1862 Chicago Tribune Newspaper Abraham Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation
This is an original antique issue of the September 25, 1862 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune newspaper with important content relating to Abraham Lincoln’s preliminary Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves. This is the fully complete four page broadsheet format newspaper measuring about 28” x 22”.
According to the United States Archives - In July 1862, President Lincoln read his "preliminary proclamation" to his Cabinet, then decided to wait for a Union military victory to issue it. On September 22, 1862, following the victory at Antietam, he signed the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, formally alerting the Confederacy of his intention to free all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states. One hundred days later, with the Confederacy still in full rebellion, President Abraham Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation.
The front page of the newspaper has an article on the top of the first column headlined LIBERTY AND UNION. Grand Mass Meeting – Union Men Rally which describes a mass rally of Union men regardless of party who approve of the President’s recent proclamation “that on January 1st, 1863 all persons held as slaves within any State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be thenceforward and forever free, and pledging the executive government to maintain the freedom of such persons, and to do no act to repress any efforts such persons may make for actual freedom.”
The front page also has an article on the Republican Union State Convention that had taken place in Springfield the previous day with the sub-headline THE PRESIDENTS PROCLAMATION ENDORSED. Also featured on the front page is reporting on the Battle of Antietam.
The first full column and about half of the second column on the second page of the newspaper are devoted to editorializing about Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the reaction to it in the Union Army and elsewhere including by the Southern sympathizing rival Copperhead newspaper the Chicago Times. The Tribune was strongly in favor of the Emancipation Proclamation and gives an explanation as to its importance, meaning and why it hadn’t occurred until now.
This original antique newspaper was removed from a bound volume and is fully complete, well intact and entirely legible throughout. This newspaper has been folded once laterally and once vertically and shows moderate handling wear, some toning from age and light scattered foxing in places. This newspaper was printed on a durable rag paper which holds up remarkably well and much better than the highly acidic wood pulp based newsprint paper which came into common usage in the decades that followed the Civil War. Overall condition is very good.
