Art News

Lincoln-signed copy of 13th Amendment restored at Presidential Library and Museum

CHICAGO, IL (AP).- Time had taken its toll on the nearly 147-year-old document, its surface creased and buckled, its inscriptions faded and an edge yellowed by old adhesive. But the rare copy of the 13th Amendment that ended slavery, signed by President Lincoln and lawmakers who voted for it, still was beautiful to James Cornelius and Russ Maki when they pulled it from a vault at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. “I was overwhelmed to see it,” said Cornelius, the Springfield museum’s curator, who longed to display the original document, instead of the facsimile visitors see now, during the museum’s celebration of the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s presidency. “But it looked up close like the rolling hills of northwestern Illinois, and I was worried about continuing deterioration