Home > Lincoln's famous letter to Greeley, with Greeley's response... "Prayer of twenty millions"...

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Lincoln's famous letter to Greeley, with Greeley's response... "Prayer of twenty millions"...

Item # 691068

August 25, 1862

NEW YORK TRIBUNE, Aug. 25, 1862

* Famous Abraham Lincoln letter
* "A Prayer of Twenty Millions" reply
* Tribune publisher Horace Greeley

On page 4 is one of the more famous letters from Abraham Lincoln, being his reply to Horace Greeley's editorial of August 20, "A Prayer of Twenty Millions", which urged emancipation.
Lincoln replies in his letter with his famous quote: "My paramount object...is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it...", signed in type: A. LINCOLN.
The full text of the letter is seen in the photos. A significant document expressing Lincoln's views on slavery from the middle of the Civil War.
As an added treat, this is followed by a complete printing of: "Mr. Greeley's Response" which takes most of a column & is signed by him in type: Horace Greeley & dated Aug. 24, 1862. And the same page has column heads: "The President's Letter to Mr. Greeley" "Dr. Brownson Has A Talk With the President' "The President Gives Some Hope on Emancipation".
It is rare to find both letters in the same newspaper. Terrific to have this content in Horace Greeley's newspaper!
Eight pages, a few spots to the front page, nice condition.

AI notes: "A Prayer of Twenty Millions," written by Horace Greeley and published in the New York Tribune in1862, urged President Abraham Lincoln to more forcefully enforce the Confiscation Acts and take stronger action against slavery. Speaking on behalf of loyal Union citizens, Greeley criticized Lincoln for moving too cautiously on emancipation, arguing that ending slavery was both a moral duty and a strategic necessity to defeat the Confederacy. The editorial sparked Lincoln’s famous public reply, in which he stated that his foremost goal was to preserve the Union, regardless of the impact on slavery—though he was already planning the Emancipation Proclamation at the time.