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President Lincoln and His Cabinet. Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.
In spite of vocal prodding from northern abolitionists, President Lincoln steadfastly refused to make the abolition of slavery a goal of his administration in the early stages of the Civil War, lest doing so would alienate slaveholding border states that remained loyal to the Union. By mid-1862, however, Lincoln's concern for enhancing the moral weight of the United States in the eyes of the world convinced him that it was time to act. This lithograph depicts one of the most historically significant of Lincoln's cabinet meetings when, on July 22, 1862, he read a draft of his Emancipation Proclamation for the cabinet's consultation and advice. Two months later, Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that on January 1, 1863, all slaves would be forever free in those regions of the South still in rebellion.
This lithograph is based on a painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter and recreates the cabinet meeting Lincoln held on July 22, 1862, at which he read the first draft of his proclamation.
Edwin Herline Lithography, after Francis Bicknell Carpenter, 1866 |