Posted on 03/21/2003 10:53:22 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
AN ORIGINAL handwritten copy of the Bill of Rights, a key part of America’s original Constitution that a Union Army soldier stole from the Government of North Carolina in 1865, has been recovered.
A dealer seeking to sell the valuable vellum manuscript, one of only 14 copies commissioned by George Washington, gave it to an FBI agent who was posing as a wealthy philanthropist.
A judge will now decide who owns the Bill of Rights and whether those who tried to sell it committed a crime. No arrests have been made.
The document is unique and forms an essential part of the history of the founding of the United States. In 1787 the Constitutional Congress in Philadelphia passed the Constitution, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, and sent it for ratification to the 13 original states that had broken with Britain.
North Carolina, along with Rhode Island, was worried that its independence would be compromised by union with the other states and demanded some further constitutional guarantees.
Two years later Washington drew up the Bill of Rights, containing the ten constitutional amendments that guarantee Americans’ fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right to a quick public trial.
Each of the 13 original states was sent its own handwritten copy to consider and the federal Government kept a 14th. Five copies of the Bill of Rights have gone missing and one has been destroyed.
Because North Carolina held out against approving the Constitution until safeguards were included, its copy of the Bill of Rights is considered of immense historical importance. Antiquarian dealers have estimated the value of the 34in by 28in parchment at $40 million (£25.5 million).
“It is inconceivable that there could be a more important document in American history,” Joseph Torsella, the president of the National Constitutional Centre museum in Philadelphia, said.
As General William T. Sherman’s Union Army occupied North Carolina in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, fought to establish whether states could secede from the federal union, a soldier removed the copy that was held at the state capitol and took it back as a war trophy to his home in Tippecanoe, Ohio. The following year he sold it to a man from Indiana.
The document has been put up for sale a number of times: a few years after the Civil War, then in 1925 and again in 1995. Each time North Carolina refused to buy back what it considers to be stolen property.
In January a New York dealer approached Mr Torsella, offering the manuscript for $5 million. Governor Michael Easley of North Carolina was informed and called in the FBI, who arranged for Tuesday’s sting.
“Please don’t get into a tussle,” Jeffrey Lampinski, the FBI agent in charge of the operation, told Robert Wittman, the agent posing as a wealthy buyer. “I don’t want to be the one explaining why the document is held together with FBI evidence tape.”
Mr Wittman gave the dealer a bank draft for $4 million and the document was delivered two hours later, in good condition, in a cardboard box. The agent told the dealer that the bank draft was fake and that the document would be confiscated pending further investigation.
“Our goal was to be sure we reclaimed what was rightfully North Carolina’s all along,” Roy Cooper, the US Attorney-General in Raleigh, North Carolina, said. “North Carolinians should not have to pay a penny for what is rightfully ours. It’ll be nice to put it back where it belongs.”
While the judge in the federal court in Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, must decide whether the owners of the manuscript should be compensated or prosecuted, there is little doubt that the long-lost historic document, a reminder of the hotly contested battle for states’ rights that still continues, will be returned to the capitol in Raleigh.
The confederates wouldn't have any use for the Bill of Rights in 1865 considering they had ABOLISHED the U.S. Constitution (INCLUDING the bill of rights) and replaced it with their own, pro-slavery Confederate constitution in 1861.
I have little doubt that they didn't look at the abolished bill of rights in those five years, considering the way they denying blacks their 2nd amendment rights in the south (a key plank of the 1856 and 1864 Republican platforms)
Not really. The confederate constitution was a near verbatim copy of the U.S. Constitution. Practically identical language to the Bill of Rights was inserted into Section 9 of Article I and Article VI.
The Confederates were burning military supplies that they couldn't cart away in time, and some of the fires spread. A sad accident. Fortunately, the Federals occupied the city the next morning and put out the fires.
Same thing happened to Sherman a few times (most notably perhaps in Columbia), when his men were burning government buildings and the wind whipped the fire up and spread it to civilian property. Similarly, most of the handful of houses destroyed in Sheridan's burning of the Shenandoah (aside from those destroyed in the retaliation for the killing of Lt. Meigs) were accidently burned in the same way. Mostly, Sheridan was burning barns and corn cribs; he had issued strict orders, which were obeyed, that houses were to be spared. Of course, the Confederates chose to regard every fire as intentional, which wasn't the case.
Not really, but Saddam's many acts of warfare against the Kurd civilians do remind me of General Sherman's war crime-laden march across the south.
the southland and her innocent civilians were raped, robbed, tormented & abused by the "oh, so saintly" damnyankee military.
at least 92 members of MY family were so treated by the damnyankee cavalry only because they were NOT white.
free dixie,sw
the bluebelly army was REALLY good at robbery,rape, torture & murder of innocent civilians, especially when the victims were "persons of colour" & un-armed. frankly,the damnyankee high command couldn't have cared less.
FRee dixie,sw
Nonsense. The Bill of Rights was adopted in identical form by the CSA. That is why North Carolina didn't touch the thing during their four years in the CSA.
Hence the so-called 'Yankees'
So-called yankees? Since when are people from the northern yankee section of the country not yankees?
really liberated it and preserved it from the flag-burners of the day.
The guy who stole it took it home as a souveneir of war. He then sold it to make profit off of his souveneir. That is hardly an act of preservation. As for flag burning, the only threat of similar fire that document ever came close to was a man who liked to burn things named William T. Sherman.
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