On Colonization Arrangements

Repudiation Of An Agreement With Bernard Kock

APRIL 16, 1863. A. LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, GREETING:

Know ye that, whereas a paper bearing date the 3rd day of December last, purporting to be an agreement between the United States and one Bernard Kock for immigration of persons of African extraction to a dependency of the Republic of Haiti, was signed by me on behalf of the party of the first part; but whereas the said instrument was and has since remained incomplete in consequence of the seal of the United States not having been thereunto affixed; and whereas I have been moved by considerations by me deemed sufficient to withhold my authority for affixing the said seal:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby authorize the Secretary of State to cancel my signature to the instrument aforesaid.

Done at Washington, this sixteenth day of April, A.D. 1863.

A. LINCOLN.

By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.