While I waited for a train to Center City Philadelphia, I allowed my mind to wonder about the drawing I had seen in the newspaper the day before.
It was an 1864 engraving of generations of a black family in a slave cabin listening intently, happily, doubtfully, hopefully as a Union soldier read the words from their President about their freedom. He was reading the Emancipation Proclamation under a fiery torch held aloft by a young boy.
Did the President use the words “free?”
The grandmother raised her hand forward, not quite sure how to comprehend it. The mother clasped hers prayerfully. A young man, unfettered, whooped his hat in the air. An older man looked astounded. In the big house, I’m sure the scene was much different: Defiant, explosive, a lot of swearing and much much anger.
I was headed to the Library Company of Philadelphia to see a copy of the document for myself. For 4 ½ hours Monday, this research library founded by Benjamin Franklin was exhibiting a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation owned by Robert F. Kennedy.
I had read about it in my local newspaper the day before, just as several other people mentioned when they entered the alcove of the library and signed in. About a dozen of us curious folks had shown up the first two hours to view it.
A Lincoln admirer, Kennedy was the U.S. attorney general when he purchased the document for $9,500 in 1964 in the midst of the civil rights movement. At 2 p.m. Dec. 10, Sotheby’s in New York will sell it to raise money for the family’s estate. (Update: The document sold for more than $3.7 million (including the buyer’s premium) on Dec. 10.)
It is expected to bring in $1 million to $1.5 million because of its legacy stretching from Lincoln to Kennedy, who speaks about his collection of historical documents in a video on the auction house’s website. Reps from Sotheby’s were on hand Monday to take the document to its next stops in Boston and then New York, where it can be viewed from Dec. 4-Dec. 9, 2010.
Other copies of the proclamation have been publicly sold for $550,000 to $800,000.
In 1864, Lincoln signed 48 souvenir copies that could be bought for $10 each at Philadelphia’s Great Central Fair to benefit wounded Union soldiers. Twenty five copies have survived. The original proclamation written by hand is in the National Archives in Washington, DC.
At the Library Company, the copy was in a large glass case by itself in a well-lit room, surrounded by bookcases of antique books and early drawings of historical figures. The document itself was in pristine condition – the paper looked as if it had just left the printer. I was expecting a brown, water-stained, tattered piece of history – items that look old always feel historical to me – but this one was remarkably well-maintained. It looked as clear and clean as the one shown in the engraving of the family by J.W. Watts, based on an original drawing by H.W. Herrick.
I wanted to study Watts’ engraving – “Reading the Emancipation Proclamation” – a little more closely. The caption on the family photo urged us to note the stiffness of the president and his cabinet in another engraving, and the intensity of the slave family. The difference was striking.
For the slave family, it was more than a document; it was a commutation of a life sentence. Any prisoner rejoices in his or her freedom, especially when that freedom breaks the chains from their children.
Lincoln had always opposed slavery, according to one website, and decided that as commander-in-chief he could free the slaves in the Southern states that had seceded. Slaves back home on farms and plantations made it possible for the Confederates to send soldiers to war and to keep their economy going. Freeing their forced laborers would cripple their war effort, he surmised.
When it was signed on Jan. 1, 1863, the document freed millions of slaves. It did not, however, abolish slavery itself and some people remained in servitude until enactment of the 13th Amendment in 1865. (Photo below is from the library’s exhibit. The broadside on the right urged slaves to join the Union army.)
At the library, one man apparently found something in the document that was new to him: The proclamation was aimed at specific Southern states, which were all named like errant schoolchildren. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina.
I had never read the document before so I wasn’t sure if I, like him, did not know that bit of history or had forgotten it from my elementary history classes. When I finally got to the document, I took my time to read every word:
“… all persons held as slaves … thenceforward, and forever free; … will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons … I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free;”
One sentence in the document stood out to me: Lincoln urging the slaves not to turn on their masters. What was that about? According to one website, some people were afraid that slaves would take over the plantations and kill their enslavers.
After reading the document, I did not feel overwhelmed or full-chested with emotion. I read it as a historical document, knowing what it meant to black people and my own ancestors whom I know very little about. I hope they were rejoicing in this new stab at freedom, just like the family of 8-year-old Booker T. Washington – who would later become a national black educator – when word reached his home in Hale’s Ford, VA. This is from his autobiography “Up from Slavery”:
“As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom. … Some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see.”
I hope my ancestors were praying that their progeny – in this case me, born in one of those rebellious states a century later – would be able to come into the front door of a place like the Library Company, “write” my name on the visitor’s list, chat with a black receptionist behind the desk, walk into a room holding that precious document and “read” it under bright lights. (Photo below is from the library’s exhibit. It is an engraving of scenes of slavery and freedom.)
