31 THE MEN. 1. PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 2. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. 3. SALMON P. CHASE, Secretary of Treasury. 4. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. 5. GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of Navy. 7. MONTGOMERY BLAIR, Postmaster-General. The room is the Official Chamber of the White House, ACCESSORIES. 9. Photograph of Simon Cameron, Ex-Sec. War. 10. Portrait of Andrew Jackson. 11. Parchment Copy of the Constitution. 12. Map of Seat of War in Virginia. 13. Map showing Slave Population in graduated light and shade. 14. War Department Portfolio. 15. Story's "Commentaries on the Constitution." 16. Whiting's "War Powers of the President." 18. Two volumes Congressional Globe. III. THE PICTURE. THE original conception of Mr. Carpenter's great picture is due to his profound loyalty to the United States, his fervent devotion to Freedom, his deep exultation when the issue of the Great Proclamation announced that Slavery was Abolished, his strong desire to execute some work within the field of his art which should express his appreciation of the questions of the war, and the nation's action upon them, and his honorable ambition to associate his own name and reputation with an occasion so glorious. The artist thus describes his own first clear conception of the time and sentiment of his picture, in his "Six Months at the White House:" "The long-prayed-for year of jubilee had come; the bonds of the oppressed were loosed; the prison doors were opened. 'Behold,' said a voice, 'how a man may be exalted to a dignity and glory almost divine, and give freedom to a race! Surely Art should unite with Eloquence and Poetry to celebrate such a theme.' I conceived of that band of men upon whom the eyes of the world centred as never before upon ministers of state, gathered in council, depressed, perhaps disheartened at the vain efforts of many months to restore the supremacy of the Government. I saw, in thought, the head of the nation, bowed down with his weight of care and responsibility, solemnly announcing, as he unfolded the prepared draft of the Proclamation, that the time for the inauguration of this policy had arrived; I endeavored to imagine the conflicting emotions of satisfaction, doubt, and distrust with which such an announcement would be received by men of the varied characteristics of the assembled councilors." This was in the end of the year 1863, the first day of which had witnessed the issuing of the Supplementary Proclamation announcing the fulfillment of the promise. For some weeks the painter, after his manner, brooded silently over his design. Gradually the group assumed in his imagination such a form and arrangement as satisfied his conception of what the assembly must have been. Mr. Carpenter is not with, out a decided tendency toward those lofty realms of human aspiration and emotional thought, the mystical and the supernatural; and he records a coincidence in the matter of adjusting his design which is sufficiently striking. "In seeking a point of unity or action for the picture," he says, "I was impressed with the conviction that important modifications followed the reading of the Proclamation at the suggestion of the Secretary of State, and I determined upon such an incident as the moment of time to be represented. I was subsequently surprised and gratified when Mr. Lincoln himself, reciting the history of the Proclamation to me, dwelt particularly upon the fact, that not only was the time of its issue decided by Secretary Seward's advice, but that one of the most important words in the document was added through his strenuous representations." The design thus determined, it remained to execute it, and Mr. Carpenter first consulted Mr. Samuel Sinclair, now publisher of the N. Y. Tribune, upon the means of interesting in the scheme Messrs. Schuyler Colfax and Owen Lovejoy, who should, in their turn, influence their personal and political friend the Presi dent. This shrewd little piece of wire-pulling succeeded, for Mr. Sinclair, being the very next week in Washington, went with Mr. Colfax to Mr. Lincoln, explained the plan, and without much difficulty obtained his assent. The road was now clear for the execution of the ambitious scheme of the artist; but how was he to travel in it? "Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges ?"—and besides, he had not the means for such unscriptural expenditure, even were he so anti-biblical as to make it. A second coincidence attended the solution of the difficulty. He left home one morning, pondering deeply upon the financial lion in his path; and contriving and rejecting, with increasing discouragement, one expedient after another, he reached the door of the building where his studio was established, and was about to enter. At that moment he happened to observe a gentleman who was intently examining some pictures in a shop window. Something familiar in the air of the figure attracted the artist, and when in a few moments the gazer turned round, it proved to be Frederick A. Lane, Esq., an old acquaintance who, five years before, had lived near Mr. Carpenter in Brooklyn, and, like hịm, had at that time been struggling hard for a living, though in the dry path of law, instead of the supposed more flowery ways of Art. Mr. Carpenter asked Mr. Lane up into his studio, |