Twenty responded, and were received in my room up-stairs in Mr.Green's house, where Mr.
Stanton and Adjutant-General Townsend took down the conversation in the form of questions and answers.

Each of the twenty gave his name and partial history, and then selected Garrison Frazier as their spokesman: First Question.

State what your understanding is in regard to the acts of Congress and President Lincoln's proclamation touching the colored people in the rebel States?
Answer.

So far as I understand President Lincoln's proclamation to the rebel States, it is, that if they will lay down their arms and submit to the laws of the United States, before the 1st of January, 1863, all should be well; but if they did not, then all the slaves in the Southern States should be free, henceforth and forever.
That is what I understood.
Second Question.

State what you understand by slavery, and the freedom that was to be given by the President's proclamation?
Answer.