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

[David Lockmiller]

The highly respected Lincoln scholar, Dr. Allen C. Guelzo, winner of the Lincoln Prize, wrote in 2004 in his book Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the End of Slavery in America at page 183:

"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."

I therefore look forward to seeing the case made by Mr. Brewster in his forthcoming book: "On the night before he signed the act freeing four million slaves, no one, not even Abraham Lincoln, was sure he would do it."