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Proclamation to the Bulletin
- When
- September 17, 1859
- Where
- Bulletin offices
On September 17, 1859, Joshua Norton hand-delivered a letter declaring himself Emperor of these United States to the Bulletin offices in San Francisco.
Norton signed the proclamation as Norton I, Emperor of the United States. He justified his reign by citing a need for political stability shortly before the American Civil War. This followed a July 1859 manifesto addressed to the Citizens of the Union.
Sources
- Emperor Norton Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-05
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.