Whether or not the clerical advisers winced under the President's irony, at least they must have appreciated the earnestness and sincerity with which he considered the subject. All this while that newspaper writers, religious teachers, members of Congress, and political busy-bodies generally were tirelessly enlightening Mr. Lincoln concerning what was right, what was wise, what was the will of the people, even what was the will of God, he was again quietly making good that shrewd Southerner's prophecy: he was "doing his own thinking;" neither was he telling to anybody what this thinking was. Throngs came and went, and each felt called upon to leave behind him some of his own wisdom, a precept, advice, or suggestion, for the use of the President; perhaps in return he took away with him a story which was much more than full value for what he had given; but no one found out the working of the President's mind, and no one could say that he had influenced it. History is crowded with tales of despots, but it tells of no despot who thought and decided with the tranquil, taciturn independence which was now marking this President of the free American Republic. It is a little amusing for us, to-day, to know that while the emancipationists were angrily growling out their disgust at the ruler who would not abolish slavery according to their advice, the rough draft of the Emancipation Proclamation had already been written. It was actually lying in his desk when he was writing to Greeley that letter which caused so much indignation. It had been communicated to his cabinet long before he talked to those Chicago clergymen, and showed them that the matter was by no means so simple as they, in their one-sided, unworldly way, believed it to be.