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690 The proclamation deferred. [i862 Two weeks later, when Congress had adjourned, and it became necessary to prepare certain orders under the Confiscation Act, Lincoln read to his Cabinet (July 22, 1862) his first draft of the preliminary emancipation proclamation. It came as a surprise to all the members except the two with whom he had conversed about it. In the impressive tone of a father addressing his children, he told them he had not called them together to ask their advice as to issuing it, which he had resolved upon, but to lay the proclamation before them for their suggestions. Only two members expressed their unhesitating approval. The others received it with varying doubt and hesitation. It was Seward, the Secretary of State, who finally made the decisive suggestion, that it had better be postponed until it could be issued with the support of military success, instead of appearing, as would be the case now, under the depressing influence of grave disasters. "The wisdom of the view," said Lincoln afterwards, "struck me with very great force. It was an aspect of the case that, in all my thought upon the subject, I had entirely overlooked." Accordingly the President laid the draft aside, and waited for victory. There followed a dreary period of suspense; for, in that time of intense feeling and deep anxiety, days counted as weeks. The disastrous campaign of McClellan was succeeded by the disastrous campaign of Pope, ending in the second defeat at Bull Run. Popular complaint grew loud, and factious recrimination bitter. Radicals and Conservatives laid upon each other the burden of all public calamities; and each party importuned the President to correct the misdeeds of its opponents. It required all Lincoln's patience to curb the imprudent zeal of both. To a citizen of Louisiana, who complained of the enforcement of the Confiscation Act, he wrote : " What is done and omitted about slaves, is done and omitted on the same military necessity.... The rebellion will never be suppressed in Louisiana if the professed Union men there will neither help to do it, nor permit the government to do it without their help.... It is for them to consider whether it is probable I will surrender the government to save them from losing all. I shall not do more than I can, and I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination. I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing." With equal firmness he restrained the impatience of anti-slavery zeal. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, then perhaps the most influential newspaper in the United States, printed an open letter to the President, accusing him of failure to execute the Confis- cation Act. In reply, Lincoln also printed an open letter in the newspapers, under date of August 22, 1862, which in its skill of dealing with factious fault-finding has probably never been excelled. " As to the policy I * seem to be pursuing, 1 as you say, I have not meant to leave anyone in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in