ed a postponement of the issue of the proclamation
until the country was supported by military success. Lincoln, struck
by the wisdom of Seward's views, which he had entirely overlooked,
laid it away and postponed the proclamation on July 22 until the Union
forces reported a victory. Instead, after a three-day interval, he
issued a short announcement that contained warnings as required by the
provisions of the Confiscation Act.

Lincoln's postponement of the issue of the proclamation was wise.
Military reversals made the situation more serious for the President's
supporters. The radicals and the conservatives, resorted to incessant
criticism, railing against him and his policy. Lincoln, however, kept
up appearances of indecision, even though his own course had been
clearly and inalterably mapped out; but circumstances did not admit a
revelation. His main object was to restrain impatience and zeal, and
yet maintain the loyalty of both factions.[41]

Horace Greeley attacked Lincoln unmercifully in _The New York Tribune_
and accused him of being responsible for the deplorable results coming
from his failure to enforce the Confiscation Act. Lincoln, on the
contrary, lost no time in replying to Greeley, and declared that he
intended to save the Union by the shortest possible way in accordance
with the provisions of the Constitution; that his paramount object in
the struggle was to preserve the Union and not either to preserve or
destroy slavery; that he would save the Union, either without
liberating any slaves, or by freeing all the slaves, or by freeing
some and leaving others in servitude; that, at any rate, he would save
the Union; and that his efforts at emancipation would be determined by
its bearing on the more important question of saving the Union.

The expected easy victory did not follow; but, on the contrary, came
sad and humiliating defeat of Pope in the second battle of Bull Run in
August, 1862. At this juncture Lincoln was urged by both individuals
and delegations to follow one or the other decision relative to
emancipation, but his attitude remained the same. On September 13, he
informed a Chicago delegation that he was unable to free slaves by the
Constitution, especially when the Constitution could not be enforced
in the rebel States, and declared that any emancipation proclamation
would at that time be as effective and operative as "the Pope's bull
against the comet."[42] What the antislavery group wante