'Big 3' Lincoln documents to be on display

Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, 13th Amendment on view at presidential museum Thursday-Monday

[February 08, 2012]  SPRINGFIELD -- For Lincoln's Birthday weekend, the "Big Three," the state of Illinois' most significant original Abraham Lincoln documents, will be on display together for the first time in three years in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum's Treasures Gallery, starting Thursday and continuing through Monday.

Only the Library of Congress and the presidential library and museum own an original of each of the three most famous documents of Lincoln's career.

Paid admission to the museum is required to view the documents.

The handwritten manuscript of the Gettysburg Address, the Lincoln-signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and the congressional resolution for the 13th Amendment signed by Lincoln and Congress were last displayed together during an all-night vigil at the presidential museum Feb. 11-12, 2009, for the Lincoln Bicentennial.

The Gettysburg Address and Emancipation Proclamation will be taken off display at 5 p.m. Feb. 13. The 13th Amendment will remain in the Treasures Gallery through May 31.

There are five original handwritten versions of the Gettysburg Address. Two are in the Library of Congress, one at Cornell University and one in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House. The presidential library and museum's copy, written out at the request of Edward Everett, the main speaker at the Gettysburg Cemetery dedication on Nov. 19, 1863, came to the state of Illinois in 1943, thanks to the contributions of pennies by Illinois schoolchildren, plus a donation by department store magnate Marshall Field III. Illinois' copy contains the two additional words "under God" that Lincoln had not included in his two original file copies.

The Emancipation Proclamation is one of the officially printed commemorative copies that Lincoln signed in full, along with Secretary of State William Seward and Lincoln's private secretary, John G. Nicolay. It is fortunate that the commemorative printing was ordered, because Lincoln's original manuscript was lost in the Chicago Fire of 1871. The proclamation measures approximately 27 by 20 inches.

The fully signed and recently restored copy of the congressional resolution for a 13th Amendment ending slavery forever is 20 by 16 inches and bears Abraham Lincoln's original signature plus those of Vice President Hannibal Hamlin and 139 members of Congress who voted for the resolution. Lincoln and the others signed this and a few other commemorative copies on Feb. 1, 1865, after the House passed the resolution in a tight vote the night before. The document was carefully restored free of charge by Graphic Conservation Co. of Chicago and returned to presidential library and museum officials in December 2011.

The three documents are part of the 52,000-item Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Pieces from the collection are displayed on a rotating basis in the museum's Treasures Gallery. They range from the earliest known document written by Lincoln to items belonging to his wife and children.

For more information, visit www.presidentlincoln.org.

[Text from Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum news release]