US | Abraham Lincoln Lincoln Letter Sells for $3.4M Letter contains Lincoln's reply to kids' plea to free slave children By Rob Quinn Posted Apr 4, 2008 10:08 AM CDT Copied This photo released by Sotheby's Auction House in New York, Thursday, March 6, 2008, shows an 1862 letter penned by President Abraham Lincoln to Major John J, Key. (AP Photo) An 1864 letter from Abraham Lincoln to Massachusetts schoolchildren fetched a record $3.4 million at auction yesterday, a record for an American manuscript, CNN reports. In the letter, Lincoln responded to a petition from 195 youngsters asking him to "free all the little slave children of this country" with a heartfelt reply saying it was God's will that they be freed. An anonymous American collector bought the letter. Lincoln had already freed millions of slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation when the letter was written, but abolition was not complete until the Constitution was amended the following year. Twenty other Lincoln documents were in the collection auctioned at Sotheby's in New York, including pages from George Washington's diary and documents from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Read These Next Gavin Newsom has filed a massive lawsuit against Fox News. New York Times ranks the best movies of the 21st century. A man has been deported for kicking an airport customs beagle. Supreme Court gives Trump big win on national injunctions. Report an error