Showing the single result

• 

  Scarce Contemporary Pamphlet Printing of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation

  [LINCOLN, Abraham].

  The Proclamation Of Emancipation, By The President Of The United States, To Take Effect January 1st, 1863.

  [Boston: John Murray Forbes, 1862].

  First and only printed pamphlet of the Emancipation Proclamation, produced for distribution to Union soldiers and African Americans (both enslaved and free) in December of 1862; the month preceding the issuance of the executive order. 16mo, original salmon wrappers as issued. In 1899, the publisher's daughter recalled the genesis of this pocket-sized edition: "With the view of placing the Proclamation of Emancipation in the hands of the negroes themselves, my father had printed copies on small slips, one and half inches square, put into packages of fifty each, and distributed among the Northern soldiers at the front, who scattered them about among the blacks, while on the march. [Massachusetts Senator Charles] Sumner approved the idea …" (Sara Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, pp. 348-49). Indeed, in a letter to Forbes of Christmas Day, 1862, Sumner asked, "Why not send to all the hospitals, camps, posts? The more the better?" John Murray Forbes was a Boston industrialist and an ardent abolitionist, who contributed to raising the celebrated 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, an African American regiment led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. In order to underline the key role of slavery in necessitatin...

  Price: $40,000.00     Item Number: 151254

  Add to cart

  Add to Wishlist

  Ask a Question Details