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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Davis, Jefferson, 1808-1889 An Address to the People of the Free States by the President of the Southern Confederacy.

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC05018 Author/Creator: Davis, Jefferson, 1808-1889 Place Written: Richmond, Virginia Type: Broadside Date: 5 January 1863 Pagination: 1 p. : Height: 30.3 cm, Width: 22.5 cm Order a Copy

Contemporary fake on emancipation. Imprint, "Richmond Enquirer Print." A fictitious response of Jefferson Davis to the Emancipation Proclamation, threatening retaliation by enslaving Black people. It says in part "All negroes who shall be taken in any of the states in which slavery does not now exist, in the progress of our arms, shall be adjudged, immediately after such capture, to occupy the slave status, and in all states which shall be vanquished by our arms, all free negroes shall, ipso facto, be reduced to the condition of helotism...."

Davis, Jefferson, 1808-1889
McElroy, Robert, 1809-1891

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