Horace Greeley Proclamation of Emancipation Testimonials 1864

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Horace Greeley Proclamation of Emancipation Testimonials 1864:
$995.00

This Listing includes the document dated February 8, 1964 and the antique frame as seen in the photo's. This listing includes everythingin the first photo. The additionalphoto's are zoomed in of the original. The To the left are two testimonials by Horace Greeley and re-written on the right. You can see the condition in the photo's. The document has some shading or maybe sun fading, stain, small tear see the photo's.The overall frame size is about 19 1/4" x 16 1/4".Horace Greeley's Proclamation of Emancipation Testimonials dated February 8,1864 done just over 1 year after President Lincoln signed theProclamation of Emancipationinto law and about 1 year before the Civil War ends. Horace Greely was the founder (1841) and Editor of The New York Tribune newspaper untilhis death on November 29, 1872
As the Civil War erupted, one of the most ardent abolitionist supporters was HoraceGreeley, the well-known and outspoken editor of the New York Tribune. This peculiar man hadcome to New York in from New England thirty years before the war began. He wore overcoatseven in the hottest weather and always carried an umbrella rain or shine. He preached on socialissues through his frequent newspaper columns and was never afraid to take radical stands onsocial issues. After years of promoting vegetarian diets, better living conditions for the workingclass and opposition to capital punishment and alcohol, in the 1850’s he became especiallyfocused on and vocal about the issue of slavery.Greeley’s writings were of interest to a great many and by the time the Civil War startedthe circulation of the Tribune stood at an impressive 300,000. Ralph Waldo Emerson calledGreeley “the right spiritual father of this region”. Greeley developed a relationship withAbraham Lincoln and wrote him a number of letters during the first two years of the war, oftenlecturing him on his conduct of the war. On August 20, 1862, however, Greeley took his mainconcerns public. He wrote and published a now famous open letter to the president titled “ThePrayer of Twenty Millions”. In the letter, which Greeley claimed to speak for the Americanpeople, he chastised Lincoln for his lack of aggressive attentions toward ending slaveryIn the letter Greeley called on Lincoln to defeat both the Confederates and slavery. Hestated that the American people were “sorely disappointed and deeply pained by the policy youseem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of the Rebels.” He also appealed to Lincoln tolisten to his foreign ambassadors so that he would understand the deep problems that thecontinuation of slavery would mean for the country. He pleaded “Ask them to tell you candidlywhether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slaveholding, slavery-upholding interest,is not the perplexity, the despair of statesmen of all parties”. He ended his letter by imploring thepresident to uphold the Confiscation Act that gave freedom to all slaves entering Union-heldlands. After reading the letter in the Tribune, Lincoln knew that American people expected areply. His eloquent letter to Greeley, published on August 22, 1862, is a masterpiece of commonsense statesmanship. Lincoln, who already had a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation on hisdesk, was determined to preserve the union at all costs. He wrote: “I would save the Union. Iwould save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can berestored, the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.” Later he spoke very plainly toGreeley: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to saveor to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if Icould save the Union by freeing all the slaves then I would do it; and if I could save it by freeingsome and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the coloredrace, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I donot believe it would save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doinghurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe more will help the cause. I shall tryto correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shallappear to be true views.”Lincoln’s letter received great acclaim in the North for its forthright sentiments and directnature. Most historians consider it a masterful stroke of public relations by the president, onethat bought him time and good will as he continued to work on his proclamation. That historicproclamation would be issued in a little over four months.

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