On the day that he received the news of the battle of Antietam, the draft Proclamation was taken from its drawer and studied afresh; his visit to McClellan on the battlefield intervened; but on the fifth day after the battle the Cabinet was suddenly called together.  When the Ministers had assembled Lincoln first entertained them by reading the short chapter of Artemus Ward entitled “High-handed Outrage at Utica.”  It is less amusing than most of Artemus Ward; but it had just appeared; it pleased all the Ministers except Stanton, to whom the frivolous reading he sometimes had to hear from Lincoln was a standing vexation; and it was precisely that sort of relief to which Lincoln’s mind when overwrought could always turn.  Having thus composed himself for business, he reminded his Cabinet that he had, as they were aware, thought a great deal about the relation of the war to slavery, and had a few weeks before read them a draft Proclamation on this subject.  Ever since then, he said, his mind had been occupied on the matter, and, though he wished it were a better time, he thought the time had come now.  “When the rebel army was at Frederick,” he is related to have continued, “I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation such as I thought likely to be most useful.  I said nothing to any one, but I made the promise to myself and”—­here he hesitated a little—­“to my Maker.  The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfil that promise.  I have got you together to hear what I have written down.  I do not wish your advice about the main matter, for that I have determined for myself.  This I say without intending anything but respect for any one of you.”  He then invited their suggestions upon the expressions used in his draft and other minor matters, and concluded:  “One other observation I will make.  I know very well that many others might in this matter, as in others, do better than I can; and if I was satisfied that the public confidence was more fully possessed by any one of them than by me, and knew of any constitutional way in which he could be put in my place, he should have it.  I would gladly yield it to him.  But though I believe I have not so much of the confidence of the people as I had some time since, I do not know that, all things considered, any other person has more; and, however this may be, there is no way in which I can have any other man put where I am.  I am here; I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take.”  Then he read his draft, and in the long discussion which followed, and owing to which a few slight changes were made in it, he told them further, without any false reserve, just how he came to his decision.  In his great perplexity he had gone on his knees, before the battle of Antietam, and, like a child, he had promised that if a victory was given which drove the enemy out of Maryland he would consider it as an indication that it was his duty to move forward.  “It might be thought strange,” he said, “that he had in this way submitted the disposal of matters, when the way was not clear to his mind what he should do.  God had decided this question in favour of the slaves.”