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The documents include 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.
According to the Archives, these documents "have secured the rights of the American people for nearly two and a half centuries and are considered instrumental to the founding and philosophy of the United States." [43] In addition, as the nation's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union is also a founding document.
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The document signed by Congress and enshrined in the National Archives is usually regarded as the Declaration of Independence, but historian Julian P. Boyd argued that the Declaration, like Magna Carta, is not a single document. Boyd considered the printed broadsides ordered by Congress to be official texts, as well.
Captain Joseph Wadsworth spirited the precious document out a window and stole the charter and hid it in a hollow oak tree, the "Charter Oak," until James was overthrown. Connecticut temporarily lost the right of self-government under the unification of the several colonies into the Dominion of New England in 1687 until it was reinstated 1689.
Members of the public will get a chance to take a sneak peek at the document, which will be on display at Federal Hall National Memorial in New York from 1 to 4:30 p.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 13.
The American Revolution then popularized this principle, followed by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which developed institutions to manage popular will. While Tocqueville speaks highly of the U.S. Constitution, he believes that the mores, or "habits of mind" of the American people play a more prominent role in the protection of freedom.
The text of each document is carved into a series of porcelain enamel panels. Sadly, the Hall is closed to the public (the half-ton slab probably already gave that away).