Politics & Power Quote by Salmon P. Chase

Power here comes dressed as process. Chase isnt describing a soaring oration; hes describing a President who reads, pauses, annotates, and almost audits his own words in real time. The intent is partly documentary: to certify Lincoln as deliberate, morally serious, and legally careful at the hinge point of the Civil War. In 1862-63, emancipation wasnt just a righteous declaration; it was a weapon, a constitutional gamble, and a message to foreign powers watching whether the Union war aim would harden into an anti-slavery crusade.

Chases phrasing quietly performs political work. "Proceeded to read" suggests restraint rather than theatricality, as if emancipation is not a flourish but an administrative act grounded in authority. The clause "making remarks on the several parts" turns the Proclamation into a constructed instrument, not a sudden epiphany. It frames Lincoln as someone who has anticipated objections and weighed consequences, which matters because skeptics accused him of either cowardice (too slow) or recklessness (too radical). Chase, a cabinet member and ambitious rival, has reason to signal that this decision was not impulsive or purely sentimental.

The subtext is also institutional: emancipation must look inevitable, reasoned, and defensible inside the machinery of state. "Fully considered the whole subject, in all lights" is legalistic language aimed at legitimacy, hinting that the act can survive hostile courts, fractious generals, and divided Northern voters. Its a portrait of moral transformation rendered in bureaucratic cadence, precisely because history would demand receipts.