Ken Griffin, the billionaire founding father of the hedge fund Citadel, has been revealed as the client of two uncommon copies of historic US paperwork for a complete of $18.1m (with charges) at a Sotheby’s public sale of wonderful books and manuscripts in New York on 26 June. Griffin paid $13.7m and $4.4m, respectively, for copies of the Thirteenth Modification and the Emancipation Proclamation that had been signed by President Abraham Lincoln.
The Thirteenth Modification abolished slavery within the US in 1865, and freed an estimated 4 million folks after greater than a century of the merciless establishment. The manuscript that bought at Sotheby’s was a congressional copy and one in every of solely 15 identified variations signed by Lincoln, the driving drive behind having the modification handed and ratified. The copy was additionally signed by senators and congressmen who supported it. Solely 4 such examples stay in personal arms, in response to Sotheby’s.
The Emancipation Proclamation, a presidential govt order handed in 1863 in the course of the US Civil Warfare, declared enslaved folks in Accomplice territory free. It meant greater than 3.5 million folks in secessionist states had been not enslaved, although it didn’t apply to slave states that remained loyal to the Union or areas already underneath Union management.
The earlier report for a replica of the thirteenth Modification at public sale was $2.4m, set in 2016, whereas the beforehand most dear copy of the Emancipation Proclamation bought at public sale in 2010 for $3.8m, each at Sotheby’s, in response to the public sale home.
“Since our founding, America has been on a journey to kind a extra excellent union,” Griffin stated in an announcement. “The Emancipation Proclamation and the thirteenth Modification marked a profound step ahead, abolishing the scourge of slavery and advancing the best that every one persons are created equal.”
Griffin is a prime Republican donor who has given greater than $100m to conservatives operating for workplace, in response to knowledge from the Federal Election Fee. He stated final 12 months that he voted for President Donald Trump, whom he beforehand referred to as a “three-time loser”.
The 2 uncommon paperwork are the newest additions to Griffin’s wide-ranging assortment. Apart from artwork and dinosaur bones, he has a penchant for historic manuscripts. He outbid a gaggle of crypto traders to purchase a first-edition copy of the US Structure at a 2021 Sotheby’s public sale, dropping a record-breaking $43.2m (together with charges).
In Could Griffin revealed that he additionally owns a uncommon early printing of the precursor to the Invoice of Rights. He’ll lend that doc and his copy of the US Structure to the Nationwide Structure Middle in Philadelphia—to which he has additionally simply given a $15m reward—for a particular exhibition timed to subsequent 12 months’s US semiquincentennial.
In accordance with Sotheby’s, Griffin additionally intends to lend his two latest acquisitions to an unspecified establishment within the US.
