NCPI Workmark
Articles in regional publications that pertain to a wide range of North Carolina-related topics.

Judge Rules Bill of Rights Belongs to North Carolina

Record #:
6959
Abstract:
North Carolina refused to ratify the new Constitution in 1788, unless a list of rights for all citizens was added to it. To win over North Carolina and other states, James Madison sent twelve handwritten copies of the rights to the states; they were accepted. Today this list is known as the Bill of Rights. After the Civil War, the state's handwritten copy was stolen by a Union soldier who carried it to Ohio and later sold it to Charles A. Shotwell. The article follows the document's trail from the Shotwell sale in 1866, until it was recovered in Philadelphia by the FBI in 2003. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina ruled in January 2004 that the document belongs to the State as a public document; however, Judge Terrence W. Boyle ordered the U.S. marshal in Raleigh to hold the document until final resolution of any appeals.
Source:
Carolina Comments (NoCar F 251 C38), Vol. 52 Issue 2, Apr 2004, p37, 39-42, il