My reason for so doing is that I am informed that this joint resolution was prepared during the last moments of the last session of Congress for the purpose of correcting certain errors of reference in the internal-revenue act which were discovered on an examination of an official copy procured from the State Department a few hours only before the adjournment.
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With deep gratitude to my countrymen for this mark of their confidence; with a distrust of my own ability to perform the duty required under the most favorable circumstances, and now rendered doubly difficult by existing national perils; yet with a firm reliance on the strength of our free government, and the eventual loyalty of the people to the just principles upon which it is founded, and above all with an unshaken faith in the Supreme Ruler of nations, I accept this trust.
Say to the gentlemen I will meet them personally at Fortress Monroe as soon as I can get there.
I do hereby notify them that all deserters who shall, within sixty days from the date of this proclamation, viz, on or before the 10th day of May, 1865, return to service or report themselves to a provost-marshal shall be pardoned, on condition that they return to their regiments and companies or to such other organizations as they may be assigned to and serve the remainder of their original terms of enlistment and in addition thereto a period equal to the time lost by desertion.
The expediency of sanctioning the acceptance of the gift is submitted to your consideration.
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