James Byron, senior adviser to the nation’s archivist, said the documents are “instructional, revealing, exciting,” and many have never left Washington.
“It is my pleasure ... to make accessible to the American people across our nation for the first time, historic and consequential documents fundamental to America’s founding and the beginning of American government,” Byron said during the event.
Irreplaceable national treasures selected for the tour include the signed oaths of allegiance from President George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr, from their service in the Continental Army.
The Articles of Association from 1774, the Continental Congress’s response to Britain’s so-called “Intolerable Acts,” will be displayed alongside other 18th-century pieces.
Visitors can also view the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783 by John Adams, Ben Franklin, and John Jay, to end the Revolutionary War.
One of only 50 copies of a copper plate engraving of the U.S. Constitution—commissioned by President John Quincy Adams—joins David Brearley’s secret printed draft copy of the founding document, inscribed with handwritten notes from the nation’s founders.
The collection encompasses the early decades of the nation’s founding, reflecting the challenges faced by founders and early Americans.
“These documents are either precursors to the Declaration and reflect mounting frustrations with British rule, or they document the Declaration’s immediate result, how subjects of King George III became citizens of the United States and formed a new nation, and then a new government,” Byron said.
Inspired by the 1976 Freedom Train—when a 12-car train traveled the country with founding documents to celebrate the bicentennial—the specially designed Boeing 737 Freedom Plane takes off later this year. The first stop will be at the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, from March 6 to 22.
Other destinations include Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, Denver, Miami, and Dearborn, Michigan, with the tour concluding at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle from July 30 to August 16.
“We tried to select areas in which folks can drive a few hours at most to see the exhibition,” Byron said.
“Hopefully, by allowing folks across the country to get up close to and experience this history, it will inspire our fellow Americans to champion our nation’s founding ideals into the future.”
The tour is made possible by partnerships with the National Archives Foundation—a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the archivist’s preservation and education efforts—and Boeing, Comcast Corporation, Microsoft, and P&G.
“As we move into this banner year, the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding, it is more critical than ever to give Americans a chance to get up close and personal with their nation’s history, especially as pertains to this pivotal founding era that we’re focused on,” Rodney Slater, chairman of the National Archives Foundation and former secretary of Transportation under President Bill Clinton, said during the event.
“The tour invites reflection and dialogue and a renewed civic spirit, reminding us that the ideals enshrined in these records are not relics of the past, but living promises that depend on each generation preserving them, protecting them, and projecting them forward.”
