Proclamation 223—Law and Order in the State of Mississippi

Whereas it is provided in the Constitution of the United States that the United States shall protect every State in the Union, on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature can not be convened), against domestic violence; and

Whereas it is provided by the laws of the United States that in all cases of insurrection in any State or of obstruction to the laws thereof it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the legislature of such State, or of the executive (when the legislature can not be convened), to call forth the militia of any other State or States, or to employ such part of the land and naval force as shall be judged necessary, for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection or of causing the laws to be duly executed; and

Whereas the legislature of the State of Mississippi, now in session, have represented to me, in a concurrent resolution of that body, that several of the legally elected officers of Warren County, in said State, are prevented from executing the duties of their respective offices by force and violence; that the public buildings and records of said county have been taken into the possession of and are now held by lawless and unauthorized persons; that many peaceable citizens of said county have been killed, and others have been compelled to abandon and remain away from their homes and families; that illegal and riotous seizures and imprisonments have been made by such lawless persons; and, further, that a large number of armed men from adjacent States have invaded Mississippi to aid such lawless persons, and are still ready to give them such aid; and

Whereas it is further represented as aforesaid by said legislature that the courts of said county can not be held, and that the governor of said State has no sufficient force at his command to execute the laws thereof in said county and suppress said violence without causing a conflict of races and endangering life and property to an alarming extent; and

Whereas the said legislature as aforesaid have made application to me for such part of the military force of the United States as may be necessary and adequate to protect said State and the citizens thereof against the domestic violence hereinbefore mentioned and to enforce the due execution of the laws; and

Whereas the laws of the United States require that whenever it may be necessary, in the judgment of the President, to use the military force for the purposes aforesaid, he shall forthwith, by proclamation, command such insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within a limited time:

Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do hereby command said disorderly and turbulent persons to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within five days from the date hereof, and that they refrain from forcible resistance to the laws and submit themselves peaceably to the lawful authorities of said county and State.

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

Done at the city of Washington, this 21st day of December, A.D. 1874, and of the Independence of the United States the ninety-ninth.

U.S. GRANT.

By the President:

HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State.