細節
[DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE]. WOODBURY, Levi (1789-1851), Justice of the Supreme Court. Autograph letter signed ("Levi Woodbury") to an unidentified correspondent, Washington, 11 March 1845. 1 full page, 4to. CONCERN FOR THE ORIGINAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. Woodbury, formerly New Hampshire Congressman, Senator, Secretary of the Navy and Treasury under Jackson, passes on a troubling report from a son of Signer Benjamin Rush concerning the condition of the Declaration of Independence: "...It has...been suggested to me by Docr. Rush of Philadelphia, that the original Declaration of Independence is so exposed at the Patent office, that the ink in the signatures is likely to fade & that in order to preserve it, the light must be excluded from it..."
After having narrowly survived the British attack on Washington, the Declaration of Independence had been stored in the State Department, but in 1841 it was transferred to the new Patent building. Framed with Washington's original commission from Congress, it hung in a hallway opposite an open window, a risky location indeed, as Rush reports.
After having narrowly survived the British attack on Washington, the Declaration of Independence had been stored in the State Department, but in 1841 it was transferred to the new Patent building. Framed with Washington's original commission from Congress, it hung in a hallway opposite an open window, a risky location indeed, as Rush reports.