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

[David Lockmiller]

(09-04-2014 11:39 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  http://books.google.com/books?id=CgALAAA...&q&f=false

In the search box at left type in "597" which will take you to the letter.

Best
Rob

There are a couple of other letters that appear on page 596 of this book “Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 44” that are worthy of consideration on this topic of discussion.

On Christmas Day 1862, Charles Sumner wrote to George Livermore:

“Last evening the President referred to your book – said that his copy was mislaid, and that he wished to consult it now. I told him at once that he should have my copy, and I have accordingly sent it to him this Xmas morning.”

“The President is occupied on the Proclamation. He will stand firm. He said to me that it was hard to drive him from a position which he had once taken.”

[This last statement was made by President Abraham Lincoln to Charles Sumner on Christmas Eve of 1862 – eight days before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.]

On December 28, 1862, Charles Sumner again wrote to George Livermore:

“On my return from a protracted interview with the President about the Proclamation, I found your note, which I have enclosed to him with the expression of a hope that he will be able to gratify you, at least in part.

The President says he would not stop the Proclamation if he could, and he could not if he would.”

[This last statement was made by President Abraham Lincoln to Charles Sumner five days before President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.]

The first two paragraphs of the letter that Charles Sumner wrote to George Livermore on January 9, 1863, read as follows:

“I read to the President your letter on the pen, and then handed it to him. He said he would accept it as your answer, so that you need not trouble yourself to write again.

The Proclamation was not signed till after three hours of hand-shaking on New Year’s Day, when the President found that his hand trembled so that he held the pen with difficulty. The enemy would say, -- naturally enough, in signing such a document. But it is done, and the act will be firm throughout time.”

[The reference to pen is explained in an entry to the Massachusetts Historical Society’s book on page 596, just before the January 9, 1863 letter.]

“Sumner asked Lincoln to take note of the pen he used on that occasion and to reserve it for his friend in whose work on colored persons and their rights he had been interested. This the President did and Livermore duly acknowledged.”

I must add a somewhat comical side note regarding the pen. It is from Dr. Guelzo’s book, at page 303, footnote 41: Lincoln told Isaac Arnold that Sumner had stopped at the White House later that afternoon to retrieve the promised pen, and “out of the half a dozen on my table, I gave him the one I had most probably used.” Arnold, “Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery,” p. 304.

I wonder if Lincoln informed Sumner of his own uncertainty regarding the pen used by him to sign the Emancipation Proclamation.