of the ’Tribune’?” The reply was, “You should issue a proclamation abolishing slavery.”  Lincoln answered:  “Suppose I do that.  There are now twenty thousand of our muskets on the shoulders of Kentuckians, who are bravely fighting our battles.  Every one of them will be thrown down or carried over to the rebels.”  The reply was:  “Let them do it.  The cause of the Union will be stronger if Kentucky should secede with the rest than it is now.”  Lincoln answered, “Oh, I can’t think that.”

It is evident that these solicitations and counsellings from outside persons were unnecessary and idle.  Lincoln’s far-seeing and practical mind had already grasped, more surely than had his would-be advisers, the ultimate wisdom and justice of the emancipation of the slaves.  But he was resolved to do nothing rashly.  He would wait till the time was ripe, and then abolish slavery on grounds that would be approved throughout the world:  he would destroy slavery as a necessary step to the preservation of the Union.  In the first year of the war he had said to a Southern Unionist, who warned him against meddling with slavery, “You must not expect me to give up this Government without playing my last card.” This “last card” was undoubtedly the freeing of the slaves; and when the time came, Lincoln played it unhesitatingly and triumphantly.  How strong a card it was may be judged by a statement made in Congress by Mr. Ashmore, a Representative from South Carolina, who said shortly before the war:  “The South can sustain more men in the field than the North can. Her four millions of slaves alone will enable her to support an army of half a million.” This view makes the issue plain.  If the South could maintain armies in the field supported, or partly supported, by slave labor, it was as much the right and the duty of the Government to destroy that support as to destroy an establishment for the manufacture of arms or munitions of war for the Southern armies.  The logic of events had demonstrated the necessity and justice of the measure, and Lincoln now had with him a Cabinet practically united in its favor.  The case was well stated by Secretary Welles—­perhaps the most cool-headed and conservative member of Lincoln’s Cabinet—­at a Cabinet meeting held six or eight weeks after the Emancipation measure had been brought forward by the President.  Mr. Welles, as he relates in his Diary, pointed out “the strong exercise of power” involved in the proposal, and denied the power of the Executive to take such a step under ordinary conditions.  “But,” said Mr. Welles, “the Rebels themselves had invoked war on the subject of slavery, had appealed to arms, and must abide the consequences.”  Mr. Welles admitted that it was “an extreme exercise of war powers” which he believed justifiable “under the circumstances, and in view of the condition of the country and the magnitude of the contest.  The slaves were now an element of strength to the Rebels—­were laborers, producers,