Charters of Freedom

The term Charters of Freedom is used to describe the three documents in early American history which are considered instrumental to its founding and philosophy. These documents are the United States Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. While the term has not entered particularly common usage, the room at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. that houses the three documents is called the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom. The National Archives preserves and displays the texts in massive, bronze-framed, bulletproof, moisture-controlled sealed display cases in a rotunda style room by day and in multi-ton bomb-proof vaults by night. The ‘Charters of Freedom’ are flanked by Barry Faulkner’s two grand murals, one featuring Thomas Jefferson amidst the Continental Congress, the other centering on James Madison at the Constitutional Convention. Alongside the Charters of Freedom is a dual display of the "Formation of the Union", consisting of documents related to the evolution of the U.S. government from 1774 to 1791, including Articles of Association (1774), Articles of Confederation (1778), Treaty of Paris (1783) and Washington's First Inaugural Address (1789). Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam collected the Declaration and Constitution from the State Department safes and brought them to the Library of Congress in a mail wagon. Putnam requested funds to allow the documents to be put on display so "might be treated in such a way as, while fully safe-guarding them and giving them distinction, they should be open to inspection by the public at large". On March 12, 1922, $12,000 () was approved and Francis Henry Bacon was appointed to design a shrine to house the documents. The two parchment documents were turned over to the Library of Congress by executive order, and on February 28, 1924, President Coolidge dedicated the bronze-and-marble shrine for public display of the Constitution at the Thomas Jefferson Building, the library's headquarters.