Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Author’s Note

       Prologue

EARLY 1941

  1.  “It Is Natural that Men Should Value the Original Documents”

1776

  2.  “We Hold These Truths…”

  3.  “The Unanimous Declaration”

1941

  4.  “The Preservation of National Morale”

1787–1791

  5.  “Suspended upon a Single Hair”

  6.  “Our Doors Will Be Shut”

  7.  “That a National Government Ought to Be Established”

  8.  “We Are Now at a Full Stop”

  9.  “The People Are the King”

10.  “Approaching So Near to Perfection…”

11.  “Tis Done!… We Have Become a Nation”

1941

12.  “A Place of Greater Safety”

1814

13.  “Take the Best Care of the Books and Papers…”

14.  “Such Destruction—Such Confusion…”

1942

15.  “The Library of Congress Goes to War”

1826–1860

16.  “I Had Flattered Myself that He Would Survive the Summer”

17.  “No Government upon the Earth Is So Safe As Ours”

1942–1943

18.  “Are You Satisfied We Have Taken All Reasonable Precautions?”

19.  “He Loved Peace and He Loved Liberty”

1860–1924

20.  “Four Score and Seven Years Ago…”

21.  “Of the People, by the People, for the People…”

22.  “The Instrument Has Suffered Very Seriously”

23.  “Touch Any Aspect of the Address, and You Touch a Mystery”

1944

24.  “Nothing that Men Have Ever Made Surpasses Them”

1952

25.  “They Are Not Important As Manuscripts, They Are Important As THEMSELVES”

26.  “The National Archives Will Not Forget”

27.  “Symbols of Power that Can Move the World”

       Epilogue

Bibliographic Essay

Acknowledgments

Photographs

Index

Also by Stephen Puleo

About the Author

Copyright