“Symbols of a Power that Can Move the World”
December 15, 1952
No one would ever officially declare it so, but there is little doubt that December 15, 1952, the 161st anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, was the most important day in the history of the National Archives.
Two days after the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution had arrived from the Library of Congress, the nation’s original founding documents were permanently enshrined in their new home in a moving ceremony marked by pageantry, solemnity, military precision, and an inspirational address by President Truman. Fred M. Vinson, chief justice of the United States, presided over the ceremony, which was attended by more than 100 national civic, patriotic, religious, labor, business, educational, and veterans groups.
After introductions and the invocation, the governor of Delaware, Elbert Carvel, stepped to the podium; a black drape covered the Charters of Freedom in the shrine behind him. Delaware had been the first state to ratify the Constitution; thus, he had the honor of leading the roll call of states. One by one their names were called, in the order in which they had ratified the Constitution or were admitted to the Union. As each state was called, a servicewoman carrying the state’s flag entered the exhibition hall and remained at attention as they circled the hall.
With the flags held high, President Truman delivered the main address, the Charters behind him, still draped, when he began speaking at 10:30 a.m. “The Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are now assembled in one place for display and safekeeping,” he said. “Here, so far as humanly possible, they will be protected from disaster and from the ravages of time.” The speech was one of Truman’s last official acts as president—Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had been elected in November, would take office in 1953—and the president rose to the occasion. Truman captured the seriousness and significance of the moment, the responsibility that had been placed in the hands of those responsible for the documents’ safety and security, and the meaning of those documents in the nation’s past, present, and future. “We venerate these documents not because they are old, not because they are valuable historical relics,” Truman said, “but because they still have meaning to us.”
The Bill of Rights, he noted, was “the only document in the world that protects the citizen against his Government,” and 161 years after the first ten amendments to the Constitution were adopted, they still were “pointing the way to greater freedom and greater opportunities for human happiness.” The Constitution set forth “our idea of government,” and it was paired with the Declaration of Independence, which “expresses our idea of man.” The core principles were clear and simple: “We believe that man should be free. And these documents establish a system under which men can be free and set up a framework to protect and expand that freedom.”
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TRUMAN DETAILED THE DISPLAY and storage measures that the National Archives would undertake, “every device that modern science has invented to protect and preserve them.” The hall had been constructed to exhibit the documents, the vault beneath to protect them, and from their glass cases, “we have excluded everything that might harm them, even the air itself.” Such efforts were honorable, President Truman said, and something in which America could take pride.
But all the efforts were for naught if the Declaration and the Constitution were enshrined only in the archives building and nowhere else. If that were the case, then the enshrining ceremony would be little more than a “magnificent burial,” the documents “no better than mummies in glass cases … that could in time become idols whose worship would be a grim mockery of true faith.”
No, Truman warned, Americans could not allow such a fate for its founding documents. “The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence can live only as long as they are enshrined in our hearts and minds,” Truman declared. Only under these circumstances “can they remain symbols of a power that can move the world.” Indeed, he added, it may be hard to believe that liberty could ever be lost in America, “but it can be lost, and it will be, if the time ever comes when these documents are regarded not as the supreme expression of our profound belief, but merely as curiosities in glass cases.”
The current generation, the president added, needed to be the stewards of freedom, responsible for preserving and extending “popular liberty.” Whether they would do so was a “very serious” and “very old” question. “The men who signed the Declaration faced it,” he said. “So did those who wrote the Constitution. But each succeeding generation has faced it and so far each succeeding generation has answered it in the affirmative. I am sure that our generation will give the same affirmative answer.”
What America was accomplishing today, Truman asserted, was “placing before the eyes of many generations to come the symbols of a living faith.” And then: “Like the sight of the flag in the ‘dawn’s early light,’ the sight of these symbols will lift up their hearts, so they will go out of this building helped and strengthened and inspired.”
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WHEN TRUMAN HAD FINISHED, Senator Theodore Green, whose committee had approved the transfer, traced the history of the documents. When he had finished, Wayne Grover and Luther Evans, appropriately enough, parted the drapes. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were unveiled, finally exhibited together in one place. The audience responded with enthusiastic applause.
Chief Justice Vinson offered a few closing remarks, the House chaplain gave the benediction, and the U.S. Marine Corps Orchestra played its rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” President Truman was escorted out, and the forty-eight flag bearers marched out of the rotunda behind him.
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AS THE GUESTS FILED OUT, as their eyes caught sight of the three engrossed documents now on display, did any of them consider how the precious parchments had come to be, how they had endured, and what they meant to America’s present and future?
Did any know about Caesar Rodney’s midnight ride from Dover to Philadelphia on the eve of the independence vote in 1776? Or John Adams’s courage and indefatigable insistence that declaring independence was the colonies’ only hope to live as free men? Or Jefferson’s magnificent and timeless draft that defined the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, concepts that had become seared into America’s consciousness and national identity?
Did the 1952 audience pause and wonder about Timothy Matlack’s laborious effort to engross the Declaration with the flourish, dignity, panache, and gravitas befitting the nation’s founding document?
Did they wonder about the anxiety the signers felt as they queued up on August 2, 1776, to ink their names on a parchment that the British Crown viewed as treasonous?
As the crowd exited the National Archives rotunda in 1952, did the Constitutional Convention of 1787 enter their minds? Had they studied in high school history class the story of the “miracle” in Philadelphia that occurred during the most inspirational summer in American history, and did they call those lessons to mind now?
Perhaps they knew of James Madison’s bold and imaginative vision, his relentless energy, and his meticulous record keeping that gave us our most complete account of the creation of the Constitution. Perhaps they had read about the quiet, dignified, and masterful leadership of George Washington, the wisdom of Franklin, or the poetry of Gouverneur Morris as he proclaimed to the world that the Federal Convention was speaking on behalf of “we the people.” And what of the dissenters—George Mason and Patrick Henry, among others—whose vociferous objections eventually led to the adoption of the Bill of Rights, which President Truman had proclaimed moments earlier as the most important document of all?
Did the 1952 audience wonder about those who took extraordinary measures to save the documents now ensconced in their permanent shrines or protect the records that brought the documents to life? Of Stephen Pleasonton’s quick action to remove the Declaration and the Constitution to a farmhouse in Virginia just before the British burned Washington? Of Dolley Madison’s courageous vigil in the White House before escaping with her husband’s notes of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and other important papers? Did any recall the recently revealed accounts of Archibald MacLeish’s leadership to protect the documents during World War II and Harry Neal’s steady hand in ensuring that the parchments arrived at Fort Knox safely? Or the effort required to relocate and to protect from potential enemy attack 5,000 additional boxes of documents that collectively contained the essence of America’s history?
And what of the man who had virtually single-handedly reinvigorated and redefined the Declaration, the Constitution, and the promise of equality in America more than eighty years after the new nation declared independence? Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was not part of the enshrinement ceremony at the National Archives on this day in 1952; because his two-minute address was never engrossed, its lack of calligraphic flourish likely prevented it from being displayed in a magnificent shrine. It was still one of the most prized possessions of the Library of Congress. But did any thoughtful members of the crowd departing the National Archives ponder Lincoln’s love for and reliance on the Declaration and the Constitution for his guidance and inspiration? Or consider the Gettysburg Address’s connection to the founding documents, its contribution to the ongoing struggle for American liberty, and its spawning of a second American revolution that would broaden forever those included in the proposition that all men were created equal?
Maybe all of this would be too much to ask of the audience exiting the National Archives in December 1952. Current events may have assumed more prominence in their minds: Americans were still fighting in Korea, a World War II hero had been elected president in November, and Christmas was just a few days away.
It was enough, perhaps, that President Truman’s ringing speech in the rotunda had impressed and moved them, that the roll call of states and the flag-bearing servicewomen had signified the intense importance of the moment, and that the parting of the drape and uncovering of the documents by Luther Evans and Wayne Grover had captured the dramatic essence of an unprecedented event.
But as the departing crowd recounted the ceremony, glanced once more at the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, it would not be too much to ask whether they had read the inscription on the inside page of their program booklet. This one simple sentence would have helped them grasp how 1776, 1787, 1814, 1826, 1863, 1941, and virtually every other year in American history linked to the historic 1952 enshrinement ceremony, and even more important, how the Declaration and the Constitution linked to their own lives, their own liberty, their own sacred honor—and the ongoing fortunes of the United States of America.
The inscription read simply:
“The heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future.”