The Empty Shrine: The Transfer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the National Archives

MILTON O. GUSTAFSON

IN 1952 THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS transferred the original engrossed copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the National Archives. Together with the Bill of Rights, they are the Charters of Freedom, the most precious documents in the National Archives of the United States. The story of why the shrine in the Exhibition Hall of the Archives Building, especially designed for the exhibit of these documents, was empty for almost twenty years, and how the Library of Congress finally transferred custody of the two great documents to the National Archives, has never before been told.

The ceremony when they left the library on Saturday, December 13, 1952, was a spectacular event. Brigadier General Stoyte O. Ross, commanding general of the Air Force Headquarters Command, formally received the documents at the Library of Congress at 11 A.M. Twelve members of the Armed Forces Special Police carried the six parchment documents, encased in helium-filled glass cases and enclosed in wooden crates, through a cordon of eighty-eight servicewomen down the library steps. The boxes were placed on mattresses in an armored Marine Corps personnel carrier. A color guard, ceremonial troops, the Army Band, the Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps, two light tanks, four servicemen carrying submachine guns, and a motorcycle escort paraded down Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues to the Archives Building. Both sides of the street along the parade route were lined by Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marine, and Air Force personnel. General Ross and the twelve Special Policemen arrived at the National Archives Building at 11:35 A.M., carried the crates up the steps, and formally delivered them into the custody of Wayne Grover, the archivist of the United States.

Two days later, at 10:15 A.M. on Monday, December 15, 1952, the formal enshrining ceremony was equally impressive. Officials of more than 100 national civic, patriotic, religious, veterans, educational, business, and labor groups crowded into the Exhibition Hall. Fred M. Vinson, chief justice of the United States, presided. After the invocation by the Reverend Frederick Brown Harris, chaplain of the Senate, Governor Elbert N. Carvel of Delaware, the first state to ratify the Constitution, called the roll of states in the order in which they ratified the Constitution or were admitted to the Union. As each state was called, a servicewoman carrying the state flag entered the Exhibition Hall and remained at attention in front of the display cases circling the hall. President Harry S. Truman, the featured speaker, said

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The author is chief, Diplomatic Branch of the Civil Archives Division, National Archives and Records Service.