In September 1862, Abraham Lincoln met with a delegation of clergy from Wisconsin. They were discussing freedom for the slaves, and Lincoln—who later that month would sign the Emancipation Proclamation—decided to play devil’s advocate, probing the pastors with this question: Would declaring the slaves free actually make them so?
“If I should call a sheep’s tail a leg, how many legs would it have?” he asked. “Five,” was the response. “No,” said the Rail Splitter. “Only four; for my calling the tail a leg would not make it so.”
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