ROCLAMATION

From the address delivered before Congress on February 12, 1878,
presenting to the re-United States, on behalf of Mrs. Elizabeth
Thompson, Carpenter's painting--The First Reading of the Emancipation
Proclamation before the Cabinet.

BY JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD

Let us pause to consider the actors in that scene. In force of
character, in thoroughness and breadth of culture, in experience of
public affairs, and in national reputation, the Cabinet that sat
around that council-board has had no superior, perhaps no equal in our
history. Seward, the finished scholar, the consummate orator, the
great leader of the Senate, had come to crown his career with those
achievements which placed him in the first rank of modern
diplomatists. Chase, with a culture and a fame of massive grandeur,
stood as the rock and pillar of the public credit, the noble
embodiment of the public faith. Stanton was there, a very Titan of
strength, the great organizer of victory. Eminent lawyers, men of
business, leaders of states and leaders of men, completed the group.

But the man who presided over that council, who inspired and guided
its deliberations, was a character so unique that he stood alone,
without a model in history or a parallel among men. Born on this day,
sixty-nine years ago, to an inheritance of extremest poverty;
surrounded by the rude forces of the wilderness; wholly unaided by
parents; only one year in any school; never, for a day, master of his
own time until he reached his majority; making his way to the
profession of the law by the hardest and roughest road;--yet by force
of unconquerable will and persistent, patient work he attained a
foremost place in his profession,

"And, moving up from high to higher,
Became on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire."

At first, it was the prevailing belief that he would be only the
nominal head of his administration,--that its policy would be directed
by the eminent statesmen he had called to his council. How erroneous
this opinion was may be seen from a single incident.

Among the earliest, most difficult, and most delicate duties of his
administration was the adjustment of our relations with Great Britain.
Serious complications, even hostilities, were apprehended. On the 21st
of May, 1861, the Secretary of State presented to the President his
draught of a letter of instructions to Minister Adams, in wh