In 2014, my family sold the home in which my parents had raised my siblings and me. My dad had passed away several years earlier and, after managing the house by herself for a time, Mom had moved into a more carefree and far less lonely independent living arrangement. My brother, my sister, and I went through the long process that millions of children endure as they prepare the family homestead for sale—reliving memories, organizing and cleaning, deciding what stays and what goes.
As we reached the completion of our melancholy task, I wandered through the near-empty house and made my way downstairs to our basement playroom for one final check. There I noticed—taped high on the wall, where it had hung for nearly forty years—the facsimile of the Declaration of Independence that my parents had purchased during the American Bicentennial in 1976. It was the “engrossed” copy that most Americans are familiar with—inked in calligraphy style with a fine hand, the bold and oversized “In Congress, July 4, 1776” at the top, followed by “The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” The word “united” was deliberately lowercase, merely a descriptive adjective at the time, not the first word in the name of a new country; the word “States” was far more important and capitalized for emphasis. Beneath the body text were the signatures of the founders, a who’s who of American history—John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin among them, with Continental Congress president John Hancock’s sweeping signature dominating the bottom third of the parchment, oversized, centered, brazen, and unapologetic.
Below the signatures was a message from the “sponsors” that had printed this replica: “The principles of the Declaration of Independence are as meaningful today as they were two hundred years ago. It is our hope that having this authentic copy will serve as a constant reminder of the foundations upon which the United States of America stands.”
I had almost missed the worn, somewhat tattered copy hanging on the wall, but was thrilled when I spotted it. I was well into the research and writing of American Treasures, and viewed my late discovery as a fortunate sign. At the very least, it inspired me—throughout the writing, the copy of the Declaration remained on my desk and I referred to it often.
It is easy to get lost in the document and all it represents—the text, the marvelous variation of signature styles, the care and flair employed by the engrosser. My parents and millions of Americans everywhere had always recognized the Declaration’s value, perhaps without knowing all the reasons why.
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“AMERICA HAS NO CROWN jewels,” a perceptive editor said to me at the outset of my work on this book, “but if she did, it would be these documents. Readers are going to be thrilled to hear about their journey over the last couple of hundred years—what people went through to create them, protect them, and preserve them.”
He had offered a succinct synopsis of American Treasures, a story that describes how the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and many other critical documents were created, how they have defined a nation and its people throughout our history, and, for the first time, how Americans have made decisions and taken risks to protect them and ensure their preservation for future generations.
The United States was founded, and has evolved and prospered, with these documents as its foundation. Ours is the world’s first republic that can be traced back to its original founding document—the Declaration—and the world’s first country that was founded on the principle, if not the full-fledged reality, that all men are created equal; and just as fundamental, that government’s power is derived from the governed and not the other way around. Such principles were uniquely American in 1776, and have guided our culture, politics, and policies for 240 years.
As so many other nations and peoples have struggled and often failed to advance under monarchies, theocracies, caste systems, oligarchies, anarchies, and dictatorships, America’s prosperous and inclusive democracy—its “small r” republicanism—remains based on and defined by its founding documents.
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THE GENESIS OF American Treasures came when I read a small item about the Library of Congress’s World War II decision to secretly relocate the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and other important documents to an undisclosed and heavily fortified location for safekeeping in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Library of Congress also transferred 5,000 additional boxes of critical documents to inland university repositories, away from the path of potential enemy bombers; among them were the papers of George Washington and other presidents, the text of Samuel Morse’s first telegraph message, and James Madison’s detailed account of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. I had never heard of this massive and risky relocation effort and was anxious to learn more. Because the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) now holds and displays the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—collectively called the Charters of Freedom—I met with David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and Jessie Kratz, historian for the National Archives, to outline my idea. Their encouragement, enthusiasm, and ongoing cooperation inspired me and convinced me that this was a story worth pursuing.
It quickly became apparent, however, that the saga entailed more than the Library of Congress relocation activities in the 1940s. To fully understand what was at stake when the country undertook the Herculean task of protecting those parchments from potential enemy attack, I had to go back to their creation; this would help me tell the story of the full depth of their meaning and importance, as well as the motivations and aspirations of the people who created them. The struggle to save our priceless documents included not only their physical protection but the preservation of the ideas and ideals upon which they were based—during their creation and in the years since.
What follows will tell the story of the journey of these documents—both literal and figurative—over the last two centuries. It’s a saga that covers the sweep of American history—from the spring of 1776 when the Continental Congress debated whether a group of colonies should declare their independence from the mother country with whom they were at war, all the way to the present day, in which highly sophisticated preservation techniques are employed to protect and preserve the documents.
Along the way, Americans in every era took great risks and great care first to produce, and then to protect and preserve, their cherished documents. Virtually every major American historical figure and event somehow touches at least one of the documents in some way—among them the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776 and then the Constitutional Convention in the same city in 1787; the dramatic rescue of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution just ahead of the British burning of Washington, D.C., in 1814; the deaths of both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration they helped draft, an against-all-odds moment that forevermore lent a touch of divine inspiration to America’s birthday; Lincoln’s majestic prose at Gettysburg that redefined the nation’s dedication to freedom by including people of all races; and the palpable fear of attack on or sabotage of the United States after Pearl Harbor that prompted the stealthy relocation of irreplaceable documents to safe havens.
It is a remarkable 240-year journey that covers a spectrum of emotions, a plethora of pitfalls and celebrations: a journey fraught with peril and danger, laced with misgivings and uncertainty, infused with heroism and courage.
While of course many of the individual parts of this story have been told before, it’s my hope that telling their story in this way will provide modern readers with a new appreciation of what we’ve been defending all of these years. The historic parchments and manuscripts provide a powerful window through which Americans view their history, understand the roots of their patriotism, and reaffirm their commitments to liberty and equality that are so deeply embedded in their national and civic DNA.
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AMERICAN TREASURES IS A work of narrative history that rests on a sturdy foundation of primary and secondary sources: in other words, layers of scholarship and research. Everything that appears between quote marks is contained in a diary, a letter, a speech, a government document, a court transcript, a piece of congressional testimony, a newspaper, a magazine article, a journal, a pamphlet, or a book. My narrative and conclusions are based on an examination and interpretation of the sources (which are explained in full in my bibliographic essay) and my knowledge of the characters and events; these also provide the underpinnings for any conjecture that I engage in.
The story of the nation’s priceless documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Gettysburg Address—and the events leading up to their creation and subsequent protection and preservation, are filled with larger-than-life personalities, dramatic episodes, and compelling moments and have sweeping, far-reaching implications for America.
I have tried to tell this rich story with as much accuracy and narrative drama as the historical record allows.