Go forth, like him! like him return again,
To bless the land whereon, in bitter pain,
Ye toiled at first,
And heal with Freedom what your Slavery cursed.
[6] By special permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company.
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
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.