Abraham Lincoln, 1862

LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865. By the President of the United States: A Proclamation. [Spread eagle with ribbon in beak reading "E PLURIBUS UNUM"] I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby …[50 lines of text]… and of the Independence of the United States the 87th. By the President. [Boston: J.M. Forbes?, September-December 1862].

The extremely rare first state of the likely first broadside printing of Abraham Lincoln's Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln's September proclamation gave the states then in rebellion 100 days notice of the consequences of the prolongation of the rebellion. "As the first official pronouncement of Lincoln's expressed intention to free the slaves...it was a momentous document" (Eberstadt, p. 13). In his detailed bibliography on the Emancipation Proclamation, Charles Eberstadt recorded the publication of this broadside as No. 6, but in a later state in which the printer added a set of double rules below Lincoln and Seward's printed signatures and added three additional lines taking aim at a 21 March 1861 statement by Alexander Stephens claiming that slavery was the Confederacy's raison d'être, appearing beneath the heading: "Slavery the Chief Corner-Stone." For that reason, Eberstadt surmised that this was published by J. N. Forbes of Boston who printed the same Alexander Stephens quote on the rear wrapper of his famous miniature pamphlet he produced in two million copies to be given to Union soldiers to distribute throughout the South (Eberstadt 7).

Extremely rare. Eberstadt 6[a]. This is the only copy of the first state we have seen in public and private collections. Eberstadt records two copies in institutional holdings including the American Antiquarian Society, and the Illinois State Historical Library (and now part of the collections of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield). See C. Eberstadt, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, 1950). Whether this copy can be considered the first broadside printing is an open question. A larger, unrecorded broadside of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation with an American Eagle graphic device and the Alexander Stephens quote was sold in these rooms in 2006. Like the present example, it lacked printer's credit, but had been attributed tentatively to J.M. Forbes. (Christie's, New York, 4 December 2006, lot 254, $26,400) Provenance: Ralph Newman (per the consignor).

Broadside, 197 x 150mm (horizontal crease bears small tear at right margin, another small tear not affecting text at right margin, other light marginal wear). Custom blue cloth slipcase and chemise.