More Important than the Cabinet Council on Emancipation

[David Lockmiller]

Steve and Gene, you are both correct.

Seward had a discussion with F. B. Carpenter on this issue:

"Slavery has been in fact but an incident in the history of the nation, inevitably bound to perish in the progress of intelligence. Future generations will scarcely credit the record that such an institution ever existed here; or existing, that it ever lived a day under such a government. But suppose, for one moment, the Republic destroyed. With it is bound up not alone the destiny of a race, but the best hopes of mankind. . . . The salvation of the nation is, then, of vastly more consequence than the destruction of slavery. Had you consulted me for a subject to paint, I should not have given you the Cabinet Council on Emancipation, but the meeting which took place when the news came of the attack upon Sumter, when the first measures were organized for the restoration of the national authority. That was the crisis in the history of this Administration -- not the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation."

There is much more to this, including the persuasive disputing response of F.B. Carpenter. See "Six Months at the White House" pages 72-75.