[SEAL.]
Given under my hand and the seal of the United States, at Washington,
the 20th day of April, A.D. 1871, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the ninety-fifth.
U.S. GRANT.
By the President:
HAMILTON FISH,
_Secretary of State_.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
A PROCLAMATION
The act of Congress entitled "An act to enforce the provisions of
the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States,
and for other purposes," approved April 20, A.D. 1871, being a law of
extraordinary public importance, I consider it my duty to issue this my
proclamation, calling the attention of the people of the United States
thereto enjoining upon all good citizens, and especially upon all public
officers, to be zealous in the enforcement thereof, and warning all
persons to abstain from committing any of the acts thereby prohibited.
This law of Congress applies to all parts of the United States and
will be enforced everywhere 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 disaffected persons
in certain localities lately the theater of insurrection and military
conflict, I do particularly exhort the people of those parts of the
country to suppress all such combinations by their own voluntary efforts
through the agency of local laws and to maintain the rights of all
citizens of the United States and to secure to all such citizens the
equal protection of the laws.
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