sition, and against its fair consideration by their people. He
asked for meat, and they gave him a stone.

Only a few days before this interview, President Lincoln--alarmed by the
report of McClellan, that the magnificent Army of the Potomac under his
command, which, only three months before, had boasted 161,000 men, had
dwindled down to not more than "50,000 men left with their colors"--had
been to the front, at Harrison's Landing, on the James river, and,
although he had not found things quite so disheartening as he had been
led to believe, yet they were bad enough, for only 86,000 men were found
by him on duty, while 75,000 were unaccounted for--of which number
34,4172 were afterward reported as "absent by authority."

This condition of affairs, in connection with the fact that McClellan
was always calling for more troops, undoubtedly had its influence in
bringing Mr. Lincoln's mind to the conviction, hitherto mentioned, of
the fast-approaching Military necessity for Freeing and Arming the
Slaves.

It was to ward this off, if possible, that he had met and appealed to
the Border-State Representatives. They had answered him with sneers and
insults; and nothing was left him but the extreme course of almost
immediate Emancipation.

Long and anxiously he had thought over the matter, but the time for
action was at hand.

And now, it cannot be better told, than in President Lincoln's own
words, as given to the portrait-painter Carpenter, and recorded in the
latter's, "Six months in the White House," what followed:

"It had got to be," said he, "midsummer, 1862. Things had gone on from
bad to worse, until I felt that we had reached the end of our rope on
the plan of operations we had been pursuing; that we had about played
our last card, and must change our tactics, or lose the game!

"I now determined upon the adoption of the Emancipation Policy; and,
without consultation with, or the knowledge of, the Cabinet, I prepared
the original draft of the Proclamation, and, after much anxious thought,
called a Cabinet meeting upon the subject. This was the last of July,
or the first part of the month of August, 1862." (The exact date he did
not remember.)

"This Cabinet meeting took place, I think, upon a Saturday. All were
present, excepting Mr. Blair, the Postmaster-General, who was absent at
the opening of the discussion, but came in subsequently. I said to the
Cabinet, that I had resolved upon this step, and had