The Context Before the Emancipation Proclamation: America During the Civil War

When Abraham Lincoln convened his Cabinet on September 22, 1862, no one expected to see many smiles. The country was in the darkest days of the Civil War, and the Cabinet had just received reports of a major military engagement.

The Battle of Antietam had just been fought. Though tactically inconclusive, Antietam was strategically significant because it halted Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North. It came with a devastating cost. With over 22,000 casualties, it would go down as the bloodiest single day in American history.

Abraham Lincoln called together a special session of his war cabinet members to discuss an incredibly important topic.

Abraham Lincoln’s Humor and Leadership Amid Chaos

Lincoln was waiting in his office for a cabinet meeting to begin. He was reading a small book and chuckling as all the men assembled. Finally, he looked up and asked, “Gentlemen, have you ever read anything by Artemus Ward?”

The president read his cabinet a short passage from Artemus Ward called High Handed Outrage in Utica:

In the Faul of 1856, I showed my show in Uticky, a trooly grate sitty in the State of New York. The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was loud in her prases. 1 day as I was givin a descripshun of my Beests and Snaiks in my usual flowry stile what was my skorn disgust to see a big burly feller walk up to the cage containin my wax figgers of the Lord’s Last Supper, and cease Judas Iscarrot by the feet and drag him out on the ground. He then commenced fur to pound him as hard as he cood.

“Mr. Lincoln’s ‘laugh’ stood by itself. The ‘neigh’ of a wild horse on his native prairie is not more undisguised and hearty.”

— Francis Bicknell Carpenter

“What under the son are you abowt?” cried I.

Sez he, “What did you bring this pussylanermus cuss here fur?” and he hit the wax figger another tremenjis blow on the hed.

Sez I, “You egrejus ass, that air’s a wax figger–a representashun of the false ‘Postle.”

Sez he, “That’s all very well fur you to say, but I tell you, old man, that Judas Iscarrot can’t show hisself in Utiky with impunerty by a darn site!” with which observashun he kaved in Judassis hed. The young man belonged to 1 of the first famerlies in Utiky. I sood him, and the Joory brawt in a verdick of Arson in the 3d degree.

Lincoln’s Humor and Leadership

Lincoln placed the book on the table and laughed. As Francis Bicknell Carpenter observed, “Mr. Lincoln’s ‘laugh’ stood by itself. The ‘neigh’ of a wild horse on his native prairie is not more undisguised and hearty. A group of gentlemen, among whom was his old Springfield friend and associate, Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, were one day conversing in the passage near his office, while waiting admission. A congressional delegation had preceded them, and presently an unmistakable voice was heard through the partition, in a burst of mirth. Mr. Arnold remarked, as the sound died away: ‘That laugh has been the President’s life-preserver.’”

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton did not appreciate Lincoln’s humor and grumbled about wasting time. He rose as if to leave the room, prompting Lincoln to put the book down and say, “Gentlemen, why don’t you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.”

With a more serious and resolved expression on his face, the president explained that he believed it was time to address an important matter that had been weighing heavily upon him. He pulled out a paper and began to read:

“…On the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…”

In the span of moments, the President of the United States went from laughing like a wild horse to solemnly proclaiming what history would forever remember as The Emancipation Proclamation.

When the Emancipation Proclamation was released, word spread throughout the country. Lincoln timed the announcement in hopes that the South — or at least a portion of it — would rejoin the Union before January 1 and bring the Civil War to an end. Although his hopes did not materialize, the national excitement only increased as the final days of 1862 counted down. At last, there was something hopeful to anticipate in this difficult and bloody Civil War.

Delays and the Final Signature

On New Year’s Day, by tradition, the president hosted a party at the White House. Lincoln went downstairs early to receive guests. Throughout the country, people gathered in churches and telegraph operators waited to send the news far and wide as soon as the official proclamation was signed. They waited and waited, but no word came from the White House.

Why the delay? When the official document was presented to the president, Lincoln had found a mistake in the handwritten document. The whole thing had to be redone. It went to the scribe, and it took hours to rewrite it.

Lincoln’s Firm Hand and Immortal Words

At last, the revised proclamation document came back to Lincoln, but something strange happened. He picked up his pen and put it down several times. People in the room started to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t going to go through with it after all. Then he began rubbing the fingers on his right hand.

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Realizing the witnesses were wondering what was going on, Lincoln explained. “I’ve been shaking hands for hours, and my hand is almost paralyzed. If I sign the proclamation in a quaking hand even though my whole heart is in it, people will look at my signature in 100 years and think, he hesitated.”

Lincoln massaged his hand a bit longer and then picked up the pen and signed. With most official documents, he abbreviated his first name and signed as “A. Lincoln.” On this historic day — the one for which he knew he would always be remembered, he wrote in a clear, firm hand, “Abraham Lincoln.”

He looked at the signature and nodded. “There, that will do,” he said, sensing immediately that he had become one of the immortals.

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