dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

''OUR FOUNDING DOCUMENTS OUTLINE WHO ARE THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC AND TODAY'S DEMOCRATS FIT THE ENEMIES PROFILE EXACTLY''

Pennsylvania Avenue, the site of countless parades and marches, had never seen a procession quite like this one. On a December Saturday in 1952, uniformed members of all branches of the military lined the street as a military honor guard and armed servicemen escorted an armored personnel carrier from the Library of Congress to the National Archives Building.

No person merited this ceremony. The occupants of the vehicle were two of our nation's most revered documents: the original Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States. They were coming to join the Bill of Rights in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building, where all three would be displayed together for the first time.

Fifty years have now passed since our nation's founding documents came together and became known collectively as the Charters of Freedom. Over the years, tens of millions of visitors have filed past the display cases to see these famous parchments "in person."

Today, these documents are temporarily off display, receiving important conservation treatment, as the Rotunda of the National Archives Building undergoes a major renovation. When it reopens in September 2003, it will feature the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and on permanent display for the first time, all four pages of the Constitution, as well as its Transmittal Page. All seven pages of the Charters will be placed in new state-of-the-art encasements that will preserve them for generations to come.

But where had these documents been before 1952? How were they preserved and handled from the time they were created until 1952? And why was the shrine in the Exhibition Hall of the National Archives Building, which was designed for the exhibit of these documents, empty for almost twenty years?

Declaration of Independence. Our story begins on July 19, 1776, when Congress resolved "that the Declaration passed on the 4th, be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and stile of 'The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America,' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress." Timothy Matlack, an assistant to Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress, did the engrossing (calligraphy with large letters) on a single parchment sheet. A sparse entry in the journal for August 2, 1776, states "the declaration of independence being engrossed and compared was signed."