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Lincoln's Rules of War: "To return such a person into slavery would amount to enslaving a free perso

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:80.00 USD Estimated At:160.00 - 220.00 USD
Lincoln's Rules of War:  To return such a person into slavery would amount to enslaving a free perso
Printed Union General Orders, War Dept., Washington, Apr. 24, 1863, 4 3/4 x 7 1/4, 26 pp., sewn. "Instructions for the Government of Armies of the U.S. in the Field," approved by Lincoln, reflecting treatment of slaves in wartime, in the long shadow of the recently enacted Emancipation Proclamation. Extensive discussion of martial law, military necessity, retaliation, "public and private property of the enemy; protection of persons, and especially women, of religion, the arts and sciences." Lengthy philosophy of granting freedom to slaves; deserters, prisoners, hostages, battlefield booty, prohibitions against killing a wounded enemy combatant, torture; partisans and armed prowlers, spies, traitors, captured chaplains, nurses, and messengers; flags of truce, armistice, capitulation, assassination, and much more. "Sentences of death shall be executed only with approval of the chief executive...War is not carried on by arms alone. It is lawful to starve the hostile belligerent...Private citizens are no longer murdered, enslaved, or carried off to distant parts, and the inoffensive individual is as little disturbed...as the commander of hostile troops can afford... Classical works of art, libraries, scientific collections, or precious instruments, such as astronom-ical telescopes, as well as hospitals, must be secured against all avoidable injury, even when they are contained in fortified places whilst besieged or bombarded... Slavery, complicating and confounding the ideas of property...(that is of humanity), exists according to municipal or local law only. The law of nature and nations has never acknowledged it... Fugitives escaping from a country in which they were slaves, villains, or serfs, into another country, have, for centuries past, been held free...Therefore, in a war between the U.S. and a belligerent which admits of slavery, if a person held in bondage...to return such person into slavery would amount to enslaving a free person...Neither the U.S. nor any officer can enslave any human being...The law of nations knows of no distinctions of color, and if an enemy of the U.S. should enslave and sell any captured persons of their army, it would be a case for the severest retaliation...Modern wars are not internecine wars, in which the killing of the enemy is the object...The use of poison in any manner...is wholly excluded from modern warfare...Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism...." Very minor edge tear at margin of first leaf, cream toning, else V.F. Fascinating and scarce.