File:John Wilkes Booth c, 1862.jpg

Identifier: lifeofabrahamlinco00abbo (find matches)
Title: Life of Abraham Lincoln, illustrated : a biographical sketch of President Lincoln taken from Abbott's "Lives of the Presidents," and containing sixty half-tone illustrations and portraits
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot), 1805-1877
Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
Publisher: Chicago : Illustrated Booklet Company
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
masters who were in open rebellion ; theother abolished slavery in the District of Co-lumbia. He was urged to issue a proclamation ofemancipation before, in his judgment, the coun-try was prepared for it. He replied, I do notwant to issue a document that the whole worldwill see must necessarily be inoperative, like thePopes bull against the comet. At length he judged that the hour for decisiveaction had come, and on Monday, September 22,1862, )\Ir. Lincoln issued his renowned proclama-tion, declaring that on the 1st of January, 1863,all the slaves in States then continuing in rebel-lion should be free. In cabinet meeting he said to Mr. Chase, Imade a solemn vow before God. that if GeneralLee should be driven back from Pennsylvania Iwould crown the result by the declaration of free-dom to the slaves. The excitement which this proclamation createdwas intense, many applauding, many condemning.In a brief address which he soon made he said,What I did, I did after a verv full deliberation,
Text Appearing After Image:
JOHN WILKES BOOTH ABRAHAM LINXOLX 115 and under a heavy and solemn sense of responsi-bility. I can only trust in God that I have madeno mistake. Two years after he was enabledto say, As afifairs have turned, it is the centralact of my administration, and the great event ofthe nineteenth century. President Lincoln gives the following accountof the drafting of the proclamation, and the dis-cussion in the Cabinet respecting it:— It had got to be midsummer, 1862. Things hadgone on from bad to worse, until I felt that wehad reached the end of our rope on the plan ofoperations we had been pursuing, that we hadabout played our last card, and must change ourtactics or lose the game. I now determined uponthe adoption of the emancipation policy, and, with-out consultation with or the knowledge of theCabinet, I prepared the original draft of the proc-lamation, and, after much anxious thought, calleda cabinet meeting upon the subject. This wasthe last of Julv, or the first part of the monthof A

Note About Images