1862 The Liberator Anti-Slavery Newspaper with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation

Date: 1862, December 26 

Size (in): 24.875” x 18”

Size (cm): 63.2 cm x 45.7 cm

Condition: B

This is an original and historically important issue of The Liberator, the most influential and important anti-slavery abolitionist newspaper published in the United States, containing the full preliminary text of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation as well as other emancipation related articles and content. This is the December 26, 1862 issue of the newspaper which was published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison.   This issue was published immediately prior to the Emancipation Proclamation being officially enacted on January 1, 1863 and contains the preliminary text of the proclamation as given by President Lincoln on September 22, 1862 which differs slightly from the final text and reads in part:

 …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, thenceforward, and forever free.

The article with the full preliminary text of the Emancipation Proclamation occupies a little more than half of a full column and appears on the second page under the headline THE EVENTFUL DAY and is signed in print "Abraham Lincoln".   This issue contains several other articles relating to the Emancipation Proclamation including front page articles under headlines The Clergy And The Emancipation Proclamation, The President’s Emancipation Proclamation, Employment For Liberated Negroes and The Emancipation Proclamation In Tennessee.   This issue also has a front page article on Louise De Mortie of Boston, the African-American lecturer and activist devoted to aiding black children orphaned during the American Civil War.      

This newspaper is four pages in a broadsheet format measuring about 25” x 18” per page with an elaborate and striking illustrated masthead showing a slave market on one side and prosperous family of African Americans living in peace and harmony on the other side.  This newspaper is an original antique issue in December, 1862.  This newspaper is fully complete and well intact with moderate handling, some toning from age and few minor scattered spots.  The name “H.L. Broaders”, presumably the original owner of this newspaper, is written in sepia ink on the upper right corner of the front page.  A former owner applied a few pieces of clear tape along the gutter on the inside, there are few brief pencil notations in the margin on the front page and the paper was neatly folded once vertically and once laterally.  Overall condition is very good.