Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume Two).djvu/32

Rh Fortunately the managers of the fair had secured the preparation of fac simile copies of the Proclamation. These were sold in large numbers, and thus many thousands of dollars were added to the receipts of the fair.

The managers of the Soldiers’ Home were offered twenty-five thousand dollars for the original Proclamation. The offer came from a showman who expected to reimburse himself by the exhibition of the paper.

The original now on the files of the State Department is not in the handwriting of Mr. Lincoln and it has therefore no value derived from Mr. Lincoln’s personality.

When I entered upon the inquiry, which has resulted in the preparation of this paper, I was ignorant of the fact that the original Proclamation had been destroyed, and it was my purpose to secure its return to the archives of the Department of State. That is now impossible. Its destruction has given value to the fac simile copies. Many thousands of them are in the possession of citizens of the United States, and they will be preserved and transmitted as souvenirs of the greatest act of the most illustrious American of this century.

In the early autumn of 1864 a meeting was held in Faneuil Hall in honor of the capture of Atlanta by the army under General Sherman, and the battle in Mobile Bay under the lead of Admiral Farragut. Strange as the fact may now appear, those historical events were not accepted with satisfaction by all the citizens of Boston. The leading Democratic paper gave that kind of advice that may be found, usually, in the columns of hostile journals, when passing events are unfriendly, or when there is an adverse trend of public opinion. Hard words should not be used and nothing should be said of a partisan character. Such was the advice, and a large body of men assembled who were opposed to partisan