From the AP: A document with Abraham Lincoln’s signature and dated Sept. 22, 1862, has been found in the Hawaii State Archives, but no one seems to know how it got there. A project of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Illinois has confirmed its authenticity. It orders the secretary of state to affix the seal of the United States to his “proclamation of this date.” The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on that date. The document appears to have been at the archives since at least 1935. In the 1860s, Hawaii was an independent kingdom.
Anyone care to suggest how the document arrived at the Hawaii State Archives?
fugitive slaves in Hawaii??
by 1875, we had a treaty with Hawaii, so maybe we had some relationship with them before then that required the State department to alert their government that America’s escaped slaves were no longer wanted under the slave law of 1850.
Hawaiian Slaves?
Actually, the Emnacipation Proclamation only freed those slaves in areas where there was active rebellion, such as central Virginia. Slaves legally owned in other areas, such as Delaware and Maryland, remained slaves.
Thus, any slaves owned by an American citizen while living or visiting in Hawaii, would remain slaves. Any fugative slaves found in Hawaii would be legally returned to their masters, as long as they didn’t live in an area that was still under rebellion.
Just to be ridiculous. . .
When Barack Obama’s family was busy forging his birth certificate so he could become the first African-American president, they also engineered a plan to shuffle Abraham Lincoln’s documents around the country. Hey, if Lincoln’s documents could be found anywhere, what does it matter if Obama’s are?