August 22, 1862---An answer to "The Prayer of Twenty Millions."

AUGUST 22, 1862:     

President Lincoln, who no one knows is planning on releasing the Emancipation Proclamation, plays his cards close to the vest, irritating abolitionists, when he publishes his famous answer to Horace Greeley’s Prayer of Twenty Millions, which reads in part:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”