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Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to Come to Campus

In a rare public exhibit, President Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation — considered by some to be one of the nation’s greatest documentary treasures –– will be on display in Plattsburgh State Art Museum’s Burke Gallery, Myers Fine Arts Building, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19.

The actual draft document, written in Abraham Lincoln’s own hand with edits from his Secretary of State William Seward, who was also a former governor of New York, will be on display along with the Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Commemoration Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King.

Lincoln read the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet on Sept. 22, 1862, and told them that he would accept minor changes in wording. Seward, a lifelong abolitionist, wrote in certain additions. Except for these revisions and the formal beginning and ending written by the chief clerk, the document is otherwise entirely in Lincoln's hand.

This exhibit is free and open to the public.

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