Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner was one of the few men to whom
Mr. Lincoln confided his intention to issue the Proclamation of
Emancipation.
Mr. Lincoln told his Illinois friend of the visit of a delegation to
him who claimed to have a message from God that the War would not be
successful without the freeing of the negroes, to whom Mr. Lincoln
replied: “Is it not a little strange that He should tell this to you,
who have so little to do with it, and should not have told me, who has a
great deal to do with it?”
At the same time he informed Professor Turner he had his Proclamation in
his pocket.