...  “Do not misunderstand me because I have mentioned these objections.  They indicate the difficulties that have thus far prevented my action in some such way as you desire.  I have not decided against a proclamation of liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advisement.  And I can assure you that the subject is on my mind, by day and night, more than any other.  Whatever shall appear to be God’s will I will do.  I trust that in the freedom with which I have canvassed your views I have not in any respect injured your feelings.”

Whether or not the clerical advisers winced under the President’s irony, at least they must have appreciated the earnestness and sincerity with which he considered the subject.

All this while that newspaper writers, religious teachers, members of Congress, and political busy-bodies generally were tirelessly enlightening Mr. Lincoln concerning what was right, what was wise, what was the will of the people, even what was the will of God, he was again quietly making good that shrewd Southerner’s prophecy:  he was “doing his own thinking;” neither was he telling to anybody what this thinking was.  Throngs came and went, and each felt called upon to leave behind him some of his own wisdom, a precept, advice, or suggestion, for the use of the President; perhaps in return he took away with him a story which was much more than full value for what he had given; but no one found out the working of the President’s mind, and no one could say that he had influenced it.  History is crowded with tales of despots, but it tells of no despot who thought and decided with the tranquil, taciturn independence which was now marking this President of the free American Republic.  It is a little amusing for us, to-day, to know that while the emancipationists were angrily growling out their disgust at the ruler who would not abolish slavery according to their advice, the rough draft of the Emancipation Proclamation had already been written.  It was actually lying in his desk when he was writing to Greeley that letter which caused so much indignation.  It had been communicated to his cabinet long before he talked to those Chicago clergymen, and showed them that the matter was by no means so simple as they, in their one-sided, unworldly way, believed it to be.

It is said to have been on July 8 that the President wrote this rough draft, on board the steamboat which was bringing him back from his visit to McClellan at Harrison’s Landing.  He then laid it away for the days and events to bring ripeness.  By his own statement he had for some time felt convinced that, if compensated emancipation should fail, 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;