What did Lincoln say about the Emancipation Proclamation?

The Emancipation Proclamation was the act upon which I spent more anxious thought than perhaps any other in my presidency. Let me speak to it plainly, drawing on my own words. The proclamation grew from necessity, not abstract idealism. As I explained to my cabinet in midsummer 1862, things had gone from bad to worse until, as I put it in conversation with the artist F.B. Carpenter, we had "reached the end of our rope" and "must change our tactics, or lose the game." I prepared the original draft without consulting the cabinet, then called them together — not to seek their advice on whether to act, but on how. Secretary Seward wisely urged me to wait for a military victory, lest the proclamation sound like a desperate cry rather than a confident decree. I accepted that counsel, and after the victory at Antietam, the preliminary proclamation came forth on September 22, 1862. In the final proclamation of January 1, 1863, I grounded the act firmly in military authority, describing it as “sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity”. But I did not want anyone to mistake my official reasoning for the whole of my conviction. My personal feeling was always clear: if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I was naturally antislavery. What constrained me was the oath I swore — to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution — not any indifference to human freedom.