About this same time, Lincoln received a letter from J. Sella Martin, an important
leader of the colored community offering the military services of colored men.
“They are ready to work, or preach or fight to put down this rebellion”
he said. Before the
war was over, 179,000 colored men would wear the uniform of the United States
Army and 18,000 would join the Navy. Lincoln by this time, had made up his
mind to emancipate the slaves without compensation to the slaveholders, and on
the 22
nd
of July called a meeting of his cabinet:
“I said to the Cabinet that I had resolved upon this step, and had not called
them together to ask their advice, but to lay the subject-matter of a procla-
mation before them; suggestions as to which would be in order, after they
had heard it read. . . Various suggestions were offered. . .Nothing, however
was offered that I had not already anticipated and settled in my own mind,
until Secretary Seward spoke. He said in substance ‘Mr President, I approve of
the Proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture.’”
Seward felt that they should wait for a military victory to make the announcement
from a position of strength. And so it was that Lincoln postponed the
Proclamation until September of 1862 with the success at the battle of Antietam.
When it was issued, on September 22, 1862, the proclamation was so worded that
it constituted a warning to the slave states that if they did not cease their warring
on the United States in one hundred days, their slaves would then (January 1,
1863) be proclaimed forever free. Thus the Emancipation Proclamation was actu-
ally two proclamations. The first, known as the Preliminary Proclamation, and that
of January 1, 1863 as the Final Proclamation. The Thirteenth Amendment to the
Constitution followed.
Article XIII. Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punish-
ment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
It is though sheerest good luck that we have three of the rare Emancipation
Proclamation lithographs in this sale---lots 104, 105, and 106. In addition to which,
we have the original manuscript for Major General Robert H. Milroy’s Handbill
Order “Freedom to Slaves,” announcing the Emancipation Proclamation to his
troops, together with a retained copy of his letter to Lincoln in praise of the act, lot
102. There is also, a large group of elaborately printed post-cards, issued on the
anniversary of the Proclamation in 1909––lot 107 and an example of the famous
1864 engraving, “Reading the Emancipation Proclamation,”—lot 103.
(Portions extracted from Edward Eberstadt’s preface to his bibliography of the
Emancipation Proclamation. The New Colophon, 1950).
Sincerely,
Wyatt Houston Day
Printed & Manuscript African Americana
212.254.4710 ext. 300
whday@swanngalleries.com
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