The Will of God Prevails

In his stovepipe hat is Special Order #191 that was discovered lying on the ground just days later by two Union soldiers, detailing General Lee's orders for the Invasion of Maryland. Also in his hat, a telegram from General McClellan confirming that Lee was driven back at Antietam on September 17th and giving the President the victory he needs to formally announce his Emancipation Proclamation

Slumped forward in Lincoln’s hat is Jack the Doll, a soldier doll played with by Lincoln’s boys, Tad and Willie and dressed in a fiery red and blue Zouave uniform. His story reveals the horrors of war as he is branded by Lincoln's boys, a deserter one day, a spy the next and even falls asleep at his post. After hanging or death by firing squad, the boys would bury him in the Rose Garden.  After being dug up numerous times, a mock trial was held with their father, where he proclaims,  “the doll Jack is pardoned by order of the President".

This small strip is the first line in Lincoln's note, "Meditation on the Divine Will." Lincoln's secretary, John Hay found and preserved the entire note who said it was "not written to be seen of men."  The note begins, "The Will of God Prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war, it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party ..."

Broadside of the Declaration, ordered printed by Congress, July 4, 1776. Printed by John Dunlap, Philadelphia. On the evening of July 9, 1776, thousands of Continental soldiers who had come from Boston to defend New York City from the British marched to the parade grounds in Lower Manhattan. General George Washington had ordered them to assemble promptly at six o'clock to hear a declaration approved by the Continental Congress calling for American independence from Great Britain.  Lincoln proclaimed that,  "the Declaration of Independence is the Father of all moral principle". 

Artemis Ward - Lincoln loved storytelling and storytellers. On Sept 22, 1862, after calling his cabinet to the White House, Lincoln opened by reading a passage from Ward to his war cabinet. His justification for opening the meeting in such a way: Lincoln argued, “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.” He then read aloud his Emancipation Proclamation.

William Whiting's War Powers of the President - Whiting's writings are widely believed to have profoundly affected President Lincoln's war actions. In Whiting's legal theories regarding war powers and the abolition of slavery espoused here Lincoln found justification for the Emancipation Proclamation, and the constitutional authority to abolish slavery.

Statutes at Large - The United States Statutes at Large is the permanent collection of all laws and resolutions enacted during each session of Congress.

The issuance of Emancipation Proclamation stands as one of the most important acts of Lincoln's presidency. In July 1862, President Lincoln read his "preliminary proclamation" to his Cabinet, then decided to wait for a Union military victory to issue it. On September 22, 1862, following the victory at Antietam, he signed the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, formally alerting the Confederacy of his intention to free all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states. One hundred days later, with the Confederacy still in full rebellion, President Abraham Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation.

As historian John Hope Franklin wrote, Lincoln’s Proclamation “was a step toward the extension of the ideal of equality about which Jefferson had written” in the Declaration of Independence.

"Shall then, thenceforward and forever, be free." These seven words, from the final sentence of the first draft, and only slightly changed for this draft, changed a war and the lives of so many.