"Thirty-Eighth Congress of the United States.

"A Resolution: Submitting to the Legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States.

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of both houses concurring) That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the said Constitution, namely:

"ARTICLE XIII.

"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
 
The Thirteenth Amendment Signed by President Abraham Lincoln: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.…"

One of the finest and most complete Lincoln-signed copies—of just fifteen recorded, each distinctive and singular—also signed by Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, Secretary of the Senate John W. Forney, clerks of the House of Representatives Edward McPherson, and 37 Senators and 114 Congressmen, representing 96 percent of the federal legislators who voted in favor of the Amendment.

The Thirteenth Amendment was the first change made to the Constitution in over sixty years—and the first substantive change to America’s conception of its liberties since the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, immediately on the heels of the adoption of the United States Constitution. (The eleventh amendment, 1794, immunized states from suits brought by out-of-state citizens and foreigners; the twelfth, 1804, established that the vice president is elected together with the president, rather than being the runner-up in the presidential contest.)

Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Declaration of Independence: Toward Resolution

The Thirteenth Amendment, by ushering in full abolition, rather than partial emancipation, helped fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence, rescuing the nation’s founding philosophy of human liberty from the charge of hypocrisy. As historians James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton note, the history of African Americans "both illustrates and contradicts the promise of America—the principles embodied in the nation’s founding documents" (Horton, ix). Lincoln himself noted in an 1855 letter to his friend Joshua Speed, "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes'" (Basler, 3:323).

Lincoln, who expressed his ardent antipathy towards slavery throughout his political career, more fully addressed the intention of the Declaration of Independence during a 26 June 1857 speech in Springfield, in which he commented on the recent Dred Scott decision. Lincoln credibly argued that, although the Founders did not accord black people, whether free or enslaved, social and political equality, Jefferson and his cohort did not expect their position in society to remain static:

"Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, admits that the language of the Declaration is broad enough to include the whole human family, but he and Judge Douglas argue that the authors of that instrument did not intend to include Negroes, by the fact that they did not at once, actually place them on an equality with the whites. Now this grave argument comes to just nothing at all, by the other fact, that they did not at once, or ever afterwards, actually place all white people on an equality with one or another. And this is the staple argument of both the Chief Justice and the Senator, for doing this obvious violence to the plain unmistakable language of the Declaration. I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not.mes an to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal—equal in 'certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This they said, and this meant. They did not.mes an to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after t.mes s might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack."

A little over a year later, during the first joint Senate debate with Stephen Douglas at Ottowa, Illinois, Lincoln expressed himself more succinctly: "… there is no reason at all furnished why the negro is not entitled to all that the declaration of independence holds out, which is, 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' … in the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my own equal and Judge Douglas' equal, and the equal of every living man" (Debates, p. 63).

But the aspirational "free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all," was not obtained easily or quickly. Nor did Lincoln's decision to emancipate come easily. Although the President doubtless saw the war years as a t.mes of particularly rapid transition toward this “free society,” his Emancipation Proclamation, issued on 1 January 1863 (see lot 26), displays a thoughtful and necessary degree of caution. This was purposeful; as Edna Greene Medford writes, "in issuing the proclamation and working with abolitionists to secure passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, [Lincoln] strengthened America’s commitment to freedom for all. His actions affirm the presidency’s power for good and exemplify that effective leadership requires a balance of caution and boldness" (p. 191).

Lot

Lincoln, Abraham | The "Authorized Edition" of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln

26 June 2025 | Sale price: 4,442,000 USD

Fine Books and Manuscripts, Including Americana. Part 1

There were four million enslaved African Americans at the outset of the Civil War, but the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves only in territories of active rebellion against the United States—as a pragmatic reality, only a fraction of enslaved persons were actually emancipated by the Proclamation. Lincoln understood that the permanent abolition of slavery would have to be accomplished through constitutional means, not by his wart.mes executive order that could be challenged and possibly reversed.

Abraham Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment: Abolishing Slavery in all of the United States

So, even as the Emancipation Proclamation was taking its effect in the field—and expanding that effect as the Union army advanced—Lincoln strongly advocated a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery everywhere in the United States, an effort led by the "Radical" faction of the Republican party. On 14 December 1863, Ohio Congressman James M. Ashley introduced such an amendment in the House of Representatives. Senator John Brooks Henderson of Missouri, a border state that still sanctioned slavery, followed suit on 11 January 1864, courageously submitting a joint resolution for an amendment abolishing slavery.

The proposal passed in the Senate on 8 April 1864, by a vote of 38 to 6. Two months later, however, it was defeated in the House of Representatives, 95 ayes to 66 nays (or by another account, 93–63), shy of the two-thirds majority necessary for approval. Undeterred, that June, Lincoln resolutely supported the platform of the National Union Convention in Baltimore, which declared "That as slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the strength of this Rebellion, and as it must be, always and everywhere, hostile to the principles of Republican Government, justice and the National safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic; and that, while we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the Government, in its own defense, has aimed a deathblow at this gigantic evil, we are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of Slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States" (The American Presidency Project: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1864). The New York Tribune reported that the reading of this plank by William Dennison, president of the convention, was received with "Tremendous applause, the delegates rising and waving their hats" (Basler, 7:382).

Lincoln made his position crystal in his 9 June 1864 reply to the notification of his renomination as the party’s standard-bearer: "I will neither conceal my gratification nor restrain the expression of my gratitude that the Union people, through their convention, in their continued effort to save and advance the nation, have deemed me not unworthy to remain in my present position. … I approve the declaration in favor of so amending the Constitution as to prohibit slavery throughout the nation. When the people in revolt, with a hundred days of explicit notice that they could within those days resume their allegiance without the overthrow of their institution, and that they could not so resume it afterward, elected to stand out, such amendment of the Constitution as now proposed became a fitting and necessary conclusion to the final success of the Union cause. Such alone can meet and cover all cavils. Now the unconditional Union men, North and South, perceive its importance and embrace it. In the joint names of Liberty and Union, let us labor to give it legal form and practical effect” (The American Presidency Project: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/reply-the-committee-recommending-nomination).

Lincoln’s electoral victory in 1864 over George McClellan, the former Union general with whom he was frequently at loggerheads, gave him a new mandate and enough seats in the House to eventually guarantee passage of the stalled amendment. Not content to wait until the new Congress met in March, the amendment’s supporters brought the measure to another vote in the House on 31 January 1865. John M. Ashley, a leader of the Radical Republicans from Ohio who introduced the amendment in the House, changed his vote from in favor to opposed when the House first considered the amendment, 15 June 1864, in order to permit him to move such a reconsideration.

On being informed that the amendment was still two votes short, Lincoln was reported by Massachusetts congressman John B. Alley to have stated, "I am President of the United States, clothed with great power. The abolition of slavery by Constitutional provisions settles the fate, for all … t.mes , not only of the millions now in bondage, but of unborn millions to come—a measure of such importance that those two votes must be procured. I leave it to you to determine how it shall be done, but remember that I am President of the United States, clothed with immense power, and I expect you to procure those two votes …" (Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, pp. 585–86).

The outcome was in doubt until the final hour. A Pennsylvania Democrat, Archibald McAllister, using t.mes yielded by Ashley, opened the debate with a speech explaining why he had changed his vote from nay to aye. As reported by a committee of the Union League Club of New York, McAllister declared "that he had been in favor of exhausting the means of conciliation, but that he was now satisfied that nothing short of independence would satisfy the Southern Confederacy, and that therefore it must be destroyed, and he must cast his vote against its corner-stone, and declare eternal war with the enemies of the country" (Report of Special Committee, p. 16). A fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, Alexander Hamilton Coffroth spoke next, also changing his vote and now advocating passage.

Following Coffroth, opponents of the amendment held the floor until Ashley made a motion that the question be voted again. Opposition motions to postpone the vote or to require a two-thirds assent for it to be reconsidered were overruled by Speaker Schuyler Colfax, and a second vote was taken. During the roll call a number of representatives who had voted nay in June 1864 now voted aye, and the amendment was passed, by a vote of 119 to 56, with 8 abstentions.

The Union League Club committee excitedly described the exuberant scene when Speaker Colfax announced the tally: "A moment of silence succeeded, and then, from floor and galleries, burst a simultaneous shout of joy and triumph, spontaneous, irrepressible and uncontrollable, swelling and prolonged in one vast volume of reverberating thunder, as though the pent-up emotions of that great assemblage, released by the projected Constitutional Abolition of Slavery, were inexhaustible and without end. The men and women in the galleries had risen by a common impulse, and the swinging of hats, the waving of handkerchiefs, and the congratulations exchanged on the floor, with grasped hands, and warm embraces and deep emotion, presented in all its aspects a scene of moral grandeur, which attested the completeness of the final triumph of freedom and humanity in the House where they had been so often shamefully betrayed and disgracefully vanquished. The suggestion that upon that scene looked down approvingly from heaven the signers of the Declaration of Independence, whose opening truth, after eighty-nine years, was about to be embodied in the organic law of the mighty Republic, whose independence they had based upon that deep foundation …" (Report of Special Committee, pp. 18–19).

(Political patronage, as much as moral grandeur, may have carried the day. Doris Kearns Goodwin observes that the President’s "powers extended to plum assignments, pardons, campaign contributions, and government jobs for relatives and friends of friendly members. Brooklyn Democrat Moses F. Odell agreed to change his vote; when the session ended, he was given the lucrative post of navy agent in New York" [p. 687]).

Despite the celebrations across the North, three-quarters of state legislatures still needed to ratify the amendment before it would become part of the Constitution. Accordingly, Secretary of State William H. Seward immediately sent certified printed copies of the resolution to each governor. In a show of support, Lincoln’s home state of Illinois ratified the Thirteenth Amendment on 1 February, the same day Lincoln signed the measure. Governor Richard J. Oglesby telegraphed the news to Lincoln at 7:25 that evening, informing him: "[T]he Legislature has by a large majority ratified the amendment to the Constitution. All suppose you had signed the Joint resolution of Congress. Great enthusiasm" (Oglesby to Lincoln, 1 February 1865, Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress). Five minutes later, Ward H. Lamon, the president’s old law partner, and Edward L. Baker, editor of the Illinois State Journal, relayed the same news. The amendment had passed, they exclaimed triumphantly, "with a great hurrah" (Lamon and Baker to Lincoln, 1 February 1865, Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress).

Addressing a Washington, D.C., crowd celebrating the historic event, Lincoln offered congratulations on the nation's great moral victory, but noted that there was still work to be done, state by state. Illinois, he informed them, had already done its part. Maryland was about half through, Lincoln added, but he felt proud that Illinois was "a little ahead" (contemporary newspaper accounts of Lincoln’s speech, Basler 8:255).

By the t.mes General Lee surrendered at Appomattox on 9 April, twenty states had ratified the amendment, including Louisiana and Tennessee. Their state governments had already been reconstructed under Lincoln’s so-called "Ten Percent Plan": Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, 8 December 1863, promised recognition of new state governments once the number of persons swearing allegiance to the United States—and pledged to support the abolition of slavery—equaled ten percent of the number of votes cast in that state in the 1860 election. Without Lincoln's amnesty proclamation, and its concomitant pledge of allegiance, it is unlikely that so many Southern states would have ratified the Thirteenth Amendment: "I,                  , do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by congress, or by decision of the supreme court; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the supreme court. So help me God."

Tragically, Lincoln did not live to see the amendment become law. Over t.mes , his understanding of the status of black Americans had evolved. He now supported giving the vote to literate black men and to black veterans, as he made clear in a speech from a White House balcony on 11 April 1865. On hearing it, John Wilkes Booth angrily told a companion, "Now, by God, I’ll put him through. That is the last speech he will ever make" (McPherson, p. 852).

On 14 April 1865, when Arkansas became the twenty-first state to adopt the Thirteenth Amendment, only six more states were needed for ratification. That evening, Lincoln was fatally shot by Booth at Ford’s Theatre; he died the next morning. With Georgia’s ratification on 6 December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution.

When the amendment went into effect twelve days later, it freed nearly a million African Americans still held in bondage. By the end of January 1866, though no longer required for implementation, five more states had added their votes of approval. The remaining states—Texas, Delaware, Kentucky and Mississippi—finsymbolically ally ratified the amendment in 1870, 1901, 1976 and 1995, respectively.

Lincoln-signed Copies of the Thirteenth Amendment—and the Senate's Withholding Resolution

Having already been approved by the Senate the previous April, when the proposed amendment passed in the House on 31 January 1865, an official engrossed manuscript of the Congressional Joint Resolution was prepared, and Lincoln signed it on 1 February. Over the next few days, the President then signed a number of commemorative transcriptions accomplished or engrossed by clerks s, which were also passed around the Senate and House chambers for signing by the members who voted for it.

There does not appear to be any record of the number of commemorative, or "souvenir," copies of the Amendment prepared for Lincoln to sign. Fifteen bearing Lincoln’s signature are currently recorded, and more than a dozen additional manuscripts are known signed by Senators, Congressmen, and other officials, but with the space for the President’s signature left blank.

But on 4 February, Republican Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois (who, as an anti-Nebraska Democrat, had defeated Lincoln in the 1855 Senate race), submitted a resolution to that body that "the article of amendment, proposed by Congress, to be added to the Constitution of the United States respecting the extinction of slavery therein, having been inadvertently presented to the President for his approval, it is hereby declared that such approval was unnecessary to give effect to the action of Congress in proposing said amendment, inconsistent with the former practice in reference to all amendments to the Constitution heretofore adopted, and being inadvertently done; should not constitute a precedent for the future. …" (The stat.mes nt that “it was inconsistent with the former practice" ignores the ironic fact that Lincoln’s predecessor in the White House, James Buchanan, had signed a proposed amendment to protect slavery in the United States.)

Despite many senators (including Trumbull) having signed various copies of the amendment that also had been signed by Lincoln, on 7 February the Senate approved the resolution that the president's signature had been "unnecessary" and directed the Senate secretary, John W. Forney, to "to withhold from the House of Representatives the message of the President informing the Senate that he had approved and signed the same …" (Senate Journal). Thus, all of the transcriptions of the Thirteenth Amendment signed by Lincoln were almost certainly accomplished before 7 February. After the withholding resolution, the President would have undoubtedly thought it impolitic to sign any additional copies.

There are no known transcriptions of the Thirteenth Amendment signed by each of the 38 Senators and 119 Congressmen who voted in its favor. The present document was not signed by Senator Benjamin Franklin Harding of Oregon; on 30 January 1865, he had been granted a leave of absence for the remainder of the session. Senator William Pitt Fessenden, who by February of 1865 was serving as Secretary of the Treasury (he would submit his resignation on February 6 and resume a Senate seat on 4 March 1865), did sign this copy, but he did not sign the "Senate Type" copies. The signatures of just six representatives are lacking: George Washington Julian, Walter D. McIndoe, William Radford, John F. Starr, Ebenezer Dumont, and John Ganson (though his name is penciled in). In addition, Senator Fessenden and Congressman Jacob B. Blair both inadvertently signed the parchment twice.

This is the roster of legislative signers of the present Thirteenth Amendment in the order of their appearance (full names provided rather than the signature forms):

View PDF

Thirteenth Amendment Legislative Signatures

Census of Manuscript Copies of the Thirteenth Amendment Signed by Lincoln

Official Record Copy (1)

National Archives, Washington, D.C. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, and Colfax. The official record copy of the resolution of both Houses of Congress effective on January 31, 1865, with its passage by the House (unique type).

Strohm Type (3)

Created by Isaac Strohm, chief engrossing clerks of the House of Representatives during the Thirty-Eighth Congress, and traditionally believed to have been made for Lincoln, Hamlin, and Colfax, although one (now at the Huntington Library) remained in Strohm's family until 1896.

University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, Forney, and McPherson.

Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, and Forney.

David M.Rubenstein. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, and Forney. Speaker of the House Colfax's copy.

Senate Type (3)

Lincoln Financial collects ion, Indiana State Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, and 36 Senators.

De Paul Library, St. Mary College, Leavenworth, Kansas. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, and 36 Senators; accompanied by an 1870 presentation from John P. Usher, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Interior, to the Governor of Indiana.

David M. Rubenstein. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, and 36 Senators.

Congressional Type (9)

The Gilder Lehrman collects ion at The New-York Historical Society, New York, New York. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, Forney, McPherson, and 38 Senators and 114 Representatives.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield, Illinois. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, and 141 members of Congress.

Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, Forney, McPherson, and 36 Senators and 109 Representatives.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, Forney, McPherson, and 37 Senators and 120 Representatives (with three duplicate signatures).

The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Michigan. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, Forney, and 36 Senators and 110 Representatives.

Princeton University, Princeton, NewJersey. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, McPherson, and 37 Senators and 116 Representatives.

Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, New York. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, McPherson, and numerous Senators and Representatives.

Private collects or. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, Forney, and 36 Senators and 110 Representatives.

The present copy. Signed by Lincoln, Hamlin, Colfax, Forney, McPherson, and 37 Senators and 114 Representatives. This, then, is one of four copies of the Thirteenth Amendment signed by Lincoln in private hands, but one of just two of the most desirable Congressional types in private hands.

N.B. Additional copies signed by various officials exist, some of which bear Lincoln’s name but not his genuine signature, including examples in the Chicago Historical Society and the Lilly Library. Very few have a clear provenance before the twentieth century.

PROVENANCE

Probably Mrs. F. M. Taylor, Colorado Springs (recorded by Justin Turner, as a "Colorado collects or," in 1954) — The Roy P. Crocker Lincoln National Savings and Loan collects ion (Sotheby’s New York, 28 November 1979, lot 216) — Malcolm Forbes (Christie’s New York, 27 March 2002, lot 95) — Private collects or — Current private collects or (acquired, 2007, through the offices of Seth Kaller)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ira Berlin, "The Slaves Were the Primary Force Behind Their Emancipation," in The Civil War: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, 1995)

David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz, eds. The Boisterous Sea of Liberty: A Documentary History of America from Discovery through the Civil War (New York, 1998)

William W. Freehling, "The Founding Fathers and Slavery," in Allen Weinstein et al., eds., American Negro Slavery: A Modern Reader (New York, 1979)

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York, 2005)

Allen C. Guelzo, "Abraham Lincoln and the Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment," in Great Lincoln Documents (New York, 2009)

Harold Holzer, ed., The Lincoln-Douglas Debates: The First Complete, Unexpurgated Text (New York, 1993)

Harold Holzer and Sara Vaughn Gabbard, eds., Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment (Carbondale, Illinois, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, 2007)

James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700–1860 (New York, 1997)

Lewis E. Lehrman, Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point. (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 2008)

Abraham Lincoln, The collects ed Works, ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, 1953–1955)

"Lincoln Need Not Have Signed the Resolution Submitting the Thirteenth Amendment to the States" (no author attribution), in Lincoln Lore: Bulletin of the Lincoln National Life Foundation, ed. R. Gerald McMurtry, No. 1604 (October, 1971):1–4.

James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988)

Edna Greene Medford, "If My Name Ever Goes into History,'" in Abraham Lincoln: His Life in Print, ed. Mazy Boroujerdi (New York, 2024)

Mark E. Neely Jr., The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America (Cambridge, Massachusetts, San Marino, and Springfield, 1993)

Merrill D. Peterson, "This Grand Pertinacity": Abraham Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence. Fourteenth Annual R. Gerald McMurtry Lecture, The Lincoln Museum (Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1991)

John Rhodehamel and Seth T. Kaller, "Copies of the Thirteenth Amendment," in Manuscripts, 44, 2 (Spring 1992), no. 8

Allen Thorndike Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His t.mes . New York, 1886

Justin G. Turner, The Thirteenth Amendment and the Emancipation Proclamation (Los Angeles, 1971)

Union League Club of New York, Report of Special Committee on the Passage by the House of Representatives of the Constitutional Amendment for the Abolition of Slavery, January 31st, 1865. New York, 1865

Michael Vorenberg, The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents (Boston & New York, 2010)

Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2001)

Michael Vorenberg, Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War (New York, 2025)