearing that combinations have been formed therein to resist the execution of the Territorial laws, and thus in effect subvert by violence all present constitutional and legal authority; it also appearing that persons residing without the Territory, but near its borders, contemplate armed intervention in the affairs thereof; it also appearing that other persons, inhabitants of remote States, are collecting money, engaging men, and providing arms for the same purpose; and it further appearing that combinations within the Territory are endeavoring, by the agency of emissaries and otherwise, to induce individual States of the Union to intervene in the affairs thereof, in violation of the Constitution of the United States; and

Whereas all such plans for the determination of the future institutions of the Territory, if carried into action from within the same, will constitute the fact of insurrection, and if from without that of invasive aggression, and will in either case justify and require the forcible interposition of the whole power of the General Government, as well to maintain the laws of the Territory as those of the Union:

Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, do issue this my proclamation to command all persons engaged in unlawful combinations against the constituted authority of the Territory of Kansas or of the United States to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes, and to warn all such persons that any attempted insurrection in said Territory or aggressive intrusion into the same will be resisted not only by the employment of the local militia, but also by that of any available forces of the United States, to the end of assuring immunity from violence and full protection to the persons, property, and civil rights of all peaceable and law-abiding inhabitants of the Territory.

If, in any part of the Union, the fury of faction or fanaticism, inflamed into disregard of the great principles of popular sovereignty which, under the Constitution, are fundamental in the whole structure of our institutions is to bring on the country the dire calamity of an arbitrament of arms in that Territory, it shall be between lawless violence on the one side and conservative force on the other, wielded by legal authority of the General Government.

I call on the citizens, both of adjoining and of distant States, to abstain from unauthorized intermeddling in the local concerns of the Territory, admonishing them that its organic law is to be executed with impartial justice, that all individual acts of illegal interference will incur condign punishment, and that any endeavor to intervene by organized force will be firmly withstood.

I invoke all good citizens to promote order by rendering obedience to the law, to seek remedy for temporary evils by peaceful means, to discountenance and repulse the counsels and the instigations of agitators and of disorganizers, and to testify their attachment to their country, their pride in its greatness, their appreciation of the blessings they enjoy, and their determination that republican institutions shall not fail in their hands by cooperating to uphold the majesty of the laws and to vindicate the sanctity of the Constitution.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 11th day of February, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

FRANKLIN PIERCE, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

To all whom it may concern:

Whereas by letters patent under the seal of the United States bearing date the 2d day of March, A.D. 1843, the President recognized Anthony Barclay as consul of Her Britannic Majesty at New York and declared him free to exercise and enjoy such functions, powers, and privileges as are allowed to the consuls of the most favored nations, but, for good and sufficient reasons, it is deemed proper that he should no longer exercise the said functions within the United States:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare that the powers and privileges conferred as aforesaid on the said Anthony Barclay are revoked and annulled.

In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent and the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 28th day of May, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

FRANKLIN PIERCE, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

To all whom it may concern:

Whereas by letters patent under the seal of the United States bearing date the 2d day of August, A.D. 1853, the President recognized George Benvenuto Mathew as consul of Her Britannic Majesty at Philadelphia and declared him free to exercise and enjoy such functions, powers, and privileges as are allowed to the consuls of the most favored nations, but, for good and sufficient reasons, it is deemed proper that he should no longer exercise the said functions within the United States:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare that the powers and privileges conferred as aforesaid on the said George Benvenuto Mathew are revoked and annulled.

In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent and the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 28th day of May, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

FRANKLIN PIERCE, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

To all whom it may concern:

Whereas by letters patent under the seal of the United States bearing date the 17th day of August, A.D. 1852, the President recognized Charles Rowcroft as consul of Her Britannic Majesty at Cincinnati and declared him free to exercise and enjoy such functions, powers, and privileges as are allowed to the consuls of the most favored nations, but, for good and sufficient reasons, it is deemed proper that he should no longer exercise the said functions within the United States:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare that the powers and privileges conferred as aforesaid on the said Charles Rowcroft are revoked and annulled.

In testimony whereof I have caused these letters to be made patent and the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the 28th day of May, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, pursuant to the first article of the treaty between the United States and the Mexican Republic of the 30th day of December, 1853, the true limits between the territories of the contracting parties were declared to be as follows:

Retaining the same dividing line between the two Californias as already defined and established according to the fifth article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the limits between the two Republics shall be as follows:

Beginning in the Gulf of Mexico 3 leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, as provided in the fifth article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; thence, as defined in the said article, up the middle of that river to the point where the parallel of 31° 47' north latitude crosses the same; thence due west 100 miles; thence south to the parallel of 31° 20' north latitude; thence along the said parallel of 31° 20' to the one hundred and eleventh meridian of longitude west of Greenwich; thence in a straight line to a point on the Colorado River 20 English miles below the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers; thence up the middle of the said river Colorado until it intersects the present line between the United States and Mexico.

And whereas the said dividing line has been surveyed, marked out, and established by the respective commissioners of the contracting parties, pursuant to the same article of the said treaty:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare to all whom it may concern that the line aforesaid shall be held and considered as the boundary between the United States and the Mexican Republic and shall be respected as such by the United States and the citizens thereof.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 2d day of June, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States the eightieth.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By the President: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas whilst hostilities exist with various Indian tribes on the remote frontiers of the United States, and whilst in other respects the public peace is seriously threatened, Congress has adjourned without granting necessary supplies for the Army, depriving the Executive of the power to perform his duty in relation to the common defense and security, and an extraordinary occasion has thus arisen for assembling the two Houses of Congress, I do therefore by this my proclamation convene the said Houses to meet in the Capitol, at the city of Washington, on Thursday, the 21st day of August instant, hereby requiring the respective Senators and Representatives then and there to assemble to consult and determine on such measures as the state of the Union may seem to require.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed and signed the same with my hand.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 18th day of August, A.D. 1856, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-first.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

By order: W.L. MARCY, Secretary of State.

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