President Lincoln vignettes in F.B. Carpenter's "Six Months at the White House"

[David Lockmiller]

Michael Burlingame's analysis at Chapter 27 (pages 360-61) - "The Hour Comes for Dealing with Slavery": Playing the Last Trump Card (January-July 1862):

BOMBSHELL: PROPOSAL TO ISSUE AN EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

On July 13, [1862] Lincoln took a fateful carriage ride with Welles and Seward. A day earlier he had unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the Border States to accept his gradual emancipation plan; that failure persuaded him it was time for more drastic
steps. As he rode with his secretaries of state and the navy to attend the funeral of Stanton’s infant son, Lincoln discussed issuing an emancipation proclamation. According to Welles, he “dwelt earnestly on the gravity, importance, and delicacy of the movement, said he had given it much thought and had about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued, etc., etc.” This was “the first occasion when he had mentioned the subject to any one, and wished us to frankly state how the proposition struck us. Mr. Seward said the subject involved consequences so vast and momentous that he should wish to bestow on it mature reflection before giving a decisive answer, but his present opinion inclined to the measure as justifiable, and perhaps he might say expedient [fit or suitable for the purpose] and necessary.” Welles agreed. “Two or three times on that ride the subject, which was of course an absorbing one for each and all, was adverted to, and before separating the President desired us to give the question special and deliberate attention, for he was earnest in the conviction that something must be done. . . . [T]he reverses before Richmond, and the formidable power and dimensions of the insurrection, which extended through all the Slave States, and had combined most of them in a confederacy to destroy the Union, impelled the Administration to adopt extraordinary measures to preserve the national existence. The slaves, if not armed and disciplined, were in the service of those who were, not only as field laborers and producers, but thousands of them were in attendance upon the armies in the field, employed as waiters and teamsters, and the fortifications and intrenchments were constructed by them.” (Emphasis added.) (Beale, ed., Welles Diary, I:70-71.)