Lost Rights

Starred review from May 3, 2010
This remarkable American story by Howard, executive editor of Bicycling magazine, follows the long, shadowy trail of a single document, North Carolina’s wayward copy of the Bill of Rights. With ratification of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution in 1789, 14 elegantly handwritten copies were drafted, one for each of the original states and one for the federal government. Seventy-six years later, at the end of the Civil War, it is believed a soldier with Sherman’s army pilfered North Carolina’s copy and carried it home to Ohio. The following year it ended up in the possession of Indiana businessman Charles Shotwell, who bought it for only $5. After 134 years in the Shotwell family’s possession, the document in 2000 was purchased for $200,000 by a boastful Connecticut antique collector and an ethically dubious business partner, both hoping to sell it for millions. How the parchment ended up back in North Carolina state archives is an intricate tale involving high-powered antique dealers, businessmen, historians, manuscript experts, auction houses, elite attorneys, governors of three states, the FBI, a U.S. Attorney’s office, and Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center. The tale pulsates with dynamic personalities greatly affected by their connection to one of the rarest, most influential and valuable documents in American history. Howard has produced a marvelously compelling read.