CHAP. VI. erty of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and which act and the joint resolution explanatory thereof are herewith published, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion, or any rebellion against the Government of the United States, and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States, on pain of the forfeitures and seizures, as within and by said sixth section provided.

And I hereby make known that it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, to again recommend the adoption of a practical measure for tendering pecuniary aid to the free choice or rejection of any and all States which may then be recognizing and practically sustaining the authority of the United States, and which may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, gradual abolishment of slavery within such State or States; that the object is to practically restore, thenceforward to be maintained, the constitutional relation between the General Government and each and all the States wherein that relation is now suspended or disturbed; and that for this object the war, as it has been, will be prosecuted. And as a fit and necessary military measure for effecting this object, I, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, do order and declare that on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or States wherein the constitutional authority of the United States shall not then be practically recognized, submitted to, and maintained, shall then, thenceforward, and forever be free.1

Of the Cabinet proceedings which followed the reading of this momentous document we have, un- . 1 The endorsement on the above paper, also in Lincoln's own handwriting, is as follows: "Emancipation proclamation as first sketched and shown to the

Cabinet in July, 1862." The diary of Secretary Chase and the memorandum of Secretary Stanton show the exact date to have been July 22, 1862.

fortunately, only very brief memoranda. Every CHAP. VI. member of the council was, we may infer, bewildered by the magnitude and boldness of the proposal. The sudden consideration of this critical question reveals to us with vividness the difference in mental reach, readiness, and decision between the President and his constitutional advisers. Only two of the number gave the measure their unreserved concurrence, even after discussion. It is strange that one of these was the cautious Attorney-General, the representative of the conservative faction of the slaveholding State of Missouri, and that the member who opposed the measure as a whole, and proposed to achieve the result indirectly through the scattered and divided action of local commanders in military departments, was the antislavery Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, representing perhaps more nearly than any other the abolition faction of the free State of Ohio. All were astonished, except the two to whom it had been mentioned a week before. None of the others had even considered such a step. But from the mind and will of President Lincoln the determination and announcement to his Cabinet came almost as complete in form and certain in intention on that memorable Tuesday of July as when, two months later, it was given to the public, or as officially proclaimed on the succeeding New Year's Day, an irrevocable Executive act.

A fragmentary memorandum in the handwriting of Secretary Stanton shows us distinctly the effect produced upon the assembled council. The manuscript is here reproduced as nearly as the types conveniently permit. The very form of the record

July 22,

1862.

CHAP. VI. shows the Secretary's strong emotion and interest in the discussion:

Tuesday, July 22.

The President proposes to issue an order declaring that, all slaves in States in rebellion on the day of

The Attorney-General and Stanton are for its immediate promulgation.

Seward against it; argues strongly in favor of cotton and foreign Governments.

Chase silent.

Welles

Seward argues

That foreign nations will intervene to prevent the abolition of slavery for sake of cotton. Argues in a long speech against its immediate promulgation. Wants to wait for troops. Wants Halleck here. Wants drum and fife and public spirit. We break up our relations with foreign nations and the production of cotton for sixty years.

Chase Thinks it a measure of great danger, and would lead to universal emancipation The measure goes beyond anything I have recommended.

The omissions in this bit of historical manuscript are exceedingly provoking, but some of them are supplied by President Lincoln's own narrative, recorded and published by the artist, F. B. Carpenter, whose application for permission to paint his historical picture of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation called it forth:

"It had got to be," said he [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,