The Capitol Dome

12 THE CAPITOL DOME New York Public Library staff examine the Library's original copy of the Bill of Rights in 2013. (l-r) Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts and Archives William Stingone; Aaron and Clara Greenhut Rabinowitz Assistant Director for Preservation Evelyn Frangakis; Brooke Russell Astor Director of Collections Strategy Victoria Steele; and head of con- servation Shelly Smith. notes 1. David Howard, Lost Rights: The Misadventures of a Stolen American Relic (Boston, 2010), p. 189. 2. Howard, Lost Rights, ch. 20. 3. [Georgia] Augusta Chronicle, 21 Jan. 2007. 4. Kenneth R. Bowling, "Overshadowed by States' Rights: Ratification of the Federal Bill of Rights" in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., The Bill of Rights: Government Proscribed (Charlottesville, VA, 1977), p. 85. 5. Charles Hamilton, Collecting Autographs and Manuscripts (Norman, OK, 1961), p. 32; Press Conferences, 22 May 2013, National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, New York Public Library. 6. Robert E. Cushman to Bernard Schwartz, 18 December 1964, Leonard Rapport, Maryland Historical Society Listing Sheets (1961-62), Ratification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights Project, University of Wisconsin-Madison; New York Times, 15, 16 December 1943; Bill of Rights Case File, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 7. Howard, Lost Rights, p. 288. 8. Guide, United States Constitution Collection, Mss. 011228, Library of Congress. 9. Linda Grant De Pauw, Charlene Bangs Bickford and LaVonne Siegel Hauptman, eds., Documentary History of the First Federal Congress 1789—1791 (Baltimore and London, 1977), 3:vii. when they came to this country . . . and for the opportunity provided by these amendments to our Constitution." 6 The Library of Congress assumed it was accepting stolen property—which was not true if my presump- tion about Maryland selling its copy is correct. Five days before the ceremony, the Treasury Department overseeing the war bond drive expressed concern about the provenance of the document. Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish responded that the "Library will be happy to receive it as a gift without the establishment of origin which it would desire were it purchasing the document." 7 The Library presently makes the untenable claim that its copy was especially made for House Clerk John Beck- ley. 8 But that claim is not supported by any facts. No fan of documents, Beckley would not have consid- ered the proposed Amendments any more important than other House documents, most of which he de- stroyed while in office (1789–97 and 1801–07). In 1977 the editors of the First Federal Congress Project "concluded . . . that most of the documents missing from House records [for 1789–91] were deliberately destroyed while John Beckley was clerk," and not by the fires set by the British in 1814. 9 KENNETH BOWLING, a current board member of the Society, received his Ph.D. from the Univer- sity of Wisconsin in 1968. He is the author of "'Tub to the Whale:' The Founding Fathers and the Adop- tion of the Federal Bill of Rights," Journal of the Early Republic 8(Fall 1988), and "Overshadowed by States' Rights: Ratification of the Federal Bill of Rights," Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., The Bill of Rights: Government Proscribed (Char- lottesville, VA and London, 1997). Along with his colleagues at the First Federal Congress Project, he edited Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal Congress (Balti- more, 1991). The author would like to acknowledge several in- dividuals who assisted his research for this article: Stan V. Klos, Helen E. Veit, Peter Samson, Gaspare J. Saladino, John P. Kaminski, Ed Papenfuse, Mary Jo Blinker, William C. diGiacomantonio, Alice Kamps, and Jessie Kratz at the National Archives and, in particular, Elizabeth E. Fuller and Kathy Haas at the Rosenbach Foundation. JONATHAN BLANC/THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

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