Speaker 1: Here we are now in the world renowned rotunda of
Speaker 1: the National Archives, where the Charters of Freedom live, or
Speaker 1: in the two fiftieth two and a fiftieth celebration year,
Speaker 1: and I think the word's gotten out.
Speaker 2: This is part of our American DNA. I'm walking into
Speaker 2: the vaults that house America's history. One guards the documents
Speaker 2: that inspired this nation. The other guards the charters of
Speaker 2: freedom that protected And I'm asking a simple question, what
Speaker 2: does it take to preserve the ideas that make a
Speaker 2: nation possible? In Washington, d C. The rotunda at the
Speaker 2: National Archives holds what we call the Charters of Freedom,
Speaker 2: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the.
Speaker 1: Bill of Rights.
Speaker 2: We met up with National Archivist Jim Byron, who is
Speaker 2: helping safeguard the words that shape this nation. Jim, I
Speaker 2: have to confess right away that's sort of a geek
Speaker 2: out alert here being in National Archives as an early
Speaker 2: American historian. Thank you and your staff for your great service,
Speaker 2: especially in this year of America's two fifty. There are
Speaker 2: a lot of people here to see these founding documents.
Speaker 2: I think the audience knows why they're important, but sort
Speaker 2: of high level, why do you think you're almost overrun
Speaker 2: with visitors today.
Speaker 1: We're in the two fiftieth, two hundred fiftieth celebration year,
Speaker 1: and I think the word's gotten out. You know, this
Speaker 1: is the home of the Declaration of Independence. The whole
Speaker 1: foundation that our country was built upon is right here.
Speaker 1: It's one hundred steps that way. It's pretty amazing to
Speaker 1: see people come in from not only all over the
Speaker 1: United States, but but all over the world, and to
Speaker 1: appreciate the impact that the Declaration has had on two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years later.
Speaker 2: You know. Having taught the founding era many, many times,
Speaker 2: more times than I can remember, which is a common
Speaker 2: on my age, I'm always filled with patriotism. Frankly, I'd
Speaker 2: step in here and see so many people, probably most
Speaker 2: of them Americans, but hopefully people from all around the
Speaker 2: world because they're drawn to that timeless document. What is
Speaker 2: it about the history of that the sort of historical
Speaker 2: context that is just timeless in its appeal to the
Speaker 2: human heart.
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of ideas come together in the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence, right, I mean, if another seminal document in
Speaker 1: world history, the Magnet Carta, is here in this building
Speaker 1: as well. Those concepts of individual liberty of participation in
Speaker 1: one's government really sort of formed and fomented with the
Speaker 1: Magne Carta. And then of course you have John Locke
Speaker 1: in sixteen eighty nine, which was a major influence on
Speaker 1: our founding fathers, and again sort of those then philosophical
Speaker 1: concepts of individual liberty and participation in government. Walter Isaacson
Speaker 1: has done a new book called The Greatest Sentence Ever
Speaker 1: Read and short. It's it's only about eighty pages. It's
Speaker 1: well worth I think everyone taking a look at. And
Speaker 1: he writes in there that Benjamin Franklin was heavily influenced
Speaker 1: by a Scottish philosopher called David Hume and goes and
Speaker 1: stays with him in Scotland for a month in seventeen
Speaker 1: forty eight. And it's just so many different ideas from
Speaker 1: different great thinkers and Enlightenment thinkers over the sixteenth, seventeenth,
Speaker 1: and ultimately eighteenth centuries come together in that document, not
Speaker 1: to mention those of Thomas Jefferson, really the principal principal
Speaker 1: writer on the Committee of Five. And it's a masterpiece.
Speaker 1: And I think this year it's very special to be
Speaker 1: here at the National Archives, the home of the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence. To be able to celebrate that and it's
Speaker 1: continued impact on our country.
Speaker 2: The Archives present the founding is something you can see
Speaker 2: with your own eyes. That's the quiet power of the
Speaker 2: Charter of Freedom. The public isn't asked to trust an interpretation.
Speaker 2: The public is invited to look for themselves.
Speaker 1: And the paintings are very interesting. They're actually painted, they're allegorical,
Speaker 1: but they were painted in the nineteen thirties in New
Speaker 1: York City, actually in Grand Central Station. Really yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so this is the presentation of the Constitution to
Speaker 1: George Washington. This is the presentation of the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 1: And you can see Thomas Jefferson, it's principal author.
Speaker 2: Those murals have their own history. The rotunda's monumental canvasses
Speaker 2: were painted to honor the Charters of Freedom and bring
Speaker 2: a sense of reverence to this sacred place. But beyond
Speaker 2: safeguarding the documents, the National Archives has an additional obligation
Speaker 2: of making the very words understandable and in many cases
Speaker 2: legible for younger generations whose education has let's say evolved.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, a lot of students actually have
Speaker 1: issues reading and writing cursive yeah, So what we've done
Speaker 1: is taken you know, Lincoln's handwriting and in many cases
Speaker 1: typed it out as well for people to sure to
Speaker 1: be able to read. So this is George Washington's copy
Speaker 1: of the Constitution in draft form. That amazing, and that's
Speaker 1: his handwriting. Well, this is the first page. And then
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Ideas can be timeless. Paper is not light, oxygen, heat,
Speaker 2: and time itself can erase with the Founders put down.
Speaker 2: When you think about all of those philosophers, and not
Speaker 2: only in the Enlightenment, although they were very important obviously,
Speaker 2: thinking about Hume, Montesquieu, many others, but even going centuries back,
Speaker 2: that one of the great geniuses of Jefferson and the
Speaker 2: people who came together around the Declaration was putting all
Speaker 2: of that together into this singular document that could speak
Speaker 2: not only to the American condition at the time and
Speaker 2: not only the American condition two hundred and fifty years later,
Speaker 2: but to the condition we're all wired to, which is
Speaker 2: toward freedom absolutely and along the way. While those ideas
Speaker 2: have persisted, sometimes there has been challenges in preserving the
Speaker 2: document itself right.
Speaker 1: Sort of the science of this place as well it's.
Speaker 2: Right to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Declaration has had an interesting life over the
Speaker 1: last two hundred and fifty years. Arkaval preservation wasn't necessarily well,
Speaker 1: I should say. The degree to which the document is
Speaker 1: preserved today was certainly not what it was back then.
Speaker 1: Now the Declaration is encased in something called argone ar
Speaker 1: gone gas, which is a natural element. But by sucking
Speaker 1: the oxygen out of the document, it actually keeps it
Speaker 1: in its perfect form, so to speak. It's not going
Speaker 1: to deteriorate. Now. The Declaration itself is far from perfect.
Speaker 1: It was displayed in the White House in the Executive
Speaker 1: Office Building for a long time, and it hung actually
Speaker 1: above a fireplace, so it got smoked out. It has
Speaker 1: traveled all over the United States. It was saved and
Speaker 1: smuggled out of the Capitol during the War of eighteen twelve.
Speaker 1: So it's lived a very interesting life. Today it's the
Speaker 1: job of the National Archives to preserve it, and so
Speaker 1: it's encased in that argonne glass. It doesn't move and
Speaker 1: it's here for everyone to see.
Speaker 2: But the founding record doesn't begin in the rotunda. It
Speaker 2: begins with books and pamphlets passed around before the founding
Speaker 2: documents were made Cannon. To see the intellectual scaffolding, we
Speaker 2: met up with Kevin Butterfield, a director at the Library
Speaker 2: of Congress.
Speaker 1: We're in the Rosenwald Room, Rare Book Special Collections Division
Speaker 1: of the Library of Congress. I want to take you
Speaker 1: down to the founding of the nation. Here we have
Speaker 1: the sort of early settlement, but the founding of the
Speaker 1: nation really I think kicks off in January of seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy six with this pamphlet called Common Sense. Thomas Paine
Speaker 1: wrote this. He's only lived in America for a couple
Speaker 1: of years at this point. He writes a powerfully moving
Speaker 1: argument for independence. You know some of the lines that
Speaker 1: he calls the king the royal brute, and he's a
Speaker 1: great rhetoric in common sense, though powerful rhetoric. And it
Speaker 1: was a sensation that this is a very first printing.
Speaker 1: But I'll actually let you take hold of a slightly
Speaker 1: later printing out of Blancashire. This is a This is
Speaker 1: the original stab stitching from Michael would have been used
Speaker 1: later in seventeen seventy six. And this gives you an
Speaker 1: indication of just how ephemeral these things really were. These
Speaker 1: things were there to be read passed around and in
Speaker 1: some cases, of course bound and beautifully preserved, but in
Speaker 1: most cases not. I mean, what a treat. So do
Speaker 1: you know James Thompson is a Scottish poet here and
Speaker 1: so the one sort of kind of high literary device.
Speaker 1: He pulls a couple of lines out of Thompson's poetry
Speaker 1: from the seventeen forties I think seventy thirties actually, But
Speaker 1: the rest of it is just very ordinary, plain spoken language,
Speaker 1: and that's the power of it. The struggles of seventy six,
Speaker 1: which I think we all have some sense of, but
Speaker 1: it culminates ultimately with the crossing of the Delaware in
Speaker 1: Christmas Day of seventeen seventy six. Just before that, Thomas
Speaker 1: Paine took another stab at writing for the American people,
Speaker 1: this is the American crisis. These are words perhaps even
Speaker 1: more powerful in terms of the rhetorical impact of just
Speaker 1: a handful of sentences than common sense. I think every
Speaker 1: American has heard these things. But I'll read a couple
Speaker 1: of senses. These are the times that tri men souls,
Speaker 1: the summer soldier in the sunshine, patriot will in this
Speaker 1: crisis shrink from the service of this country. But he
Speaker 1: that stands it now deserves the love and the thanks
Speaker 1: of man and woman. He published this about a week
Speaker 1: before the crossing of the Delaware. The story is that
Speaker 1: true Washington had it read to his troops. It's very
Speaker 1: possible that they were just reading it themselves, but either way,
Speaker 1: this was setting a power in a moment that's culminated
Speaker 1: on December twenty fifth.
Speaker 2: This is part of our American DNA one.
Speaker 1: Percent, and I think to everyone is these are the
Speaker 1: times the tribe and souls. I mean, it entered the
Speaker 1: lexicon in a way that Pain would have been very
Speaker 1: happy about. As we head into the founding across the
Speaker 1: Wars concluded, there's the seventeen eighties, I think people commonly
Speaker 1: call a critical period of American history, and it culminates
Speaker 1: in what Thomas Jefferson would later call one of the
Speaker 1: greatest statements of political theory and the Federalist. So there
Speaker 1: are eighty five essays that John j Alexander Hamilton, and
Speaker 1: James Madison Wright to argue for the ratification of this
Speaker 1: newly written constitution. What you're looking at here is Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson's copy of The Federalist. Jefferson's copy of the Fellows.
Speaker 1: Jefferson's copy came to the library when he came to
Speaker 1: Ira Library in eighteen fifteen. After the British burned the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress went while burning the Capitol in eighteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson sold to the library, sold to the Congress
Speaker 1: at what a price they were willing to pay him
Speaker 1: four hundred and eighty seven books, and this is one
Speaker 1: of them. And this copy actually has a more interesting
Speaker 1: provenance than just that. Elizabeth Hamilton was the first owner.
Speaker 1: That's the wife of Alexander Hamilton. She gave it to
Speaker 1: her sister, Angelica s gal er Church, who became friends
Speaker 1: with the Jeffersons while they were stationed overseas in Paris
Speaker 1: in particular, and that moving from the Hamilton family over
Speaker 1: to Jefferson, he receives this. He actually then does what
Speaker 1: many Americans were doing at this time, because these were
Speaker 1: all written under a pen name Pouplius. He writes down
Speaker 1: who he thinks wrote each of them, and of course
Speaker 1: he's good friends with Madison, so who wrote by asim
Speaker 1: inside knowledge, he lists the numbers written by Jay, the
Speaker 1: numbers written by Madison, the rest by Alexander Hamilton. He's
Speaker 1: wrong on a few instances.
Speaker 2: By the way, this is instructive for those of us
Speaker 2: who still theorized about the mystery of of the authorship of.
Speaker 1: Some of those essays. I think I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't realize this unless they've taken my course
Speaker 1: or perhaps yours, that there are still a few essays
Speaker 1: that we're just not sure. Madison and Hamilton wrote in
Speaker 1: such a similar way, with a similar power and argument,
Speaker 1: that there's a handful of essays that could well have
Speaker 1: been either one of them. And that's just where we are.
Speaker 1: But The Federalists was printed in two volumes. That's in
Speaker 1: the McLean edition, the very first printing. In fact, people
Speaker 1: usually say the eighty five essays were first published in newspapers.
Speaker 1: There were eight that were first published in book form
Speaker 1: and only later came out in newspapers. The last several,
Speaker 1: and this Jefferson copy is also with the green ribbon,
Speaker 1: is an instance of a book that survived from that
Speaker 1: original sale in eighteen fifteen to the present. Sadly, some
Speaker 1: of Jefferson's books didn't. In eighteen fifty one, there was
Speaker 1: another fire that damaged some of those books, But the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress has worked hard to reconstruct the entirety
Speaker 1: of that original sale. The six thousand and four and
Speaker 1: eighty seven books were nearly there, a handful that we
Speaker 1: may never be able to track down. But it's a
Speaker 1: really amazing project. People can come to the library and
Speaker 1: actually see it on display.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's remarkable. And this, given that it's Jefferson's volume,
Speaker 2: would be special enough. With the fact that missus Hamilton
Speaker 2: owned it prior as or real story.
Speaker 1: Amazing and Jeffson, as everyone knows, Jefferson and Hamilton parted ways,
Speaker 1: but there is a connection between the two right here.
Speaker 2: Given the work that happens here, the collections here, the
Speaker 2: preservation of literature, why is that crucial for us distinctively
Speaker 2: as Americans.
Speaker 1: One of the things this library does is it combines
Speaker 1: a couple of purposes. We're a legislative library, right We're
Speaker 1: here to serve Congress, and there's a law library. There's
Speaker 1: an entire division called the Congressional Research Service that actively
Speaker 1: serves Congress the ports their work. But we are also
Speaker 1: a de facto national library, a collecting. You think of
Speaker 1: the British Library, I think of the BNF in Paris,
Speaker 1: a collecting of the great cultural record of this country
Speaker 1: and that and beyond to be frank, but that work
Speaker 1: is something that we believe serves. It creates a permanence
Speaker 1: to what happens here.
Speaker 2: Taken together, these two institutions do something irreplaceable. One safeguards
Speaker 2: the nation's charters, the other keeps the documents that tell
Speaker 2: the story of how we arrived here. What many Americans
Speaker 2: don't realize is these institutions are here for them. And
Speaker 2: I don't just mean in a general public sense. These
Speaker 2: institutions will step up and help any individual American citizen
Speaker 2: who requests it.
Speaker 1: There are thirteen and a half billion pieces of paper,
Speaker 1: with a billion pieces of eight and a half billion
Speaker 1: in the National Archives across about forty facilities around the country,
Speaker 1: including the presidential libraries at which the National Archives plays
Speaker 1: a role. And you want to talk electronic records, right,
Speaker 1: So you know nowadays most business gets done on the Internet,
Speaker 1: and it's done electronically. Thirty five billion electronic records that
Speaker 1: all make their way here the different federal agencies at
Speaker 1: the end of their life. So it's a massive amount
Speaker 1: of information. And I would encourage anyone who wants to
Speaker 1: look up their family history through genealogy, or is interested
Speaker 1: maybe in presidential research, Contact an archivist, Contact a specialist.
Speaker 1: Can go online to archives dot org, excuse me, archives
Speaker 1: doc gov and they'll help you out.
Speaker 2: So the National Archives isn't just for historians and researchers
Speaker 2: for that matter, not even just for the very important
Speaker 2: visitors who are here to see the founding documents and others.
Speaker 2: It really is the people's house.
Speaker 1: And that's what we've been Yeah, exactly, that's what we've
Speaker 1: been really trying to highlight during this two hundred fiftieth aniverse.
Speaker 2: For a year, when you stand before the Charters of Freedom,
Speaker 2: you are encountering a standard. These documents survive because Americans
Speaker 2: decide they are worth protecting, and the work of institutions
Speaker 2: like the National Archives and the Library of Congress keep
Speaker 2: that standard visible. So every generation has a chance to
Speaker 2: measure itself honestly against the founding claim that rights are
Speaker 2: real and self government depends on a people serious enough
Speaker 2: to preserve the truth. On behalf of all of us
Speaker 2: in heritage. But I think I can speak on behalf
Speaker 2: of fellow Americans who are grateful. Thank you, thank your
Speaker 2: staff for your service, especially in this year of America
Speaker 2: two fifty. It's been a great conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you on behalf of Americans because
Speaker 2: I think that your great guide through each of these
Speaker 2: books will inspire a lot of people, hopefully to visit
Speaker 2: the library, but at the very least to appreciate the
Speaker 2: importance of preserving the past.
Speaker 1: While we're here, and we are still here to have
Speaker 1: people come in and use these collections. I'm excited I
Speaker 1: got to show with you.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, very careful