WASHINGTON —
The U.S. Postal Service will honor the 150th anniversary of President
Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation with a commemorative stamp
in early 2013.
The
Emancipation Proclamation Forever Stamp will be issued early next year
at a yet to be determined location. Customers may pre-order the stamp
this afternoon at usps.com/stamps
or by phone at 800-Stamp24 (800-782-6724) for delivery a few days
following the dedication ceremony. Orders for limited-edition posters
will be fulfilled immediately.
The
16” x 23” poster features the same art used on the stamp. Using the
traditional letterpress printing process that makes each one unique,
only 5,000 were produced. Visit this link
to view the process. Each poster also bears a limited-edition number.
To add to their collectability, the first 1,000 posters will be
autographed by graphic designer Gail Anderson and fulfilled with the
lowest numbers first in the order in which orders are placed.
Item # Description Price
470367 Letterpress poster numbered $29.95
470377 Letterpress poster numbered and autographed $49.95
The
phrase “Henceforward Shall Be Free” is taken from the Emancipation
Proclamation. Art director Antonio Alcalá of Alexandria, VA, worked with
graphic designer Gail Anderson of New York City to produce the stamp.
To evoke the look of posters from the Civil War era, they employed Hatch
Show Print of Nashville, TN, one of the oldest working letterpress
print shops in America.
Lincoln’s Proclamation
Issued
nearly two years into the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation
declared that all slaves in the states of the Confederacy “are, and
henceforward shall be free.”
Not
until July 1862, after exhausting all other alternatives, did Lincoln
in his capacity as Commander in Chief resort to a “war powers”
proclamation to free the slaves. Secretary of State William H. Seward,
however, persuaded Lincoln to delay its release until after a Union
victory on the battlefield. Finally, on Sept. 22, 1862, after Union
forces defeated the Confederate army at the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln
issued a preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring
that on Jan. 1 slaves in the states still in rebellion would be legally
free.
As
a war powers order, the Emancipation Proclamation could not free slaves
in the four border states still loyal to the Union, and actual freedom
for slaves in the rebellious states depended on future Union military
advances into the South. Still, for the first time, the Emancipation
Proclamation allowed Lincoln to make freedom for slaves an explicit goal
of the war. As he put it in his annual message to Congress, “In giving
freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.”
Customers may view the Emancipation Proclamation Forever Stamp, as well as many of this year’s other stamps on Facebook at facebook.com/USPSStamps, on Twitter @USPSstamps or on the website Beyond the Perf at beyondtheperf.com/2013-preview. Beyond the Perf is the
Postal Service’s online site for information on upcoming stamp
subjects, first-day-of-issue events and other philatelic news.
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