"the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of War were here, at my right hand-the others were grouped at the left."

From the first, the President seemed much interested in my work, but as it progressed, his interest increased. He was in the habit of bringing many friends in to see what advance I was making from day to day, and I have known him to come by himself as many as three or four times in a single day. It seemed a pleasant diversion to him to watch the gradual progress of the work, and his suggestions, though sometimes quaint and homely, were almost invariably excellent. Seldom was he heard to allude to any thing that might be construed into a personality in connection with any member of his Cabinet. On one occasion, however, I remember, with a sly twinkle of the eye, he turned to a senatorial friend whom he had brought in to see the picture, and said: "Mrs. Lincoln calls Mr. Carpenter's group "The Happy Family."

At the end of about six months' incessant labor, the picture drew near completion. The curiosity of the public to see it was so great that, by special permission of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, it was placed in the "East Room," and, for two days, thrown open for free exhibition. At the close of the second day, just previous to the canvas being taken down and rolled up, the President came in to take, as he said, a "farewell look at the picture." He sat in front of it for some time, and I asked him if he had aught of criticism to make. He said he could suggest nothing whatever as to the portraiture" the likenesses seemed to him absolutely perfect." I then called his attention to the accessories of the picture, stating that these had been selected from the objects in the Cabinet chamber with reference solely to their bearing upon the subject. "Yes," said he, "I see the war-maps, the portfolios, the slave-map, and all; but the book in the corner, leaning against the chair-leg, you have changed the title of that, I see." Yes," I replied, "at the last moment I learned that you frequently consulted, during the period you were preparing the Proclamation, Solicitor Whiting's work on the War Powers of the President,' so I simply changed the title of the book, leaving the old sheepskin binding as it was." "Now," said he, " Whiting's book is not a regular law-book. It is all very well that it should be there; but I would suggest that you change the character of the binding. It now looks like an old volume of United States Statutes." I thanked him for this criticism, and then said, "Is there any thing else that you would like changed?" "I see nothing," said he; "all else is perfectly satisfactory to me. In my judgment, it is as good a piece of work as the subject will admit of."

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And then, in his simple-hearted, earnest way, he said to me, "And I am right glad you have done it!"

In February last, a few days after the passage of the "Constitutional Amendment," I was in Washington, and was received by Mr. Lincoln with the kindness and familiarity which had characterized our previous intercourse. I said to him one day that I was very proud to have been the artist to have first conceived of the design of painting a picture commemorative of the Act of Emancipation; that subsequent occurrences had only confirmed my own first judgment of that act as the most sublime moral event in our history. "Yes," said--he and never do I remember to have noticed in him more earnestness of expression or manner-" as affairs have turned, it is the central act of my Administration, and the great event of the nineteenth century."

I remember to have asked him, on one occasion, if there was not some opposition manifested on the part of several members of the Cabinet to the Emancipation policy. He said, in reply: "Nothing more than I have stated to you. Mr. Blair thought we should lose the fall elections, and opposed it on that ground only." Said I, "I have understood that Secretary Smith was not in favor of your action. Mr. Blair told me that, when the meeting closed, he and the Secretary of the Interior went away together, and that the latter told him, if the President carried out that policy, he might count on losing Indiana, sure!" "He never said any thing of the kind to me," returned the President. "And how," said I, "does Mr. Blair feel about it now?" "Oh," was the prompt reply, "he proved right in regard to the fall elections, but he is satisfied that we have since gained more than we lost." "I have been told," said I, "that Judge Bates doubted the constitutionality of the Proclamation. ""He never expressed such an opinion in my hearing," replied Mr. Lincoln. "No member of the Cabinet ever dissented from the policy, in any conversation with me."

There was one marked element of Mr. Lincoln's character admirably expressed by the Hon. Schuyler Colfax, in his oration at Chicago upon his death: "When his judgment, which acted slowly, but which was almost as immovable as the eternal hills when settled, was grasping some subject of importance, the arguments against his own desires seemed uppermost in his mind, and, in conversing upon it, he would present those arguments, to see if they could be rebutted."

In illustration of this, I need only here recall the fact that the interview between himself and the Chicago delegation of clergymen, appointed to urge upon him the issue of a Proclamation of Emancipation, took place September 13, 1862, just about a month after the

President had declared his established purpose to take this step at the Cabinet meeting which I have described. He said to this committee: "I do not want to issue a document that the whole world will see must necessarily be inoperative, like the Pope's bull against the comet!" After drawing out their views upon the subject, he concluded the interview with these memorable words:

"Do not misunderstand me, because I have mentioned these objections. They indicate the difficulties which have thus far prevented my action in some such way as you desire. I have not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement. And I can assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than any other. Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do! I trust that, in the freedom with which I have canvassed your views, I have not in any respect injured your feelings."

In further illustration of this peculiarity of his mind, I will say here, to silence forever the cavils of those who have asserted that he was forced by the pressure of public opinion to nominate Mr. Chase as Judge Taney's successor, that, notwithstanding his apparent hesitation upon this subject, and all that was reported at the time in the newspapers as to the chances of the various candidates, it is a fact well known to several of his most intimate friends that "there had never been a time during his Presidency, that, in the event of the death of Judge Taney, he had not fully intended and expected to nominate Salmon P. Chase for Chief Justice." These were his very words, uttered in this connection.

Mr. Chase told me that at the Cabinet meeting, immediately after the battle of Antietam, and just prior to the issue of the September Proclamation, the President entered upon the business before them, by saying that “the time for the annunciation of the Emancipation policy could no longer be delayed. Public sentiment," he thought, "would sustain it, many of his warmest friends and supporters demanded itand he had promised his God that he would do it!" The last part of this was uttered in a low tone, and appeared to be heard by no one but Secretary Chase, who was sitting near him. He asked the President if he correctly understood him. Mr. Lincoln replied: "I made a solemn vow before God that, if General Lee were driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves !"

In concluding this article, it will perhaps be expected that I should take some notice of an assertion, made originally in an editorial article in The Independent, upon the withdrawal of Mr. Chase from the polit

al canvass of 1864, and widely copied, in which it was stated that the concluding paragraph of the Proclamation was from the pen of Secretary Chase. One of Mr. Lincoln's intimate friends (this incident was related to me by the gentleman himself), who felt that there was an impropriety in this publication, at that time, for which Mr. Chase was in some degree responsible, went to see the President about it. "Oh," said Mr. Lincoln, with his characteristic simplicity and freedom from all suspicion, "Mr. Chase had nothing to do with it; I think I mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Tilton myself."

The facts in the case are these: while the measure was pending, Mr. Chase submitted to the President a draft of a proclamation, embodying his views upon the subject, which closed with the appropriate and solemn words referred to: "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice warranted by the Constitution, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God!"

Mr. Lincoln adopted this sentence intact, excepting that he inserted after the word "Constitution" the words "upon military necessity."

Thus is ended what I have long felt to be a duty I owed to the world-the record of circumstances attending the preparation and issue of the third great state paper which has marked the progress of our Anglo-Saxon civilization.

First, is the "MAGNA CHARTA," wrested by the barons of England from King John; second, the "DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE;" and third, worthy to be placed upon the tablets of history, side by side with the two first, is "ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION."

APPENDIX.

A.

LETTERS ON SUNDRY OCCASIONS.

TO MR. HODGES, OF KENTUCKY.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, April 4, 1864.

A. G. HODGES, Esq., Frankfort, Kentucky:

MY DEAR SIR:-You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government, that nation, of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise un.constitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that to the best of my ability I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution, altogether. When, early in the war, General Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, General Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity. When, still later, General Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the