CONVERSATIONS AND ANECDOTES Reported by F. B. Carpenter in his "Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln " CONVERSATIONS AND BY F. B. CARPENTER. From February to August, 1864, the artist F. B. Carpenter was an occupant of the Executive Mansion engaged in painting his masterpiece, "The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet." He had many conversations with the President, heard many stories told by him and more told of him, and witnessed numerous incidents that revealed in a striking way the personality of the "First American." These he gathered together and published shortly after the death of Lincoln, in a volume entitled "Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln." The best of these conversations and anecdotes are here reproduced. The History of the Emancipation Proclamation. The appointed hour found me at the wellremembered door of the official chamber,—that door watched daily, with so many conflicting emotions of hope and fear, by the anxious throng regularly gathered there. The President had preceded me, and was already deep in Acts of Congress, with which the writing-desk was strewed, awaiting his signature. He received me pleasantly, giving me a seat near his own arm-chair; and after having read Mr. Lovejoy's note, he 237 took off his spectacles, and said, "Well, Mr. C-, we will turn you in loose here, and try to give you a good chance to work out your idea." Then, without paying much attention to the enthusiastic expression of my ambitious desire and purpose, he proceeded to give me a detailed account of the history and issue of the great proclamation. "It had got to be," said he, "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 he did not remember.) "This Cabinet meeting took place, I think, upon a Saturday. 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 subject-matter of a proclamation before them; suggestions as to which would be in order, after they had heard it read. Mr. Lovejoy," said he, "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 |