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Above the first landing, house corridor, East Entrance, hangs Frank B. Carpenter's picture of the First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet, Sept. 22. 1862. The portraits, beginning at the left, are: Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War; Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Abraham Lincoln, President; Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy; William H. Seward, (seated). Secretary of State; Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General; Edward Bates, Attorney-General. The picture was presented to the United States by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Thompson, in 1878. Alex H. Stephens, ex-Vice-President of the Confederacy, and then a Member of the House, was one of the orators of its reception |
