Signed by President Lincoln, the famous document owned by late Senator Robert Kennedy could sell for up to $1.5 million.
Kennedy, brother to President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy, purchased one of only 48 copies of The Emancipation Proclamation in 1964 during his stint as U.S. attorney general. Signed into law by President Lincoln in 1863 during the Civil War, the document declared the freedom of all slaves. Kennedy’s copy, which he purchased for just $9,400, will be put up for auction on Dec. 10, through Sotheby’s, an art auction house at the request of Kennedy’s widow, Ethel. Experts expect the document to sell for well over $1 million.
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Only half of the Proclamation’s copies have survived since their creation; 14 are in public institutions and another eight to 10 are privately owned, Sotheby’s senior specialist for historic American manuscripts Selby Kiffer told The AP, also remarking on the similarity between Lincoln and RFK as civil rights champions, a fact that “really brings this to life.”
(via The AP)