U.S. Documents Again On Display
President Bush, lawmakers and the chief justice of the United States celebrated the rededication Wednesday of the original Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, which were locked away for two years of preservation work.
"Our founding fathers developed a form of representative government that served as a shining example to the rest of world," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., at an unveiling of a new exhibit inside the National Archives. "And this experiment in self-rule has stood the test of time."
The documents, displayed at the Archives since 1952, were shielded from the public when the building's enormous marble and limestone rotunda was closed to tourists on July 5, 2001, for renovations. The documents were then given a careful review, the first close examination of the three historic documents in half a century.
For the first time, all four pages of the Constitution are going on permanent display when the rotunda reopens to the public Thursday. Previously, just the first and last pages had been on exhibit.
"In this rotunda are the most cherished material possessions of a good and great nation," a somber President Bush said. "By this rededication, we show our deep respect for the first principles of our republic and our lasting gratitude to those first citizens of the United States of America."
"I hope a lot of our fellow citizens come to this rotunda and see firsthand the work of our founding fathers," Mr. Bush said.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist hailed the Constitution for creating an independent judiciary with the authority to judge the constitutionality of state and federal laws, calling it "probably the most significant single contribution the United States has made to the art of government."
John Carlin, archivist of the National Archives and a former Kansas governor, said the newly remodeled rotunda and remounted documents will help convey their historical significance.
"We want people to have a real experience coming here," Carlin said at the ceremony. "We want them to come away with feelings about the importance of records, the importance of these documents."
"Those documents aren't just old," he told CBS News Correspondent Peter Maer Tuesday. "They're alive and well today, impacting our lives every single day."
The new exhibit will be much more user-friendly. For example, the Declaration of Independence was mounted high on a wall in the previous exhibit, making it hard to read.
Now, it will be housed in an exhibit case on the ground. So too will the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, allowing the documents to be more accessible to people in wheelchairs and small children.
The historical originals are showing their age a bit, with yellowing around the edges of the parchment. But the documents, known collectively as the Charters of Freedom, underwent an extensive restoration process over the last two years.
Some flakes of ink from the charters had begun to curl and lift upward, explained Catherine Nicholson, senior conservator at the Archives. The conservation team inserted super-small droplets of adhesive under the flakes to reattach the ink to the parchment.
State-of-the-art encasements for the documents also were built. The new cases, outlined in 24-karat gold-plated titanium, are filled with argon, an inert gas that helps preserve the documents, according to Rick Judson, the project engineer.
The glass in the cases also won't rest directly on the documents, as it had before.
Mr. Bush marveled at the skills involved in preserving the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, reports CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller.
"I don't know how you practice for a job like that. I do know there's little margin for error," the president said.
He joked that the new display cases for the documents are far preferable to the burlap sacks once used to carry the Declaration.
Experts also renovated two large murals by Barry Faulkner. They depict the presentation of the Declaration of Independence to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, and James Madison presenting his final draft of the Constitution to George Washington.
The cost for the renovation of the charters and the re-encasements was $4.8 million, Judson said. Archives staff could not provide an estimate for the rotunda refurbishment, but the total tally for the ongoing renovation of the National Archives building is more than $100 million.