Free
Rolled up and moved from state to state, the original Declaration has traveled a long way to reach its home in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital.
Today, at the National Archives Building, anyone can see the document, but its ideas are still on the move. They have inspired people struggling for freedom and equal rights.
1789
At the start of the French Revolution, French rebels call for a document like the Declaration of Independence to explain the rights of citizens. They create the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. ▶
1848
◀ Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a group of 300 people, mostly women, hold the first women’s rights meeting in U.S. history. They create their own declaration, calling for women to have the same rights as men.
1863
During the Civil War, many people who speak out against slavery quote the Declaration of Independence. In his Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln calls the United States a “new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” ▶
1948
◀ The United Nations creates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It includes these words: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
1952
▲ The Declaration is housed in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. Before that, during the American Revolution, the Declaration traveled with the Continental Congress. During World War II, it was kept safe in an underground vault in Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Explore the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom
1963
◀ Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. speaks about the Declaration in his “I Have a Dream” speech.
2002
Conservators work to restore damage done to the Declaration by time. It is written on parchment (animal skin that is stretched and treated to last a long time). They microscopically examine the parchment, clean it, and reattach flakes of loose ink. ▶
◀ Today, people from around the world come to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, as well as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Declaration sits in a multimillion-dollar high-tech container. The outside is made of bulletproof glass. The inside is filled with argon, a gas that helps keep the Declaration from fading. A thin light beam that shines inside is used to measure the temperature. At night, the three documents are stored in an underground vault designed to keep them safe.
◀ Check out this handprint. No one knows how it got there and attempting to remove it could damage the Declaration.
