1865 "Emancipation Proclamations. Allegorical Portrait of Abraham Lincoln" Engraving by Swander, Bishop & Co.

Presented is an elaborate engraved broadside presentation of both the preliminary and final Emancipation Proclamation, dated September 22, 1862 and January 1, 1863. On September 22, 1862, five days after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary decree stating that, unless the rebellious states returned to the Union by January 1, freedom would be granted to slaves within those states.  No Confederate states took the offer, and on January 1, 1863 Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation declared, "all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."  One-sided and typically printed on large sheets of paper, engraved broadsides emerged in the 19th century. Advances in printing technology made their production inexpensive, making them all the more pervasive. By varying type style and size and