Auction Name: 2026 March 18 The Dan Madsen Collection of Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain Memorabilia Americana & Political Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 43013

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6335*43013

Abraham Lincoln: 1863 "Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer" Proclamation Broadside. 19 1/4" x 27" (sight); Boston; circa April 1863. Broadside issued by Massachusetts Governor John. A. Andrew, relaying President Abraham Lincoln's March 30, 1863 Proclamation reserving April 30, 1863 "For a Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer." Matted and sealed in protective plastic to an overall size of 22 3/4" x 30 1/2".

First observed in June 1775, the National Day of Prayer was issued once again by Lincoln during the height of the Civil War. In a time of great bloodshed and hatred, Lincoln exhorted his fellow countrymen, both northern and southern, free and enslaved, to turn to the Almighty God in prayer and supplication: "We have been recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."

Condition: Not examined out of seal and mat. Toned with flattened folds. A few pinholes along integral vertical fold; just affecting text. Minor text offsetting. A few minor scattered stains. Minor bumped corners to mat.

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