To vessels clearing from foreign ports and destined to the port of Brownsville, opened by this proclamation, licenses will be granted by consuls of the United States upon satisfactory evidence that the vessel so licensed will convey no persons, property, or information excepted or prohibited above either to or from the said port, which licenses shall be exhibited to the collector of said port immediately on arrival, and, if required, to any officer in charge of the blockade; and on leaving said port every vessel will be required to have a clearance from the collector of the customs, according to law, showing no violation of the conditions of the license. Any violations of said conditions will involve the forfeiture and condemnation of the vessel and cargo and the exclusion of all parties concerned from any further privilege of entering the United States during the war for any purpose whatever.
In all respects except as herein specified the existing blockade remains in full force and effect as hitherto established and maintained, nor is it relaxed by this proclamation except in regard to the port to which relaxation is or has been expressly applied.
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 18th day of February, A.D. 1864, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, _Secretary of State_.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Whereas it has become necessary to define the cases in which insurgent enemies are entitled to the benefits of the proclamation of the President of the United States which was made on the 8th day of December, 1863, and the manner in which they shall proceed to avail themselves of those benefits; and
Whereas the objects of that proclamation were to suppress the insurrection and to restore the authority of the United States; and
Whereas the amnesty therein proposed by the President was offered with reference to these objects alone:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare that the said proclamation does not apply to the cases of persons who at the time when they seek to obtain the benefits thereof by taking the oath thereby prescribed are in military, naval, or civil confinement or custody, or under bonds, or on parole of the civil, military, or naval authorities or agents of the United States as prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind, either before or after conviction, and that, on the contrary, it does apply only to those persons who, being yet at large and free from any arrest, confinement, or duress, shall voluntarily come forward and take the said oath with the purpose of restoring peace and establishing the national authority. Prisoners excluded from the amnesty offered in the said proclamation may apply to the President for clemency, like all other offenders, and their applications will receive due consideration.