On September 22, five days after the battle of Antietam, Lincoln called his cabinet into session. He had made a covenant with God, said the president, that if the army drove the enemy from Maryland he would issue his Emancipation Proclamation. “I think the time has come,” he continued. “I wish it were a better time. I wish that we were in a better condition. The action of the army against the rebels has not been quite what I should have best liked.” Nevertheless, Antietam was a victory and Lincoln intended to warn the rebel states that unless they returned to the Union by January 1 their
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