13th Amendment, Lincoln-Signed Copy

Two votes short

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freed enslaved people only in the parts of the Confederacy in rebellion, not in the loyal border states, and Lincoln understood that only a constitutional amendment could end slavery everywhere. On December 14, 1863, Ohio Congressman James M. Ashley introduced such an amendment in the House. Senator John Brooks Henderson of Missouri, a border state where slavery was still legal, submitted a joint resolution of his own on January 11, 1864.

The Senate passed the amendment on April 8, 1864, by 38 to 6. Two months later the House fell short of the two-thirds it needed; accounts of that vote differ, giving it as 95 to 66 or 93 to 65. Lincoln made abolition a plank of his re-election platform, and his victory over George McClellan that November gave the measure new momentum. Its supporters did not wait for the new Congress and brought it back to the House floor on January 31, 1865.

Told the amendment was still two votes short, Lincoln is reported by Massachusetts congressman John B. Alley to have said: "I am President of the United States, clothed with great power... I expect you to procure those two votes." Two Pennsylvania Democrats, Archibald McAllister and Alexander Hamilton Coffroth, explained on the floor why they had changed their votes. The resolution passed 119 to 56, with 8 abstaining. When Speaker Schuyler Colfax announced the result, a contemporary report described a shout from the floor and galleries 'swelling and prolonged in one vast volume of reverberating thunder.'

A signature the Senate called unnecessary

Presidents have no formal role in proposing amendments. Lincoln signed the official engrossed resolution on February 1, 1865, anyway, and over the next few days he signed a number of commemorative copies written out by congressional clerks. Those copies were also carried around both chambers to be signed by the members who had voted for the amendment.

On February 4, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois introduced a resolution declaring that the amendment had been 'inadvertently presented to the President for his approval' and that his approval was 'unnecessary.' The Senate adopted it on February 7 and told its secretary, John W. Forney, to withhold from the House the President's message reporting that he had signed. Many senators, Trumbull included, had already signed copies that also carried Lincoln's signature. Specialists conclude that all the Lincoln-signed copies were finished before February 7, since signing more afterward would have been politically awkward.

There is no record of how many souvenir copies were made, and the published counts have moved over time. The 2002 catalog for this copy called it one of 13, a 2016 sale described its copy as one of 14, and the 2025 catalog listed 15. One long-running census describes twelve to fifteen as known. Copies fall into types: the official record copy at the National Archives, copies signed only by the leaders, 'Senate' copies signed by 36 senators, and 'Congressional' copies like this one, signed by members of both houses. Still other copies carry Lincoln's name but not his genuine signature.

The men on the page

Hannibal Hamlin of Maine signed as Vice President and President of the Senate. He had begun his career as an anti-slavery Democrat, became Lincoln's running mate in 1860 and was dropped from the 1864 ticket in favor of Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. He later complained that he had been 'dragged out of the Senate, against my wishes' and then 'whistled down the wind.'

Schuyler Colfax of Indiana signed as Speaker of the House. A former newspaperman and an energetic opponent of slavery, he was the one who announced the House vote, and he considered February 1, 1865, the day he signed the resolution, the happiest day of his life. He went on to serve as Ulysses S. Grant's vice president.

John W. Forney, the Senate's secretary, certified that the resolution originated in the Senate. A Philadelphia editor who switched from the Democrats to the Republicans in 1860, he had such easy access to the White House that he was nicknamed 'Lincoln's dog.' Edward McPherson attested as Clerk of the House. Below them, in ten columns, sit the signatures of the legislators themselves.

How to read this copy

The sheet is vellum, 424 by 390 mm, ruled in blue, with 'Duplicate' written in red at the top and the text engrossed in a clerk's hand. Thirty-seven senators sign in five columns under a red heading, 'In the Senate, April 8, 1864,' followed by 114 representatives in five columns under 'In the House of Representatives, January 31, 1865.' Lincoln signs next to the clerical dateline 'Approved, February 1, 1865,' and the 2025 catalog describes his signature as particularly dark and bold.

No known copy carries all 38 senators and 119 representatives who voted yes. Senator Benjamin Franklin Harding of Oregon is missing; he had been granted leave for the rest of the session on January 30, 1865. Six representatives did not sign: George Washington Julian, Walter D. McIndoe, William Radford, John F. Starr, Ebenezer Dumont and John Ganson, whose name is only penciled in. Senator William Pitt Fessenden, then serving as Secretary of the Treasury, signed this copy but not the Senate-type copies, and he and Congressman Jacob B. Blair each signed this sheet twice.

By the 2025 catalog's count, that adds up to 96 percent of the legislators who voted for the amendment, the most legislator signatures on any known copy, and makes this one of only two Congressional-type copies in private hands. The 2002 catalog counted the senators differently, as 38, and gave the size as 20 5/8 by 15 3/8 inches.

From $35,000 to $13.7 million

The early history is thin. The copy was probably owned by a Mrs. F. M. Taylor of Colorado Springs, recorded in 1954 as a 'Colorado Collector.' It then entered the Lincoln collection of Roy P. Crocker's Lincoln National Savings and Loan, which was sold at auction in New York on November 28, 1979. The amendment brought $35,000, by a wide margin the top price among the sale's 347 lots.

Malcolm Forbes owned it next. When his collection of American historical documents was sold at auction in New York on March 27, 2002, the amendment brought $721,000 against an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. It passed to a private collector and, in 2007, through a dealer, to another private collector.

On June 26, 2025, it was offered at auction in New York with an estimate of $8 million to $12 million. A telephone bidder won it at $12 million, $13.7 million with premium, more than five times the previous auction record for a copy of the amendment: $2.4 million, paid in 2016 for a Senate-type copy. On June 30 the buyer was revealed as Kenneth C. Griffin, the founder of Citadel, who also bought a Lincoln-signed Emancipation Proclamation in the same sale for $4.4 million. Reports on the sale call the amendment the highest price ever paid for a document signed by Lincoln. Griffin said he intends to lend both documents to an institution for public display.

Ratified without him

Illinois ratified the amendment on February 1, 1865, the day Lincoln signed it. Its governor telegraphed that evening: 'All suppose you had signed the Joint resolution of Congress. Great enthusiasm.' Answering a serenade after signing, Lincoln called the amendment 'a king's cure for all the evils.'

By Robert E. Lee's surrender on April 9, twenty states had ratified. On April 14, Arkansas became the 21st, leaving six more needed, and that evening Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre. He died the next morning. Georgia's ratification on December 6, 1865, completed the three-fourths, and the amendment took effect twelve days later. The holdouts came much later: Texas in 1870, Delaware in 1901, Kentucky in 1976 and Mississippi in 1995.

The text Lincoln signed was the first substantive change to the nation's written liberties since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791: 'Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.'

The numbers

Senate vote

38 to 6, April 8, 1864

House vote

119 to 56, with 8 abstaining, January 31, 1865

Signed by Lincoln

Official resolution February 1, 1865; this copy in the first week of February 1865

Legislators on this copy

37 senators and 114 representatives, 96 percent of those who voted yes

Ratification

Completed December 6, 1865, with Georgia; in effect twelve days later

Timeline

1. Dec 14, 1863

   Congressman James M. Ashley introduces an abolition amendment in the House.

2. Jan 11, 1864

   Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri submits a joint resolution for the amendment.

3. Apr 8, 1864

   The Senate passes the amendment, 38 to 6.

4. Jun 1864

   The amendment falls short of two-thirds in the House.

5. Jan 31, 1865

   The House passes the amendment, 119 to 56.

6. Feb 1, 1865

   Lincoln signs the official resolution; commemorative copies, including this one, are signed in the following days.

7. Feb 7, 1865

   The Senate resolves that the President's signature was unnecessary.

8. Dec 6, 1865

   Georgia's ratification completes the three-fourths needed.

9. 1954

   The copy is recorded with a Colorado collector, probably Mrs. F. M. Taylor of Colorado Springs.

10. Nov 28, 1979

    Sold at auction in New York from the Roy P. Crocker collection for $35,000.

11. Mar 27, 2002

    Sold at auction in New York from the Malcolm Forbes collection for $721,000.

12. 2007

    Acquired by a private collector through a dealer.

13. May 25, 2016

    A different, Senate-type copy sets the auction record for the amendment at $2.4 million.

14. Jun 26, 2025

    Sold at auction in New York for $13.7 million with premium.

15. Jun 30, 2025

    Kenneth C. Griffin is revealed as the buyer.

The world in 1865

• Feb 1, 1865

  Illinois becomes the first state to ratify the amendment.

• Mar 4, 1865

  Lincoln begins his second term, with Andrew Johnson as vice president.

• Apr 9, 1865

  Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox.

• Apr 11, 1865

  Lincoln publicly backs the vote for literate Black men and Black veterans.

• Apr 14, 1865

  Arkansas ratifies the amendment; that evening Lincoln is shot at Ford's Theatre.

• Apr 15, 1865

  Lincoln dies.

• Dec 18, 1865

  The Thirteenth Amendment takes effect.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 13th Amendment, Lincoln-Signed Copy is number 4 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (21 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, had signed a proposed amendment that would have protected slavery.
• The Senate formally declared Lincoln's signature on the amendment 'unnecessary' six days after he signed it.
• Senator William Pitt Fessenden and Congressman Jacob B. Blair each signed this copy twice.
• Speaker Schuyler Colfax considered the day he signed the amendment the happiest day of his life.
• Mississippi did not ratify the Thirteenth Amendment until 1995.
• When it sold in 1979 for $35,000, this copy was by far the most expensive of the 347 lots in its sale.