(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Portia Gage. An Appeal to the Governors of the Free States: The Prayer of

(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Portia Gage. An Appeal to the Governors of the Free States: The Prayer of Twenty Millions. Autograph Manuscript Signed, 2 manuscript pages, 9¾ x 7¾ inches, on facing pages of one folding sheet, with short cover Autograph Letter Signed to Illinois Governor Richard Yates on verso of first page, and docketing on verso of second page (noting "must be read to be appreciated"); mailing folds, minimal wear. Gages Lake, IL, 8 September 1862 Portia Gage (1813-1903) gained national prominence as a women's suffrage leader after the Civil War. This abolitionist message was written in the early period of the war, two weeks before Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, when it appeared that the abolition of slavery might not be a war goal. Horace Greeley had written his own open letter to Lincoln, "The Prayer of the Twenty Millions," in the 19 August 1862 issue of his New York Tribune.
Portia Gage was the wife of an Illinois flour miller whose activist inclinations had been delayed while raising a family of eleven. Inspired by Greeley's editorial and frustrated by Lincoln's response, she composed her own similarly titled appeal, and sent manuscript copies to the governors of each of the free states. It begins: "We as women who are suffering intensely on account of the president's firm determination to preserve slavery, thereby giving the rebels the means of prolonging this war . . . know that this war was commenced by slavery, has been waged for slavery, and perpetuated to this day by the same power." She urges the northern governors "to refuse to send another man from your respective states, until they are asked for to fight in the glorious cause of liberty. . . . This talk of fighting for the Union is all talk; it means nothing; there is no Union. The slaveholders dissolved what little there was more than a year ago. It is now Freedom or Slavery."
We find only one other brief reference to this passionate abolitionist message--the copy Gage sent to the Oregon governor is cited in Stephen D. Engle's book "Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln and the Union's War Governors," pages 220-221. It is important not only as a powerful example of the popular pressures which led to the Emancipation Proclamation two weeks later, but also as a very early example of Portia Gage's activism which came into full prominence in just a few years. No other letters or manuscripts by Gage have been traced at auction.