Michael Auslin on National Treasure

From the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, this is We The People. [Music] I'm Tom Donnelly, a law professor at the University of Richmond and lead scholar at this wonderful institution. The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people. In this episode, Michael Osslin of Stanford University joins to discuss his new book, "National Treasure," "How the Declaration of Independence Made America," which is a sweeping and vivid history of the Declaration of Independence from its drafting to its enduring role in American life today. Tracing the remarkable journey of this iconic document from a Philadelphia boarding house to wartime hiding places and its place as a national symbol, Osslin explores how its ideals of liberty and equality have inspired generations of Americans and continue to shape the American experiment. Misha, thank you so much for joining us here. Thank you for having me, Tom. So let's begin just with the genesis of your book. There's obviously a ton of books on the Declaration of Independence. What inspired you to write this one? Well, the truth is that I was doing a different study, a different project on the history of Washington, DC, and I was down at the archives to learn about its history in terms of urban history. It's an important building and an important part of the city, federal triangle. I was talking with the then archivist and she's telling me all these stories about the Declaration. I realized I didn't know anything. So I thought I'd go buy a book on the Declaration and when I got to the bookstore, there wasn't one and there wasn't one that I wanted to read. And I did a little bit of due diligence and found out that there had actually been no general history of the Declaration. It's whole life span written. There have been other books, lots of wonderful books on the philosophy and the symbolism theory, I'm sure we'll talk about some of that, but something that really talked about. Essentially, the history of America through the document or the relationship of Americans to the Declaration through our history, something, you know, honestly I wanted my parents to read. It wasn't there and I realized we were about two years out from the semi-quinsentennial. Before I knew it, I was off to the races. I mean, one of the things that I love about your book and we're going to dig into it in some detail in our discussion, hopefully, is its focus on the physical object of the Declaration of Independence. And you know, as a kid, I remember buying one of those crinkly copies of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives and I cherished it. Now I have kids. They similarly, I think at Monticello, we bought some of them, they cherished it as well. Can you talk a little bit about your decision to focus on that and sort of the importance of the Declaration as physical parchment? Yeah, that is a huge part of the book. Yeah, I actually started off because I was at the National Archives. I thought I was going to do a quick and dirty book on just the parchment, why it survived for 250 years. And you know, when you go, and if you live in Washington, you're sort of privileged, you can drop in anytime you want, right? And when you go and at one level, we take it for granted. It's there, but at another level, this question is always in the back of my head. What did this thing survive? And so I was just going to do a quick book on that, you know, why you know, sort of talk about the things that the conservators talk about and the archivists talk about. And it's an incredible adventure story. I mean, by all rights, it shouldn't, it shouldn't exist. We should be in essence, celebrating an empty shrine because the thing should have been either burned or torn or stolen or or there's, and I go through all of this in the book, all the sort of near runs. You know, if the document is like a cat and it has nine lives, it's gone through at least four of them by now. And it is so it's really an incredible adventure and an incredible scientific story. How do you preserve a quarter millennial old piece of animal skin? And so that all of us and our children and hopefully our grandchildren and their grandchildren can see it. And so that's part of the book. Another part, which also gets to your question, is that the declaration, and these are two of the three lives that I discussed in the book has taken on this unique cultural role, this cultural object. And you mentioned the crinkly copies that we put on our walls. I had one my son as one. And we do that with really no other document. And what I say we do it, I mean, we've been doing it for 200 years that we've been making and selling these artistic reproductions, these paintings of the document, the faithful facts, similarly sometimes, you know, it's, it's really kitschy stuff like it's a, you know, a print of the document on a t shirt or a medallion or a scarf. But I think it plays a crucial role in keeping the declaration in front of our, in front of us in front of our eyes in our hearts and our minds, its words on our lips, that it becomes part of our lives when you're a kid and you put it up in your bedroom. It's it links you not only to that moment, which is critical and crucial, but it actually links you to all these generations of Americans who did the same thing. And I go through that in the book and I talk about at different points in our history, what was available, how it was sold, how it was distributed, who, you know, who was putting it up on their walls and the like. I think that's a wonderful, to me, it's a very humanizing element of the document, right? You can go look at it, it's incredible, eternal, universal philosophy, you can go look at it sort of statically sitting there in the, in the archives, but it has a very, if I can put it this way, human history. And, and I think that the way that we've made it, part of our cultural inheritance has helped humanize it. Absolutely. And I mean, maybe let's begin digging into some of that history of the document and maybe just begin in the most natural place of all and rewind back to 1776. You know, one of the throughout your book, you recurrently try to take on certain myths about the Declaration of Independence, things that we think we know, but in fact are not true. And, you know, one of those is, you know, persistent myths surrounding July 4th itself. So maybe, you know, take us back there and give us a sense of, you know, what we know now about, you know, the timeline of sort of the framing approval and importantly, finally, the signing, that physical signing, that memorable part of the Declaration of Independence. Yeah, I mean, when you go and you look at the document today, right, right on the top and one of the very few things you can still read says in Congress July 4th. And so everyone thinks that this parchment was adopted, written out and signed on July 4th. And of course, it wasn't. It was actually independent self was declared two days earlier July 2nd. That was the day that most Congress members thought would be critical and important. And then the actual parchment that we consider now the official declaration wasn't even written out and signed until starting in August, it was it was a month later because you know, they were doing other things they were busy. So there's all these myths that have grown up about when it was signed, you know, who wrote it, what were the influences, was there an original copy that was signed on July 4th. And this was a later copy. The scholars have gotten all into you know, trying to figure out the sort of mysteries. It's a little bit, you know, like the movie national treasure is there a mystery connected with the Declaration and even some of the founders thought that very quickly July 4th becomes the day, right becomes the day when Americans celebrate independence, i.e. thinking this was the day that we declared independence. Also the day that they think this document was signed and was was made was made official later in life, even Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Ben Franklin all said yes, we signed the document on July 4th. And of course, that wasn't the case, but very quickly the record the official record of the Congress showed or stated that it was signed on July 4th. And one of the founders I talk about him is somewhat irassable delawareian named Thomas McKean would write these letters later in life to people saying somebody's lying there's a conspiracy here they've changed the date they changed history. And it's really amazing how much they cared about it, but I think that goes to the point that the document was becoming this iconic element of American history, which for its first 50 years it really wasn't almost 50 years. It was largely ignored because it had done its job and then we moved on we moved on to first of all winning the war and then we moved on to the articles of confederation which failed and then we moved on to the constitution. The declaration really was not a major part of American life until starting after the war of 1812 and that's when these debates between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who's really responsible whose thoughts are important or not. And of course Adams is saying Jefferson didn't do anything original and Jefferson's actually saying you know what he's right, but don't take away from what I did do. But all of that is happening at this later period when at that point in time now the declaration is becoming seen by Americans as the statement of their birthright which it really hadn't been for for at least four decades. And so just thinking about the declaration, you know itself, you know I definitely want to talk more about the history physically of the document, but you know when we think about the declaration and its message, you suggest there's important things that it can teach us and you know one of those is in a way the most basic which is you know as we're celebrating America 250 just reflecting on why we declared independence at all why we created this new nation. just in taking the declaration itself as a document, what can we learn about the relative role of big principles on the one hand, so what you would find in the preamble of the declaration, versus what you emphasize a lot, which is also what we can learn from the grievances, which mattered so much to the revolutionary generation, and often slips away from public memory today. - It's fascinating, you're exactly right. The things that we take as most important today, which is not to say that they are not the most important today, but the things we take most important, the preamble, we told these, Tuesdays to be self-evident, all men are created equal, and then the famous concluding lines, and we pledge to each other our lives or for a generous sacred honor, none of that was considered nearly as important back in the day. It was sort of window dressing. What was important were the 27 charges against King George and the unnamed Parliament, because that was the justification for what had already happened, right? The declaration itself wasn't a plea for rights, because the colonists and the leaders, signers, founding fathers all thought these were our rights that are being taken away number one. They believed that this was a defense of a way of life that was threatened, not that they were trying to create a new world, as Thomas Payne said, they were trying to preserve their old world, and of course, the declaration itself wasn't a statement that we now declare ourselves free in this sense, because that had already happened. This was the legal case for why the action of July 2nd had been taken, and so these charges, which Jefferson certainly took some liberties with. They, some of them were overwrought. Congress toned down a lot of them, took out some, of course, the famous condemnation of the slave trade, as well as a personal condemnation of the British people. They tightened up the document. These were the things that were seen as so critical, but over time, our understanding, our relationship to the document changed so that the preamble, particularly, as you get to Abraham Lincoln, becomes the universal and eternal justification of this document. What I think is, at least, to be honest, what I learned for myself, and the way I came to think of it over time, is that so traditionally the historians or political scientists remember, have looked at the decoration in one of two ways. They've looked at it in terms of the equality claim, all men are created equal, and the liberty claim, consent of the governed, and the fact that we have a right to be free and independent. And of course, that's correct. And to Jefferson and the signers, those were two sides of the same point. To them, you couldn't have liberty if somewhere unfree. And this was liberty. We need to remember, in terms of inequality, in terms of a political environment, the liberty is to act equally within a political community, which is why, of course, it does not address everyone in the colonies at the time. The greatness of the document is that later, it encompasses all of those, and all of those groups appeal to the document in a way that signers initially either could not or would not entertain. But there's often been sort of a tension between the two. If you give everyone liberty, you may take away the equality of some to act in ways that they feel make them equal because you're ensuring liberty. And of course, if you ensure equality, you may impinge on liberty of others. That's been a debate that has gone on. Back and forth, I would say for us, probably since the Civil Rights Movement in particular, we've seen the document as an equality document. It's certainly how, when you actually read Martin Luther King's words, he's very clear that equality is a means to an end. And that end is liberty, and he is quoting from the document in that way. But what I came to understand, at least in my own way of approaching the document, is that as important and true as both the liberty and equality claims are, over them, I see another feature of the document, another claim. And that is a unity claim, that this is really our great statement of unity as Americans. That in fact, if you read it, the very first line says, when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to declare independence. Jefferson originally wrote eight people. And most likely, we believe it was Ben Franklin, and he changed that to one people. But he didn't write that it becomes necessary for 13 colonies to declare independence, or a country to declare independence. He says, ultimately, one people to declare independence. I think from the beginning, the message of the declaration, and that's the message for today to go back to your question, is one of unity. And it's why, by the way, near the end, the signers pledge to each other, their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. They didn't pledge it to the new country. They didn't pledge it to their sovereign states. They pledged it to each other. And so I think from the beginning, there was a message of civic unity and civic assimilation. And that's what I believe remains incredibly relevant for us today. And I mean, you've already gestured towards this in our conversation, but at 250 years, as an American today, looking at the declaration of independence, how much should we look at it as Thomas Jefferson's document, versus Adams Franklin, versus the committees, versus Congress? Obviously, this is like the eternal debate that Jefferson and Adams themselves couldn't resolve. But certainly curious, having now studied it and written this book, sort of how you think about that 250 years later. That's a great question. Pauline Mayer's wonderful book, American Scripture, which was 30, it's about 30 years old now, which was responding to Gary Will's book on Jefferson. And then Will's was responding to Carl Becker's book in 1926, which basically said it was all John Locke that inspired Jefferson. And Will says, it's not John Locke. It's really this Scottish enlightenment. And then Mayer comes along and says, you know what, it's really the American mind that it's these 90 different declarations that have been occurring happening at different times and places. And of course, Jefferson himself says, this is meant to be an expression of the American mind. And there's no question, look, he's influenced by the Bible because they all were influenced by the Bible and influenced by concepts of natural rights. He's influenced by George Mason's Virginia Bill of Rights. He basically takes that opening life liberty and happiness. And you know, he changes it, he condenses it. He's influenced by the English Bill of Rights. He's influenced, of course, by his own set of charges in the draft constitution of Virginia. But there were all these other statements that had been coming out. John Adams points it out. He says, look, this was nothing that hasn't been said for the past five years or so, including in the 1772 Boston pamphlet. I'm in Boston right now. So they still talk about the Boston pamphlet. You know, Collins have a right to life, liberty, property, happiness, and so on. And so forth. And that can be traced back to the early 1700s. The Reverend John Wise basically says the same thing. So at one level, Jefferson says, look, I didn't mean to write anything new. And what he means by that is that if he had written something new, it would not have resonated and appealed through Americans in the way that arguments that they had already been having, whether it was pulpit preachers or street rabble rousers, like, you know, Tom Payne or Sam Adams and the like, all of this was to bring it to fruition. But the words and the genius ultimately were Jefferson's. They were edited. They were they were tightened. They were made a little bit better. But I think at the end of the day, you have to say that if Jefferson had been sick or not put on the committee or refused the commission of drafting it. And let's say John Adams had done it. We would have had an incredibly powerful, legally extraordinarily strong document that may not, maybe likely not, would have had the same emotional appeal, both at the time but particularly afterwards. It's the enduring power of Jefferson's words that allowed it to be appealed to by Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony and immigrants at the turn of the 20th century all the way to today. - Now, I could discuss the declaration conceptually and theoretically for days. But I'd love to turn to the adventure story that you talked about, sort of the story of the physical parchment and, you know, what more broadly your story of the Declaration of Independence's Rowland Civic Life throughout American history and maybe beginning with the American Revolution itself, you sort of tell this extraordinary, the beginning of the story in many ways for the physical declaration is that December 1776 of Charles Thompson sort of packing it away, maybe crumpling it, maybe talk about, you know, what happened to the Declaration of Independence, the parchment itself through the Revolutionary War? It did a lot of traveling. - Yeah, I mean, so again, we think of it first of all as, you know, as the, as I call it, the national treasure, the icon, especially if you're old enough to remember the old National Archives set up before 2001 when it was taken down. So, you know, about 25 years ago, it was up on the back of the world. in the shrine of the wall, you know, it was a center alter there above the constitution. The power was extraordinary. So, you know, we think of it, you know, in those terms, a secular 10 commandments, so to speak. You know, back in 1776, this was an administrative paper. It was a task that had to be done. Now, it was also secret. It was a state secret, right? Nobody knew for over six months, we'd actually signed the document because the original printings, these broadside lock texts done by John Dunlap on the night of July 4th, 1776, and then copied throughout the colonies. The states didn't have any names on it except John Hancock, who was the president of Congress. And Charles Thompson was a very powerful and unfortunately unknown secretary of the Congress. The actual parchment, once it was written out by Timothy Matlab, inscribed, and then signed starting in August, almost no Americans knew of. Because again, this was secret. So, it's rolled up. It's carried around with Congress. They're fleeing the British. So, nobody's thinking, you know, are we going to display this or how do we preserve it for eternity? They're like rolling everything up, throwing it into chests or bags and putting it on the carts. They're rushing away from the British down to Baltimore. They're in different parts of Philadelphia. They're in New Jersey. They're doing it in all sorts of different weather and parchment, of course, is still a living material. And so, it's contracting, it's expanding with heat and humidity and cold, and almost from the beginning. The toll is being taken in a way that today would horrify us. But back then was sheer necessity. Even after the war, even when it's no longer at risk of capture, as either a war prize or to be destroyed, government isn't settled until 1800. And quite frankly, even after that in Washington, D.C., we don't have permanent buildings. So, it's being moved constantly from building to building with all of these other papers. They're just throwing it into chests. They're putting it up in attics. These are crowded buildings. They're temporary buildings. It rests in New York for about five years. But again, nobody has an idea that we should really treat this in a special way. And even if they did, they didn't know how to do it. So, the parchment by the early 1800s is already very worn. Then it becomes popular. It becomes popular because it survives by the skin of its teeth being destroyed when the British burn Washington in August of 1814. It escapes the British by less than 24 hours. And by the way, it's thrown into a linen sack. It's carted up into the Virginia countryside and thrown on the floor, a cellar, a brick cellar of this empty house and left there for weeks unattended. Because they didn't want the British to sort of figure out where the important papers were, declaration, constitution and others. I mean, the, and that's in the middle of a Washington human summer. So, the toll on the documents incredible. Then the story gets out that this document, which most Americans didn't even know existed, had survived. Now people want to see it. And it's a very informal world back then. If you knew the secretary of state who held the document or you could get to the secretary of state, you just asked him and he'd unrolled the document for you. So, it's being rolled and unrolled. You don't know how many times, but enough so that it's actually commented on that we're unrolling it, unrolling it all the time. So, finally, in 1841, Secretary of State Daniel Webster, the great Daniel Webster, once in future Senator from Massachusetts, decides that he is going to send it to the new old, when I called the old. It's now called the old, but it was the new patent office. We now called the old patent office. It's a National Portrait Gallery in Washington, where there is a museum. It's the forerunner of the Smithsonian. And it's a museum that has 5,000 different objects, but they now decide they're going to hang it in a frame for everyone to see. And this is the first time that a critical historical artifact document in a paper of state was ever displayed. So, they didn't know what they were doing. So, they basically tied it to a frame. They put holes in the document and tied it with twine to a frame. And then hung it up, as is often said, in the sunlight. I mean, when you go there and you look, it's not actually in the sunlight, but it would have been reflected sunlight in a lot of light, which wasn't good for it. And so, even when they were doing what they thought was best, get it away from you being rolled and unrolled, put it up away. So, nobody can touch it and put it up in a frame for people to see. It's also damaging the document. So, really, the truth is that it's a miracle that this thing survived all these years until really 1951 is the first time that true scientific conservation could be brought to it. Preservation could be brought to it. And during World War II, when it was secretly rushed out of Washington and hidden in Fort Knox, was the first time that actual conservators from Harvard's Art Gallery, Art Museum, could actually get down to help repair the document. Because by that time, it was cracking, the corners were separating, there were holes in the document. It was in really bad shape. And so, not until the 1940s and 1950s, almost 200 years after it was signed, could you actually begin to start preserving it from all this damage, conserving it, repairing it, and protecting it from the hand of time? So much to dig into there in that history. And, you know, there is this interest, I love sort of the public viewing. There's from the attic to public view story, which you've sort of laid out in that response, which is totally fascinating. There's the conservation story, which sort of similarly, an absolutely fascinating story. There's also beginning between the War of 1812, up to, as you say, Daniel Webster, having the first public front shrine really created for the Declaration. There's sort of the rise of the Declaration in popular culture, as you note. And we think here of the John famous John Trumbull painting, which I used to look at at the Yale Art Gallery, what I was in law school and feeling particularly romantic and poetic. Or, you know, you say, you know, the Philly printer, John Binness, and others trying to create a, you know, a version of the Declaration that can be seen in homes, in public spaces. You know, maybe talk about, you know, some of that antebellum story, sort of the rise of the Declaration as cultural artifact, cultural symbol. Absolutely. It's a big part of the book. I love that part of the Declaration, as I said before. I think it really helps humanize it. And it's the perfect marriage of civics and commerce. You know, Trumbull paints this magnificent painting, which is not Congress voting or declaring independence, but it's actually, or Declaration. It's actually the date when Jefferson gives it to the Congress. It's a completely mythologized view because it doesn't happen in all that way. And of course, it was done by the way at Thomas Jefferson's suggestion, which of course makes him the central, the central figure in this, but we're shunned at him, so like, but when Trumbull does this, he's doing it because it's going to make him money and it makes him a lot of money. It makes him thousands upon thousands of dollars, which is real money back then, right? And he immediately works with an engraver to sell high quality engravings of this to subscribers. And then they do cheap engravings of it. Same thing with these, they're called facsimileist, but what they really are, are artistic representations of the document that have lots of artistic flourishes around them. The first guy to propose it is John Bins, but he wants to do such a complicated one that he's actually beaten by someone else called Benjamin Owen Tyler, who comes up with his own. Both of them very faithfully reproduce the signatures, which fascinates Americans because remember, again, nobody had seen the original document. So suddenly they see the signatures of the signers and this to them is a revelation, but they actually text famously that what's today a famous text is not very well reproduced, but again, they're making subscriptions to sell these things. But they say, you know, on the one hand, we're going to make money. But on the other hand, they say, look, this is your birthright. This is where your freedom comes from. Put it up on your wall. Tell your children to read it. And to me, it's a very American thing to do. And I love the story. And this starts off this industry of representations, whether purely artistic like Trumble or sort of documentary representations, we might call it, of people like Bins and Tyler. Through the 19th century, there are over 100 different types of artistic representations of the declaration, where they vary the print. They sometimes use it to make pictures like a portrait of George Washington. They're doing it for the centennial. They're also just selling straight up merch. They're putting it on medallions or putting it on scarves. It's incredibly, you know, popular and profitable industry. The day when you look at the declaration, you mentioned that printfully copy. When you look at that or any reproduction of the engrossed handwritten declaration, it comes from what's called the Stone engraving, which was commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1821. It takes three years to do it, or 1820, 1823, dug by an engraver named William Stone. And Adams, you know, in this very far-sighted way, says, and we're only at the 45th anniversary, the document is fading and disappearing. essentially says we're not going to have it in another generation. So what's the best thing we can do? Well, we can make we can do the equivalent of taking a high resolution photograph of it a high resolution scan, which is an essence what they do it turns out that actually harms the document more because it lifts off some of the ink in order to to transfer it to a copper plate. But this is what we see today and without it, we really would have a very limited idea of the beautiful calligraphy of Timothy Mattlack and the sort of the sort of boldness and grandeur of the document itself and everything that that's printed when you buy these crinkly copies these antique copies. It's coming from that or you even if you buy a high quality one, it's coming from that. And by the way, if you're in Washington, DC this summer, which I highly encourage everyone to go, you're going to see two incredible things. Well, one is going to be a permanent exhibit now at the National Archives as part of their American story exhibit that original William Stone copper plate, the engraved copper plate itself is on display and they've cleaned it up. It's beautiful. So you can see it. And right next to it, David Rubenstein donated one of his original stone copies that were struck from the copper plate on parchment. So you see these two things together. You should definitely go and see that. But in addition, if you go to the Library of Congress starting in July, you will be able to see Thomas Jefferson's handwritten rough draft, which hasn't been shown in public for like 50 years. It was shown in the at the bison teniel. I don't really I haven't found that it's been shown after that, but it's being shown now. So you'll be able to see Thomas Jefferson's own handwritten hand notated hand edited draft of the Constitution. And then you can go over to the National Archives, of course, see the engrossed declaration, but see that the stone print and right now in their new free and independent exhibit that just opened up in the National Archives. They have not only a John Dunlap broadside printed on July 4th, but they have the very one that Charles Thompson put into the journals of Congress because he didn't take time to rewrite it. In fact, we don't have that original final copy of the declaration that Congress approved it disappeared when it went to the printing house. So what he did instead of rewriting what the actual declaration was, they took what what John Dunlap printed and they wafered it into the decorate to the journals of Congress. And that's the one that you can actually see. So there's a lot of things to see that are part of this, you know, this material history and this cultural history of the declaration. You know, at another key legacy of the declaration you raised at the beginning of this conversation was the ability of future generations and new groups to lay claim to the broad promise of the declaration, these really broad principles. And we, you know, as you note in your book, we see a lot of this happening from the very beginning of American history leading all the way up to the Civil War. And so we see key abolitionist voices, you know, going, you know, all the way from James Forten of Philadelphia, you know, up through Frederick Douglass and beyond. We see the suffragists with Elizabeth Katie Stanton and the Declaration of Sentiments and then later Susan Bianthony and many of their, you know, colleagues pushing for women's suffrage drawing on the principles of the declaration. Maybe talk a little about, you know, that part of the declaration story as part of American civic life. I think that that is the greatness of the document. It's it's capaciousness that what what we might call 18th century silences could later be filled in. That you know, of course, we know that that the founding fathers, even the slaveholders among them, almost all of them deplored the practice. They didn't know how to get rid of it. They couldn't get rid of it, but they they deplored it. They wrote about it extensively, Thomas Jefferson among, you know, among them writing about the sleeping serpent that is waiting to strike and you know the American he fears for the future of America, but they can't square the circle. Certainly, you know, women are not included, you know, in terms of the political pressing and because it is a, it's not a governing document, but it is a political document who will have rights in this community, you know, as they're expressing their rights as as Englishman and, you know, British Americans. But that's not where it stops. And so very early on it becomes appealed to as you mentioned some of the abolitionists, David Walker as well who says you are not living up, you know, to what your father's wrote and of course they didn't live up to it either Frederick Douglass, you know, what to the slave is the fourth of July's famous oration where he says, but he doesn't despair because of the declaration of independence. The women's suffragists, you mentioned Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony, you know, explicitly patterning their own claim for equality on the document socialist groups doing the same thing. You know, these are pre Soviet, you know, pre even marks, our marks socialist groups, these are very early sort of socialists, you told me in saying, you know, you've forgotten about the agricultural worker, you've forgotten about the sort of nascent industrial worker and that continues up well into the industrialized period. These, you know, what are their rights and freedoms in this system as well everyone is appealing the temperance movement, everyone's appealing to it. That I think is the greatness of the document, but it's also why I stated before I think it's our great unity document. No one of all of these groups that we've just mentioned is using the document to separate from the country to say we don't want to be part of it. It's just the opposite. They're using the document to become fully Americans in their view to claim the rights that they believe are theirs just as the colonists were trying to preserve the rights that they thought were theirs. This wasn't to separate or have ethnic or racial or or gendered or or economic enclaves. It was to say everyone has a claim on these promises to be an American, of course, you know, in the 20th century, Dr. Martin Luther King calls it the promissory note that still needed to be fully lived up to. But that's why I think it is our great statement of unity. It is it is appealed to by all these groups. And it's also of course one group in particular that appeals to it not for unity and that is that is the Confederate south, but that also to me shows the power of the document because they latch on to what in 1776 may have been the most important claim. The all men are created equal claim was a was a lead in to the to the broader claim that government can only rest on consent of the government. The government is withdrawn then the government is not legitimate and they have every right to create a new government. That's what the colonists were saying in 1776 and that's what the Confederates are saying in 1860 1861 and even northern newspapers are agreeing with them and I quote some of them that say that the South is right. If the consent of the government is not there, they have a way to a right to withdraw. They must do it peacefully, however, and that of course was the love it couldn't be done peacefully and so we get into the war. That understanding of the document is essentially altered by the civil war. You know, Lincoln's claim to preserve the union is that that takes precedence over this illegitimate consent of the government. Why is it illegitimate because it is this is where the competing claims come in because it is denying equality and equality is at the heart of the document in Lincoln's in Lincoln's interpretation. It's what he calls the apple of gold. And so for the South, it is a you know, and I find it very it's very you know it's tragic it's it's it's compelling what happens. You know, it's of course still our greatest tragedy. One that who scars we live with, but their understanding of the document is refuted thoroughly and bloodily in the civil war. And so for those in the South who appeal to the dog and they have their own declarations of independence at the time of secession in 1865 and onward they now must come to a new engagement and understanding of the document and that that's a powerful part of American history but Lincoln's interpretation. That this is a document of equality and that equality is what ensures liberty is the one that dominates American history from that moment forward and it's and it's what in many ways makes the civil rights movement possible why there is so much appeal. Back to Lincoln in the civil rights movement because of what he states is the proper reading of the document and and it you know it is it is still fairy moving and very powerful to read Lincoln's words and understand that when in 1861. On the way to his inauguration he stops in Philadelphia at Independence Hall and says I would rather be assassinated that give up these principles and then we know that he is assassinated for living up to the principles of the declaration and not surrendering them in a way that many northerners actually were willing to surrender let the South go let the country split apart these are two reconcilable systems. And Lincoln says no, they're not. So it is. It is extraordinarily powerful, I think. - Absolutely. And I mean, as you note in your book, Lincoln had been reflecting on the nature of the founding, all the way beginning with his earliest public speech in his 20s, which is astounding me. He was so young when he gave his Lyceum address, but thinking about the founding and it's passing from lived experience to public memory as James Madison passes away in the 1830s, Charles Carroll passes away, so we lose our final figure at the constitutional convention and final signer of the Declaration of Independence. And so Lincoln powerfully reflecting on the nature of America's founding principles and how they need to guide us through the pre-civil war period, through the Civil War, and all the way through to Lincoln's assassination and beyond. As we get to the back end of our conversation here, Misha, another key area focus when it comes to the physical parchment that you talk about is sort of this battle over most physical custody of the document. One of my favorite flash points is the centennial of the Declaration of Independence and this battle between Philadelphia and Washington, DC, over who has a rightful claim to the Declaration of Independence, maybe tell that story. - Yeah, it's great. Who owns the Declaration to Weird Question, right? The American people own it, but somebody has to have custody. And so yeah, I'm very into the course, 'cause you know, and CC is a Philadelphia institution and I'm assuming a lot of folks, hopefully from around the country are watching, but probably a decent chunk from Philadelphia. So I don't know if there's still any ill feelings, but in 1876, it is true. The Declaration, the original and gross parchment, after a lot of negotiations is sent back up to Philadelphia, a very prominent Philadelphia in the time Frank Edding, who was the chair of the committee to preserve independence hall to really refurbish it and comes up with this idea, not just, you know, not just, you know, get it back into shape, but actually make it look as if the Continental Congress were still sitting there. That's his idea. He's the first one to sort of come up with this idea, almost of a living history exhibit and the cherry on the top of that for him is bringing the Declaration back for the 1876 centennial. And there's a lot of back and forth. It turns out he does get this with a lot of almost some back room, you know, dealing, gets the Declaration brought back up after 1876. Millions of people come to the centiple, whole chapter on it. Millions of people come up to the Centennial, nine million go see the Centennial Exposition, and though there aren't turn styles, probably a good couple million, at least go to see the Declaration in all the months of the exposition. And then Philadelphia doesn't want to give it back. And there's a good argument. And the argument is it was born here and it should stay here. We have a wonderful space for it. We have a safe and we can keep it in independent soil. And people are going to come to independent soil to see how it looked at the time. And here's going to be the Declaration. So there's a couple of different city councils at the time in Philadelphia that are passing resolutions, saying this, the Philadelphia is keep it for months. At the end of 1877, they haven't returned it. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the Department of the Interior, which has the immediate custody of it because it's been in the old patent office, is now battling with the State Department, which has the formal official custody of it, over who gets it. And the Interior Secretary is saying, well, you know, we've had it for so long. It's really ours. And the State Department is saying, no, it's really ours. And we have a new building, what's today the Eisenhower Executive Office building, that's fireproof and we should be putting it in there. So you've got these different levels, so like three dimensional chests of people fighting over, who gets to control the Declaration? Well, the president is Ulysses S. Grant. And he's having none of this. He doesn't care about any of these arguments. And he orders it to go back to the State Department. So Philadelphia, very quickly, months later, but very quickly once they get this order, sends it back to the Interior Department, who really quickly rushes it over with this very apologetic note to the State Department saying, blame the Philadelphia's. But here it is. Sorry you haven't had it. And it's a crazy story for us to think about today that people are fighting over it, but it happens again. In 1921, the State Department sends it over to the Library of Congress again, because there's a newer, better fireproof building, the new Library of Congress building, which is then it's about 20 years old. The Library has it what they think is in perpetuity, because Congress gives money for a permanent shrine in the Library of Congress. That's the first real shrine, beautiful marble shrine. And by the atomic era, right, after World War II, the Library isn't safe. That's why it was rushed away in World War II, because if Nazi bombers had been able to reach Washington, they felt the Library of Congress won't stand up to it. Now with atomic warfare, it really is not going to be able to protect the Declaration. But back in the 30s, the National Archives building had been built. And when President Herbert Hoover lays the cornerstone, he says, in this building, we'll be our founding documents. The Declaration of Independence in the Constitution. The problem is, isn't the Library of Congress, the incredibly powerful and incredibly long lived, Herbert Putnam has no intention of giving the Declaration back and even Franklin Roosevelt is not going to cross him on this. So they have to wait until he retires, they have to wait until after World War II, but there's still a bit of a struggle. Can the Library give it back? Should it give it back? Does Congress have to order it? Ultimately, it's resolved fairly amicably, but it was uncertain. For a while, would it stay at the Library? Would it go to the National Archives? And in 1952, it's finally enshrined in that beautiful center shrine, what's called the altar of the shrine, for half a century of Americans. And so there is this question, through parts of our history, who owns it? When Charles Thompson had to give it up, Congress owned the document originally. And in 1789, when the State Department was created, there was an order that all papers of state should go to the State Department. Charles Thompson didn't want to give it up, but he ultimately did. But again, I think it goes to this point that the document either personally or communally is so important through our history that people want, in essence, to have control over it, to decide, should it be shown, how it should be shown, how do we celebrate it? And there's great pride among the Library of Congress folks, and among the National Archives people today, of being the custodians of our founding document. One final beat here on the physical parchment before we turn to today, and our closing part of the discussion here, you note that the document, the parchment itself, was in peril during the War of 1812, and it was saved. You have a couple of times a reference World War II, and the danger there, and how it wound up in Fort Knox. And then finally, there's also the danger from 9/11, as well, another time in which the declaration may have been in peril. You've told us about the War of 1812 story, I can't help but ask you to go into a little more detail about World War II and Fort Knox. And then maybe a beat finally on 9/11, and finally just how we get the declaration as we have it now sitting in the altar we have now in the National Archives. Yeah, so it's interesting in World War II, they had been preparing before Pearl Harbor, because it's a new type of war. It's an air war in many cases where they're watching the bombings of cities, even before we get into the war, they're looking at the Blitz and London, they're looking at Coventry and England, and the like. And the idea that you could range a bomber across the ocean is new and terrifying, but the Nazis are trying that they have these really big heavy four-engine bombers. And so even before Pearl Harbor, the Library of Congress Archibald McLean succeeds for Pearl Pudnum, is trying to figure out what are we going to do with our greatest treasures, which at the top of which is the Declaration, but the Constitution, the Journals of the Continental Congress, and by the way, the best copy of England's Magna Carta, which had been sent here for safekeeping precisely because of the air war, because they didn't think they could keep it safely somewhere. So they send it over to the library, which takes custody of it during the war. And they're trying to take-- should we put it in-- there's like trained tunnels underneath Washington DC. Should we put it there? Should we dig a new vault? And finally, they come up with the idea that really the only safest place is going to be Fort Knox, 400 miles into the interior, surrounded by Army Garrison. And so the day after Christmas, 1941, the document is the Constitution, but the Declaration first, and the Constitution, are taken out of the shrine. They are put in very secure boxes wrapped and carefully and then secretly rushed over to Union Station where they're put on a train. And they're written out to Louisville, Kentucky. And from there, they're met. And they're guarded by armed secret service agents on the train. Nobody knows what's in this gigantic crate, but they're in just a sleeper compartment. And then they're met by more armed secret service agents and basically a company of. of army infantrymen and it's driven down to Fort Knox and put into the vault. He's so it's the Declaration of Constitution, Magna Carta and some other things and then other documents are secreted in other parts of the country just you know for safekeeping and is there again that the first real preservation or repair of the document is done it's brought back once during World War 2 and that's for the dedication of the Jefferson Memorial President Franklin Roosevelt really wants it back and so it's actually brought back again in secret there's a great picture in the book of the Marines struggling to carry this incredibly heavy case up the steps you know and Roosevelt does his dedication and then it stays there it stays there for about a week and then again secretly sent back to Fort Knox until October of 1944 and that's finally when it's clear that the Nazis are not going to be able to you know to reach America they're on the ropes more or less and so it's brought back to the Library of Congress so it's an incredible moment now one of my favorite parts is the Cold War story of you know moving it to the to the archives so the archives isn't more a sturdier building but it's still not going to survive an atomic bomb blast directly so what happens is that as they're preparing to move the documents into the archives they build the famous Mosular Vault which is an atomic bomb proof vault underneath the shrine so every night the declaration and the Constitution are lowered into this bomb proof vault the doors closed over and they it's done every single night throughout the entire Cold War and after the Cold War and even to today not today there's a different different set of vaults because it's a different arrangement but this was the the ultimate guarantor so I was not able to find out I talked with folks at the National Archives and we couldn't find any evidence that the declaration and Constitution were lowered into the vault during the Cuban Missile Crisis for the duration which I thought might have been a time that they would have said you know just in case let's get it into I still think it was probably likely but there there there's no record that we found probably need to dig a little bit more to find that that would be one the second of course would have been 9/11 except on 9/11 the documents were already gone they were already in College Park at what's called Archives 2 for preservation the last time anyone touched them was in 2001 it was opened up and they were they were cleaned and repaired a little bit and the entire rotunda was redone as I was mentioning that central shrines for the declaration was taken down it was brought lower on the floor part of it was ADA compliant but also part of it was because it was not good for the declaration to be in this vertical position going up and down it it was a lot of wear and tear on the document going up and down every single night and so today what you have is a very different configuration that is in many ways much more intimate you get much closer to the deck and you get right up to the declaration and in the old days especially if you were a kid you're looking up at this thing it's hard to see but it did have an undeniable power so it's very different today and you know it's it's trade off I missed the old one because again I just think it was this this sort of civic it was it was a civic shrine but today you can't write up as close as you possibly can but in 9/11 they certainly would have you know when the planes tragically were coming into Washington they certainly would have lowered it in the case had it been in the case but it was it was already safely 10 miles away in a different vault in in college park excellent and so as we get to the end of our discussion here Misha I'd love just for your reflections on the declaration today because you know as we've learned you know each generation seems to turn to the declaration of independence to help think through how best to you know address the challenges of its own time and sort of curious you know based on your study of the declaration thinking a ton about it over the last couple years you know how should we think about the declaration today how might americans draw on the declaration its ideas its history in thinking through how best to address the challenges of our own time yeah touch down it a little bit before and I do think it's I do think it's very important I think it's important all the time I think it's particularly important that these anniversaries these anniversaries we have at each anniversary the presidents or or the you know the great speakers of the day have always referred back to the document and encouraged americans to live up to it and so in 1951 president Truman calls for re-dedication to the principles of the declaration and 1976 president Ford does the same thing and I think that's I think that's powerful I mean in I think one of the important reasons to to be very grateful that the parchment itself exists is that first of all I think we need shared symbols we need physical symbols you know all people's do and they have them in other countries and this is one of our central ones if not the central one and it's a time machine in many ways it takes us back to the moment of our founding we can look at that piece of paper so to speak you know in parchment but that that the founding father signed that that you know that john handcock signed and john atoms and and and sam atoms and then franklin and tomas jeferson and and it links us with them and it links us with all those generations that also appealed to it and we've been talking about them whether it's Frederick Douglass or Susie Anthony or immigrants at the turn of the 20th century we're linked with them because we all were reading the declaration we all were translating it we're all were trying to understand it's meaning for today and so I think today as I mentioned briefly what I really think is important is that it is a document of civic unity and civic assimilation that we come together as a people to govern ourselves using a set of principles and a set of of historical tradition and experiences that is based on the spirit of this document that is then translated later into the constitution and the bill of rights and in many ways all of our laws but it begins with the declaration and again it's invocation of one people it's pledging to each other our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor and I think that's incredibly powerful today I hope it's incredibly powerful today and it's the way I wish that we talked about the declaration to two young people and I know you do a lot of that at the National Constitution Center this is our birthright from it flows everything and so I think we should unironically honor it be grateful that the parchment exists honor the principles and honor the fact that it has kept us united even through the civil war and even through these terrible times that we've lived through as a country but its promises are always there and as long as those are there then I think you know we will stay as that one people that Jefferson envisioned. I'll meet you I can't think of a better way to or better note to end our conversation on so for teaching us so much about the Declaration of Independence as it gets ready to turn 250 years old thank you so much for joining us thanks time for having me I appreciate it. This program was streamed live as part of the NCC's Book Club series on May 6th, 2026 this episode was produced and mixed by Bill Pollock with production support from Scott Bomboy and Charles Sam research was provided by Anna Salvatore, Trace Sullivan and Tristan Worsham please recommend we the people to friends colleagues in anyone anywhere who's eager for a weekly dose of constitutional education and debate the promise of America reflections on our enduring ideals as out now wherever books are sold for more information visit constitutioncenter.org/promiseofamerica and as always remember that the National Constitution Center is a private nonpartisan nonprofit and we rely on your generosity, passion and engagement for all of our programming including this podcast please consider donating at constitutioncenter.org/donate on behalf of the National Constitution Center I'm Tom Donnelly.