Lincoln, Abraham

The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, in The Unadilla Times, Vol. VII, No. 14. Unadilla, New York: G. B. Fellows, Thursday, October 2, 1862

Folio, 4 pages (588 x 440 mm), text in seven columns, numerous woodcut vignettes in advertisements. Disbound. A very fresh, clean copy.

An early printing of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, promulgated on 22 Septe💜mber 1862, in an ardently Union New York newspaper whose motto was Daniel Webster's statement: "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseperable." The text begins on the final column of the first page and concludes on the first column of the second page. 

Lincoln read the first draft of what came to be known as the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet on 22 July 1862. Given the criticism dജirected at Lincoln for moving too slowly on the issue of emancipation, it is worth noting that this first reading took place just sixteen months after he had pledged not to "interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists." He continued to revise the document throughout the summer and, following the Union victory at Antietam, he issued the preliminary proclamation—which managed to balance daring with prudence—on 22 September. This first proclamation essentially gave the Rebel States one hundred days to return to the Union, after which period any slaves within their borders would be "then, thenceforward, and forever free." Any rebellious states that returned to the Union in the interim would be able to adopt immediate or gradual—and compensated—abolition of slavery within their borders.