Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation

[David Lockmiller]

(09-04-2014 05:34 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(09-04-2014 10:39 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  "The signature looks a little tremulous," Lincoln admitted to Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax "and other friends that night," but "not because of any uncertainty or hesitation on my part." It was rather exhaustion: "Three hours' hand-shaking is not calculated to improve a man's chirography." Whatever the state of his hand, "my resolution was firm. . . . Not one word of it will I ever recall."

Thanks, David - could you possibly check what the original source for Lincoln's verbatim words is? Schuyler Colfax perhaps? Many thanks for any further info on this!

I quoted verbatim from Dr. Guelzo's book on page 183. The footnote reference to this quote cites 4 references: 1) Colfax, Life and Principles of Abraham Lincoln, Delivered in the Court House Square, at South Bend, April 24, 1865 (Philadelphia: James B. Rodgers, 1865), pp. 16-17; Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, p. 87; Eberstadt, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, pp. 15-16, 17; Welles, diary entry for January 1, 1863, in Diary of Gideon Welles, volume one, p. 212.

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(09-04-2014 05:34 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  So, despite the mysterious Florence W. Stanley, do we yet have any other hint or evidence for him not being firm at that time?

I do not understand this statement. The Florence Stanley letter alleges that Mary Todd Lincoln tried to dissuade Lincoln from signing the Emancipation Proclamation both on the night before and the morning of the day President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. If the story is true, she decisively failed.

If the Florence Stanley letter is factually correct, I regret that Mrs. Stanley did not include in her letter the arguments made by Mary Todd Lincoln and the responses thereto by her husband, President Abraham Lincoln.

What "hint or evidence" did you see in Mrs. Stanley's letter to make you conclude that President Lincoln was not "firm at that time" in his conviction that he would sign the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year's Day of 1863?