There was an evolution in his apprehension of the ethical implications of public office. The Lincoln who re-entered politics after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was a changed man from the Lincoln who, with the other members of the "Long Nine," earned by political log-rolling the severe but not wholly unmerited name applied to them by one of Illinois' best governors, "spared monuments of popular wrath." That Lincoln did not in this earlier period commit any personally dishonorable act is not an argument against the theory here advocated. He had, in his later political career, a far higher ideal of political honor, a greatly nobler conception of the dignity of public office--which he always sought--as a field of popular service. His political career was an evolution, and it developed nobler characteristics than that which characterized his earlier political life. Lincoln's emancipation policy was an evolution. The successive stages of that policy were worthily set forth by Paul Selby in an address before the Historical Society of Chicago.[64] There never was a time when Abraham Lincoln did not believe slavery to be wrong, but there was a time when he was not an Abolitionist. The moral aspect of the slavery question grew in his mind and conscience till he promised his God to free the slaves. On Sunday evening, September 7, 1862, a public meeting was held in Bryan Hall, Chicago, to urge upon the President the desire of Christian people that he should free the slaves. A petition was circulated, and was signed by all the Congregational and nearly all the Methodist and Baptist ministers of that city, courteously requesting the President to give the matter his earnest attention. The petition was sent to Washington by the hand of Rev. William W. Patton and Rev. John Dempster, who met the President by appointment on Saturday afternoon, September 13, the interview being arranged by Hon. Gideon Welles. The story of that meeting has often been told in part, with undue emphasis upon Mr. Lincoln's statement then made that if God had a message for him on this subject He would be more likely to communicate it directly to Mr. Lincoln than to others for him. The latest book to misuse this incident is one just from the press in Great Britain, the _Short Life of Lincoln_, by Hon. Ralph Shirley, who says: "Some of the ministers in this deputation even went so far as to assure him that they had authority in God's name to command him to emancipate the slaves." Inasmuch as there were but two of the ministers, and neither of them assumed any such authority to speak the mind of God, such statements ought to cease, especially as the true story, from which all these accounts are garbled, is available for inspection in the files of the Maryland Historical Society.