Lincoln slave Petition letter sells for $3.4 million

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Lincoln letter sells for 3.4 million dollars in New York Thu Apr 3, 2:10 PM ET

 

NEW YORK (AFP) - A letter written by late US president Abraham Lincoln in response to a children's petition to end slavery sold for a record 3.4 million dollars at auction in New York on Thursday.

 

The letter, an emotional response to a "Children's Petition to the president asking him to free all the little slave children in this country," dates from 1864 and was the highlight of a sale of historical American manuscripts.

 

The top lot, which was bought by an anonymous US buyer bidding by phone, set a record price for a US manuscript at auction.

 

"Please tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy," Lincoln wrote in the letter.

 

"While I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He wills to do it."

 

The other highlight in the Sotheby's sale was Lincoln's signature from an autograph album on the same day in 1863 he gave his Gettysburg address -- considered perhaps the greatest speech in US history.

 

The autograph, signed at the dedication of a cemetery for those killed at the battle of Gettysburg in July that year, sold for 937,000 dollars to a first-time bidder who described the letter as "an amazing piece of history."

 

However, several other top lots -- including a letter written by founding father and third US president, Thomas Jefferson, in which he reveals his concern over the health of then president George Washington -- failed to sell.

 

Among the unusually large number of lots that failed to find buyers were an entry from Washington's diary and several historic documents signed by Lincoln.