First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln

First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln is an 1864 oil-on-canvas painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter. In the painting, Carpenter depicts Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, and his Cabinet members reading over the Emancipation Proclamation, which proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states in rebellion against the Union in the American Civil War on January 1, 1863. Lincoln presented the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet on July 22, 1862 and issued it on September 22, 1862. The final Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. Carpenter spent six months in the White House while he painted. The painting is displayed at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Background Carpenter was deeply moved by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, calling it "an act unparalleled for moral grandeur in the history of mankind." Carpenter felt "an intense desire to do something expressive of ... the great moral issue involved in the war." Carpenter, having formulated his idea for the subject of the painting and outlined its composition, met Frederick A. Lane, a friend who recently had earned a large amount of money. Lane agreed to bankroll Carpenter. By the influence of Samuel Sinclair of the New York Tribune and Representative Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, Carpenter gained Lincoln's assent to travel to Washington and work with him on the painting. Carpenter met with the President on February 6, 1864, who allowed him to live in the White House for four months, to work on the painting.