l,
emancipation as a war measure must ensue. Compensated emancipation had
now been offered, urged, and ill received; therefore the question in his
mind was no longer _whether_, but _when_ he should exercise his power.
This was more a military than a political question. His right to
emancipate slaves was strictly a war-power; he had the right to exercise
it strictly for the purpose of weakening the enemy or strengthening his
own generals; he had not the right to exercise it in the cause of
humanity, if it would not either weaken the enemy or strengthen his own
side. If by premature exercise he should alienate great numbers of
border-state men, while the sheet of paper with his name at its foot
would be ineffectual to give actual liberty of action to a single black
man in the Confederacy, he would aid the South and injure the
North,--that is to say, he would accomplish precisely the reverse of
that which alone could lawfully form the basis of his action. The
question of _When_, therefore, was a very serious one. At what stage of
the contest would a declaration of emancipation be hurtful to the
Southern and beneficial to the Northern cause?

Schuyler Colfax well said that Mr. Lincoln's judgment, when settled,
"was almost as immovable as the eternal hills." A good illustration of
this was given upon a day about the end of July or beginning of August,
1862, when Mr. Lincoln called a cabinet meeting. To his assembled
secretaries he then said, with his usual simple brevity, that he was
going to communicate to them something about which he did not desire
them to offer any advice, since his determination was taken; they might
make suggestions as to details, but nothing more. After this imperious
statement he read the preliminary proclamation of emancipation. The
ministers listened in silence; not one of them had been consulted; not
one of them, until this moment, knew the President's purpose; not even
now did he think it worth while to go through any idle form of asking
the opinion of any one of them.[36] He alone had settled the matter, and
simply notified them that he was about to do the most momentous thing
that had ever been done upon this continent since thirteen British
colonies had become a nation. Such a presentation of "one-man-power"
certainly stood out in startling relief upon the background of popular
government and the great free republican system of the world!

One or two trifling verbal alterations were made. The