Beschreibung:

LINCOLN, Abraham. Partly printed document signed ("Abraham Lincoln") as President, also signed by SECRETARY OF STATE WILLIAM H. SEWARD and by John G. Nicolay, "Private Secretary to the President," to certify "A true copy, with the autograph signatures of the President and the Secretary of State." [Text:] Whereas, on the Twenty-Second Day of September...a Proclamation was issued by the President...That, on the First day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as Slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforth, and FOREVER FREE...Now, therefore, I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, by virtue of the power vested in me as Commander in Chief of the Army and the Nacy...and by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves, within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be free and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the Military and Naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the Freedom of said persons.... [Philadelphia: Frederick Leypoldt, 6 June 1864]. Folio broadside, 21¾ x 17½ in. (553 x 443 mm.), heading at top ("By the President of the United States of America"), printed in large sans-serif capitals, second line ("A Proclamation") in gothic-style type, body of the text (the Proclamation), printed in a single column, THE SHEET UNTRIMMED , with original deckle edges preserved, tiny chip at left-hand edge, faint browning in margins, small stain on verso. "ARE AND HENCEFORWARD SHALL BE FREE": THE LELAND-BOKER "AUTHORIZED EDITION" OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION, SIGNED BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND SECRETARY OF STATE SEWARD As historian John Hope Franklin has written, Lincoln's Proclamation "has maintained its place as one of America's truly important documents," even though "it had neither the felicity of the Declaration of Independence nor the simple grandeur of the Gettysburg Address. But in a very real sense, it was a step toward the extension of the ideal of equality about which Jefferson had written." And in time, "the greatness of the document dawned upon the nation and the world. Gradually, it took its place with the great documents of human freedom" ( The Emancipation Proclamation , 1963, pp.143-144). The influence it commanded, from the very moment of its issuance (see notes to lot 116) is amply demonstrated by the multiple printed forms in which it was issued, in many different localities, over the next year (these are the subject of Charles Eberstadt's bibliography). The present dramatic oversize printing (and the "rejected" issue, see preceding lot) was created by two eminent Philadelphians, both dedicated to the Union and profoundly opposed to slavery. Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903), an author and journalist, had studied with Bronson Alcott as a youth and later attended Princeton. A successful journalist, from 1857 he was the editor of Graham's magazine, and in 1862 took charge of the Continental Monthly , a Boston paper conceived as an organ for the Union cause. In that role, he later claimed to have "coined the term emancipation as a substitute for the disreputable term abolition" (DAB). In 1863, determined to fight for the cause, he enlisted in a Pennsylvania artillery regiment which fought at Gettysburg. George Henry Boker (1823-1890), his partner in this edition of the Emancipation Proclamation, was the scion of a Philadelphia banking family, and also attended Princeton. Boker's stage plays were successfully performed in the U.S. and abroad and during the Civil War, he published a poem critical of General McClellan, "Tardy George," and another entitled "Black Regiment." A founder of the Union League Club of Philadelphia, he was active in raising funds for the Union wounded and aiding families of soldiers a