VI. OCLA ACCOUNT OF THF EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATICON. Mr. Frank B. Carpenter painted a large historical picture of the signing of the proclamation, which is now in the capitol at Washington. While working on it, he saw much of the President, who gave him the following account in conversation. Mr. Carpenter printed the account in his Six Months at the White House. "IT had got to be," said Mr. Lincoln, " midsummer, 1862. Things had gone on from bad to worse until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played our last card, and must change our tactics or lose the game. I now determined upon the adoption of the emancipation policy; and without consultation with or the knowledge of the Cabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proclamation, and, after much anxious thought, called a Cabinet meeting upon the subject. This was the last of July or the first part of the month of August, 1862. [The exact date was July 22, 1862.] All were present excepting Mr. Blair, the Postmaster-General, who was absent at the opening of the discussion, but came in subsequently. I said to the Cabinet that I had resolved upon this step, and had not called them together to ask their advice, but to lay the subjectmatter of a proclamation before them, suggestions as to which would be in order after they had heard it read. Mr. Lovejoy was in error when he informed you that it excited no comment excepting on the part of Secretary Seward. Various suggestions were offered. Secretary Chase wished the language stronger in reference to the arming of the blacks. 6 "Mr. Blair, after he came in, deprecated the policy on the ground that it would cost the administration the fall elections. Nothing, however, was offered that I had not already fully anticipated and settled in my own mind until Secretary Seward spoke. He said in substance: Mr. President, I approve of the procla mation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear the effect of so important a step. It may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help; the government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the government.' His idea," said the President," was that it would be considered our last shriek on the retreat. [This was his precise expression.] 'Now,' continued Mr. Seward, ⚫ while I approve the measure, I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war.' Mr. Lincoln continued: "The wisdom of the view of the Secretary of State struck me with very great force. It was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon the subject, I had entirely overlooked. The result was, that I put the draft of the proclamation aside, as you do your sketch for a picture, waiting for a victory. "From time to time I added or changed a line, touching it up here and there, anxiously watching the progress of events. Well, the next news we had was of Pope's disaster at Bull Run. Things looked darker than ever. Finally came the week of the battle of Antietam. I determined to wait no longer. The news came, I think, on Wednesday, that the advantage was on our side. I was then staying at the Soldier's Home (three miles out of Washington). Here I finished writing the second draft of the preliminary proclamation, came up on Saturday, called the Cabinet together to hear it, and it was published on the following Monday." VII. LETTER TO DISSATISFIED FRIENDS. The Proclamation of Emancipation was received with great atisfaction by some, with discontent by others. The people of the North were by no means unanimous as yet upon the subject of the abolition of Slavery, and the criticism made upon the President's course indicates his wide acquaintance with public sentiment, by which he was enabled to act in crises, neither too soon nor too late. In the early fall of 1863 he was invited to meet his old neighbors at Springfield, Illinois, and the following letter was addressed to the chairman of the Committee of Invitation EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, MY DEAR SIR, -Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at the capital of Illinois on the 3d day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me thus to meet my old friends at my own home; but I cannot just now be absent from this city so long as a visit there would require. The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure that my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to the nation's life. There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: You desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways: First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against this. If you are, you should say so, plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise. way I do not believe that any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military-its army. That army dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of any terms made by any man or men within that range in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them. To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the North get together in convention, and frame and proclaim a compromise embracing the restoration of the Union. In what can that compromise be used to keep Gen. Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? Gen. Meade's army can keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and I think can ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper compromise to which the controllers of Gen. Lee's army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. In an effort at such compromise we would waste time, which the enemy would improve to our disadvantage, and that would be all. A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with those who control the Rebel army, or with the people, first liberated from the dom ination of that army by the success of our army. Now, allow me to assure you that no word or intimation from the Rebel army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace compromises, has ever |