Seth Culler, an appraiser and collector of historical documents, has a wide sheet of paper spread out on his desk, in such good condition that he can handle it carefully with clean, bare hands.
The book, which is just a few weeks away from 237 and has been sitting in a filing cabinet in North Carolina for who knows how long, shows only a few creases and minor discoloration.
At the top of the first page are the familiar words, written in regular type rather than the Gothic typeface we are used to seeing: “We, the people…”
Now, people will have the chance to bid on this copy of the U.S. Constitution – believed to be the only one of its kind in private hands – at a Blank Auctions auction in Asheville, North Carolina on September 28.
The minimum bid for the auction has already been set at $1 million. There is no minimum bid.
The copy was printed after the Constitutional Convention completed its draft framework for a national government in 1787 and sent it to Congress, the dysfunctional first American government under the Articles of Confederation, with a request to send it to the states for popular ratification.
It is one of around 100 copies printed by the then Clerk of Parliament, Charles Thomson. Only eight copies remain today, with the remaining seven in public ownership.
Thompson signed two copies for each of the original 13 states, essentially authenticating each one. Those signatures were sent to a special ratifying convention, where the all-white, male delegates debated for months before approving the structure of U.S. government that continues to this day.
“This is the interface between the government and the people. The preamble, 'we the people,' is a moment when the government is asking the people to empower it,” auctioneer Andrew Blank said.
It is unclear what happened to the documents up for auction between Thompson's signature and 2022.
Two years ago in Edenton, eastern North Carolina, work was underway to clear land once owned by Samuel Johnston.
He served as governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789, and in his final year in office he oversaw the state convention that ratified the Constitution.
The copy had been found in a squat, two-drawer metal filing cabinet with a dye can on top in a long-abandoned room filled with old chairs and dusty bookshelves that had been in the Johnston House before it was preserved. The document was a wide sheet of paper that could be folded up once, like a book.
“We get calls every week from people who think they have the Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address, but most of the time it's just a replica, but every once in a while we find something significant,” said Culler, who buys and sells historical documents.
AP
“This is a whole other level of importance,” he added.
Printed on the front and back of the large sheet of paper with the Constitution is George Washington's letter pleading for ratification, in which he acknowledged that compromises would be necessary and that the states would have to give up rights they enjoyed for the long-term health of the nation.
“In order to guarantee to each man all the rights of his independent sovereignty, and yet to secure the interest and safety of all, each individual member of society must surrender some of his liberty in order to secure the rest,” wrote the man who would become the first president of the United States.
With so little to compare it to, Blank doesn't know how much the document will fetch: The last time such a copy of the Constitution sold was for $400 in 1891. In 2021, Sotheby's in New York sold one of only 14 remaining copies of the Constitution printed for delegates to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention for $43.2 million, a record price for any book or document.
However, the document was intended to be distributed to the Founding Fathers as delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
The signed copies, which will go on sale later this month, will be sent to state leaders so that people across the country can read them and decide whether they want to be governed the way they want to be — connecting the framers of the Constitution with the people of each state who give it power and legitimacy.
The auction listing does not name the seller, and it is said to be part of a private collection.
Other items up for auction in Asheville include the original draft of the Articles of Confederation from 1776 and minutes from the North Carolina State Convention, which met in Hillsboro in 1788, where delegates debated for two weeks whether ratifying the Constitution would concentrate too much power in the nation rather than in the states.
