Display and Honoring of The Bill of Rights
In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared December 15 to be Bill of Rights Day, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights is on display at the National Archives and Records Administration, in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.
The Rotunda itself was constructed in the 1950s and dedicated in 1952 by President Harry S. Truman, who said, "Only as these documents are reflected in the thoughts and acts of Americans, can they remain symbols of power that can move the world. That power is our faith in human liberty ...."
After fifty years, signs of deterioration in the casing were noted, while the documents themselves appeared to be well preserved: "But if the ink of 1787 was holding its own, the encasements of 1951 were not ... minute crystals and microdroplets of liquid were found on surfaces of the two glass sheets over each document.... The CMS scans confirmed evidence of progressive glass deterioration, which was a major impetus in deciding to re-encase the Charters of Freedom."
Accordingly, the casing was updated and the Rotunda rededicated on September 17, 2003. In his dedicatory remarks, two hundred and sixteen years after the close of the Constitutional Convention, President George W. Bush stated, "The true revolution was not to defy one earthly power, but to declare principles that stand above every earthly power—the equality of each person before God, and the responsibility of government to secure the rights of all."
In 1991, the Bill of Rights toured the country in honor of its bicentennial, visiting the capitals of all fifty states.
Read more about this topic: United States Bill Of Rights
Famous quotes containing the words bill of rights, display, bill and/or rights:
“We have our difficulties, true; but we are a wiser and a tougher nation than we were in 1932. Never have there been six years of such far flung internal preparedness in all of history. And this has been done without any dictator’s power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill of Rights.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“You gave him an opportunity to display greatness of character, and he let it slip away. For that he will never forgive you.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It is my belief that there are “absolutes” in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what words meant, and meant their prohibitions to be “absolute.””
—Hugo Black (b. 1922)
“I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, “that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living”: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)