LINCOLN, Abraham, EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 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 Navy...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, 22 x 17 3/8 in., watermarked "J. Whatman 1861," 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 WITH FULL MARGINS, uneven but generally light browning to blank margins, two tiny rust-spots (one in lower blank corner, one just above Seward's signature). "ARE AND HENCEFORWARD SHALL BE FREE": THE 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 is amply demonstrated by the multiple printed forms in which it was issued, in many localities, over the next year (this plethora of versions is the subject of Charles Eberstadt's bibliography). While it did not eliminate slavery in the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation constituted a fundamental act of justice with great moral and humanitarian significance. Frederick Douglas, perhaps the most recognized leader of his race, wrote that he "saw in its spirit a life and power far beyond its letter." By Lincoln's Proclamation, the road to freedom was thrown open to millions who had previously existed only as chattel slaves, and it paved the way for the Thirteenth Amendment, which finally eliminated slavery forever, a major step towards the fulfillment of the promise of Jefferson's ringing lines in the Declaration of Independence: "all men are created equal." Truly, it gave the nation what Lincoln would rightly term, a few months later, "a new birth of freedom." The present authorized oversize printing of the historic text was the creation of 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 and sailors. Apparently Leland and Boker conceived the idea to issue the text of the Emancipation proclamation in a limited edition and to enhance the issue by obtaining the signatures of the President and Secretary of State on each copy. These, they planned, would then be offered for sale to the public for ten dollars each at the Great Central Sanitary Fair, held in Philadelphia from June 7 to 29 and intended to raise funds for war relief. According to Eberstadt, "the fair attracted more than one hundred thousand visitors who spent more than one million dollars, yet not all copies of this souvenir edition were sold. Of the remaining copies, a few were presented to libraries, and five others were sold for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission (a counterpart of the later Red Cross) at the National Sailor's Fair (November 9-19, 1964) in Boston." RARE. While in 1950 Eberstadt located only eight copies in institutions, several additional institutions have since acquired copies, including the Brooklyn Historical Society (whose copy was exhibited at New York's City Hall in 2000). A recent draft census enumerates 12 copies in 11 institutions, plus three or four copies in private hands. The most recent copy offered at auction belonged to a private collector (sale, Christie's, 22 May 2001, lot 118, $611,000). Charles Eberstadt, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, 1950, no.32; Grolier Club, One Hundred Influential American Books, No.71; Randolph G. Adams, "Hudibrastic Aspects of Some Editions of the Emancipation Proclamation," in To Dr. R. Essays...Published in Honor of the Seventieth Birthday of Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, Philadelphia, 1946, pp.10-17.