The historian and collector Seth Kaller spreads out a large piece of paper on the desk. He can carefully handle it with clean, bare hands because it’s in good enough shape. The paper is almost 237 years old and has been in a filing box in North Carolina for who knows how long. There are only a few creases and small spots on it.
“WE, the People…” is written at the top of the first page in regular type instead of the fancy Gothic style we’re used to seeing.
People will be able to bid on this copy of the U.S. Constitution, which is thought to be the only one of its kind in private hands, at an auction in Asheville, North Carolina, on September 28.
A bid of at least $1 million has already been made at the sale. The price doesn’t have to be a certain amount.
After finishing writing the proposed framework for the nation’s government in 1787, the Constitutional Convention sent this copy to the Congress of the first American government, which was based on the Articles of Confederation and didn’t work, asking them to send it to the states to be approved by the people.
Only about 100 prints were made by Charles Thomson, who was the secretary of that Congress. There are only eight known to exist, and the other seven are owned by the people.
Thomson most likely signed two copies for each of the 13 original states, which was like approving them. They were sent to special ratifying conventions, where, for months, all-white, male officials argued over the structure of the US government that is still in place today.
“This is where the government and the people can talk to each other.” “The Preamble saying ‘we the people’ is the government asking the people to give them power,” auctioneer Andrew Brunk said.
The paper that was being auctioned off between Thomson’s signature and 2022 is still unknown.
The people of North Carolina wanted the Bill of Rights to be added to the U.S. Constitution, but it was lost for 138 years because they wouldn’t join the country without it.
Samuel Johnston used to own a house in Edenton, which is in the eastern part of North Carolina. Two years ago, the house was being cleaned out. From 1787 to 1789, he was governor of North Carolina. In his last year in office, he lead the state conference that approved the Constitution.
The copy was found in a small, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a stain can on top. It was in a room that had been ignored for a long time and was full of old chairs and a dirty bookcase, before the old Johnston house was saved. The paper was a broadsheet that could be folded in half once to make a book.
Kaller, who buys, sells, and appraises historic papers, said, “Every week someone calls me saying they think they have a Declaration of Independence or a Gettysburg Address. Most of the time it’s just a copy, but once in a while something important gets found.”
“This is a whole other level of importance,” he said.
On the front and back of the broadsheet, along with the Constitution, is a letter from George Washington asking for it to be ratified. He agreed that agreement was needed and that some rights of the states would have to be given up for the good of the country in the long run.
“In order to protect everyone’s rights to independent sovereignty and keep everyone safe and interested, each new member of society must give up some freedom in order to protect the rest,” wrote the man who would become president of the United States.
Brunk doesn’t know what the paper could be used for since there isn’t much else like it. In 1891, a copy of the Constitution just like this one sold for $400.
One of the 14 copies of the Constitution that were printed for the Continental Congress and members to the Constitutional Convention was sold at Sotheby’s of New York for $43.2 million in 2021. This was the most money ever paid for a book or document.
That paper, on the other hand, was meant to be given to the Founding Fathers as delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Later this month, a signed copy will be sold.
It was meant to be sent to leaders in every state so that people across the country could read it and decide if that’s how they wanted to be governed. This would connect the people who wrote the Constitution to the people in the states who would give it power and legitimacy.
It says in the auction ad that the item is part of a private collection and doesn’t name the seller.
A first draft of the Articles of Confederation from 1776 and a journal from the 1788 Convention of North Carolina at Hillsborough were also for auction in Asheville. At that meeting, representatives debated for two weeks whether ratifying the Constitution would give the nation too much power instead of the states.