{"id":5524,"date":"2026-06-28T13:09:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T13:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=5524"},"modified":"2026-06-28T13:09:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T13:09:41","slug":"why-the-nations-founding-document-is-barely-legible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=5524","title":{"rendered":"Why the nation\u2019s founding document is barely legible"},"content":{"rendered":"

The physical journey of the Declaration of Independence tells its own story. Its imperfections and endurance reflect those of the America it helped create.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more With time running out, Trump digs in on changing midterm election rules<\/a><\/p>\n

Every year, a million people wander through the temple-like rotunda of the National Archives and peer through a thick glass case to glimpse the document upon which this country was founded.<\/p>\n

They are struck by awe \u2014 and also by the toll that time and negligence have taken on the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n

The ink, including John Hancock\u2019s defiantly oversized signature, has faded to near invisibility. It is further disfigured by creases, water stains, and a grimy handprint covering part of its lower right corner.<\/p>\n

The document looks even shabbier next to the nearly pristine Constitution, with its legible typeface, displayed yards away and written only a decade later.<\/p>\n

Yet in their own way, those marks of time on the 250-year-old parchment, and the stories behind them, tell the history of the country \u2014 its flaws, its aspirations and its perseverance.<\/p>\n

Two and a half centuries ago, the newborn United States did not yet reflect the \u201cself-evident\u201d truths that \u201call men are created equal,\u201d with rights that included \u201cLife, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.\u201d Nearly three-quarters<\/a> of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were slaveholders. And only property-owning men had the right to vote.<\/p>\n

But the power of the Declaration impelled the country toward making what <\/b>it espoused a reality.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Asher Lockner, 14, of Brooklyn, N.Y., takes a photo of the Declaration of Independence on July 16. (Matt McClain\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The people entrusted to take care of the Declaration had two duties that were often in conflict: preserving it and making it accessible to the Americans who owned it. Many of their well-intentioned efforts only rendered it more delicate.<\/p>\n

By 1820, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams was so alarmed by the document\u2019s physical decline that he commissioned master engraver William J. Stone to <\/b>make an exact copy. But the process of producing the facsimile \u2014 creating a copperplate through a \u201cwet sheet transfer\u201d from the parchment \u2014 lifted much of the original ink.<\/p>\n

Fewer than 50 of Stone\u2019s roughly 200 copies are known to exist; billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein has bought nine, according to his spokesman. In an interview, Rubenstein said he acquired the most recent from a descendant of James Madison, its original owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey degraded it purposely to make these replica copies, and so that\u2019s why it\u2019s so degraded now,\u201d Rubenstein said.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
A detail of the Declaration of Independence in which a handprint can be seen in the lower left corner. (National Archives)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Then came two more enemies: sunlight and carelessness. The Declaration spent 35 years in the mid-1800s on a south-facing wall of the Old Patent Building (which now houses two Smithsonian art museums), absorbing the sun\u2019s rays and exposed to fluctuations of temperature and humidity. It was then moved to the State Department library, where it was subjected to diplomats\u2019 second-hand cigar and cigarette smoke and an open fireplace, for 17 years.<\/p>\n

The mysterious handprint and other finger marks appeared some time between 1912 and 1924, a span when the document was transferred from the State Department to the Library of Congress, said National Archives historian Jessie Kratz.<\/p>\n

Kratz hopes to crack the century-old cold case, with help from the FBI\u2019s historic fingerprint database.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the forties, they had a million fingers already,\u201d Kratz said. \u201cSo I would like to get imaging to the FBI, to try to see if they can do the fingerprint \u2014 just to find out whose it is. Because we blame the State Department. We blame the Library of Congress. Who was it?\u201d<\/p>\n

But she acknowledged that, unless the archives can figure out a way to produce a clearer image of the print, it may not be possible to track down the culprit.<\/p>\n

The Declaration demands all this attention because it is more than a mere relic. \u201cIt\u2019s a time machine that brings us back to that moment when the world was going to be new, and when all of our best hopes were possible, and signed by the men who brought this country into being,\u201d said historian Michael Auslin, author of a new, deeply researched book titled \u201cNational Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubenstein, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, has made copies of his replicas, framed them and sent them to the owners of every major league baseball and basketball team. He plans to do so with National Football League owners as well, in hopes the Declaration will go on display in stadiums across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m trying to do is explain why the document is so important,\u201d he said. \u201cAny civilization should know about its past if it\u2019s going to avoid some of the mistakes of the past and do better things in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Kurt Smith, a Thomas Jefferson historical interpreter, moves about Colonial Williamsburg on July 14. (Matt McClain\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

So why was the nation\u2019s founding document so fragile to begin with?<\/p>\n

The original, signed by the founders, was penned by hand on parchment, which is treated animal skin, usually from a goat or calf.<\/p>

Read more Trump\u2019s vision for White House park: 47 trees to mark his presidency<\/a><\/p>\n

Parchment was used in those days to make important records because it was durable, and mistakes could be scraped off and corrected. But it is also unstable and vulnerable to temperature and humidity; if not treated with care, parchment expands, contracts, buckles and becomes moldy.<\/p>\n

During the chaotic years of the Revolutionary War and afterward, as the government was taking shape, the Declaration traveled from city to city with the Continental Congress \u2014 unrolled, re-rolled, crushed and folded along the way, and possibly jammed into saddle bags. It arrived in the District of Columbia, the young nation\u2019s new capital, in 1800, aboard a sloop that had carried it from Philadelphia, packed among furniture and trunks.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
The Declaration was written and signed at Independence Hall, at left, in Philadelphia. (Matt McClain\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

There was at least one moment when its very survival was in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

During the War of 1812, a State Department clerk named Stephen Pleasonton spirited the Declaration, and other valuable documents, out of the building. He wrapped them into bags of rough linen, put together a convoy of wagons that escaped the city by dirt roads and found a hiding place for the documents in the cellar of a deserted house in Leesburg, Virginia. The frantic move to temporary quarters was a fortunate one for the Declaration; the British burned the State Department building to the ground.<\/p>\n

More than a century later, during World War II, officials at the Library of Congress made a similar calculation, fearing the Germans might bomb Washington. They secretly dispatched a train full of national documents to the vaults of the Bullion Depository in Fort Knox, Kentucky, where much of the nation\u2019s precious metal reserves are held. But the Declaration was hauled out of its hiding place to be put on display<\/a> for several days at the dedication of the open-air Jefferson Memorial in 1943; photographs indicate<\/a> it was guarded only by two Marines.<\/p>\n

Not until the middle of the 20th century, with the development of modern preservation techniques, was the Declaration \u2014 by then in its permanent home at the National Archives \u2014 housed in an airtight enclosure pumped with inert gases.<\/p>\n

The Declaration is finally safe, preserved for the future generations who have yet to see and be inspired by it.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Visitors take photos of the Declaration of Independence as it is displayed at the National Archives on Sept. 16. (Mark Schiefelbein\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The process for guarding it is so sensitive that no one from the public is allowed to know the precise details. Each night, around 6 p.m., the cases that hold the Declaration, Constitution and original Bill of Rights are lowered by a machine from the dimly lit rotunda and stored until the following morning in a vault whose exact location the archives does not reveal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t like to talk about security,\u201d archives historian Kratz said.<\/p>\n

That mystique has made its way into pop culture. In the 2004 action film \u201cNational Treasure,\u201d<\/a> the Declaration is stolen because its other side holds a map to a long-hidden fortune. The premise was entirely fictional, but tourists who visit the archives still ask whether<\/a> there is a treasure map behind it.<\/p>\n

There is indeed writing on the back of the parchment. What it actually says is: \u201cOriginal Declaration of Independence date 4th July 1776\u2033<\/p>\n

When 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia lawyer and planter, began drafting the Declaration in mid-June 1776, he did not set out to do something radical. What he intended, Jefferson would later write, was \u201can expression of the American mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Revolutionary War had been going on for more than a year by then, and it had become clear that reconciliation with Britain was impossible. Earlier that month, the Second Continental Congress had taken up a resolution \u201cthat these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Men wearing revolutionary-era uniforms take part in an infantry demonstration at George Washington\u2019s home in Mount Vernon, Virginia, on Feb. 16. (Robb Hill\/for The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The Declaration\u2019s principles were not new. Jefferson borrowed from Magna Carta; English common law; Virginia\u2019s Declaration of Rights, penned by George Mason; and from Enlightenment thinker John Locke, who conceived of the proposition that people have been given natural rights to life, liberty and property.<\/p>\n

But how Jefferson expressed those ideas was breathtaking. His draft was further improved by editing from a \u201ccommittee of five,\u201d that included John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. At Franklin\u2019s suggestion, Jefferson\u2019s \u201csacred and undeniable\u201d truths became \u201cself-evident;\u201d Adams is believed to have injected the theological assertion that people\u2019s rights are \u201cendowed by their Creator.\u201d<\/p>\n

On July 2, the delegates to the Continental Congress voted to declare the colonies free and separate from Britain. Two days later \u2014 the date that would be called Independence Day \u2014 they adopted the draft, which had undergone still more changes. The delegates cut its length by nearly a quarter, including deleting Jefferson\u2019s passionate denunciation of the \u201cexecrable commerce\u201d<\/a> that was British slave trade. (Jefferson enslaved more than 600 people<\/a> over his lifetime.)<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, is seen in August in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Matt McClain\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Felix Caban walks past an oversized bust of Thomas Jefferson during a tour outside Williamsburg, Virginia, in August. (Matt McClain\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Once approved, the unsigned draft was dispatched to a printer, to produce and distribute nearly 200 copies throughout the colonies. There was no celebration, or even a public reading. \u201cThe delegates turned to other business, meeting on their various committees or heading off on personal errands,\u201d Auslin wrote.<\/p>\n

It took weeks to draft and sign the formal document, which was marred by spelling errors that had to be corrected by hand. Most of the 56 signatures at the bottom are believed to have been put there on August 2.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
The Jefferson Memorial on Dec. 31, 2025. (Peter W. Stevenson\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Jefferson and his co-writers were proud of their work and understood its importance, Auslin wrote. But \u201cthey would have been astonished to learn that a quarter of a millennium later, the parchment they signed would still exist and that millions of people would patiently wait hours in line to view its faded script.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is in no small part because Americans recognize how the words of the Declaration have inspired the nation to move closer to its ideals. Abolitionists and suffragists, among them Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, quoted its most famous passages. What was written \u201cfour score and seven years ago\u201d echoed in Abraham Lincoln\u2019s 1863 address at Gettysburg, in which he redefined the purpose of the Civil War to be a struggle for the unfinished business of equality and freedom.<\/p>\n

It would take the course of time \u2014 and, as Jefferson put it, human events \u2014 for the Declaration to be fully understood and appreciated. It defined what it meant to be American. While the words on the parchment have faded, the country\u2019s progress has made their meaning more vivid.<\/p>\n

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the number of facsimile copies of the Declaration that David Rubenstein owns. He estimated a dozen in an interview, but a spokesman said the number is nine.<\/i><\/p>

Read more The Trump Pentagon appointee who has divided top Republicans<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The physical journey of the Declaration of Independence tells its own story. Its imperfections and endurance reflect those of the America it helped create.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy the nation\u2019s founding document is barely legible - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=5524\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why the nation\u2019s founding document is barely legible - Moving Insider USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The physical journey of the Declaration of Independence tells its own story. 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