Bench Memos

Re: Heck, It’s Only the Constitution

It’s worse than I said, of course: the National Archives rotunda where the president spoke is the home of manuscript (not printed) copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  Ink that flowed from quills to parchment in 1776, 1787, and 1789 is far more susceptible to light damage than printer’s ink of the period.  So did the Archives remove them, cover them, or shield them in some way from the intense lights used to illuminate the president during his speech?

Matthew J. Franck is retired from Princeton University, where he was a lecturer in Politics and associate director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He is also a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, a contributing editor of Public Discourse, and professor emeritus of political science at Radford University.
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