RALEIGH–As a hard rain lashed the last Confederate state capital to surrender to General William T. Sherman, the first Union soldiers entered Raleigh on April 13, 1865, ending the general’s infamous March through the Carolinas. By the time the general’s troops struck camp and left three weeks later, North Carolina’s original copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights and numerous other important state documents were missing from a storage area in the State Capitol.
The exciting story of the Bill of Rights’ journey and recovery will be told in the House Chamber on Saturday, April 18, at 1 p.m. in a free public lecture by Assistant State Attorney General Karen Blum. Because Blum represented the state in its efforts to recover the historic document, she brings a unique perspective to tracing its remarkable journey from 1787 to the present.
Blum’s presentation starts with the Bill of Rights’ proposal by Congress and its transmittal to North Carolina by George Washington in 1789. From there, she recounts its theft from the Capitol by a Union soldier and subsequent recovery by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2003. She will also explain several of the methods used to identify the recovered Bill of Rights as the original document.
Blum has been working on the Bill of Rights case since May 2003. She has also helped recover several other missing public records such as a message April 18, 1777, from the state’s House of Commons to the N.C. Senate nominating the governor, secretary of state and council of state; the proposed resolution January 7, 1861, calling for a convention to consider secession; and a letter May 23, 1861, from Jefferson Davis to North Carolina’s governor regarding arms manufacturing. She also aided in the return of the Confederate battle flag of the 18th NC, captured at Petersburg on April 2, 1865, returned to North Carolina by the War Department in 1905 and stolen from the N.C. Museum of History sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
After graduating from N.C. Central University’s School of Law in 2001, Blum was a judicial law clerk at the N.C. Court of Appeals (2001-2002) before moving to the Attorney General’s Office in November 2002.
A National Historic Landmark, the N.C. State Capitol is one of the finest and best-preserved examples of the Greek Revival style of architecture in the United States. It features a domed rotunda and state senate and house chambers, meticulously restored to their 1840 appearance. Until 1888 its granite walls housed all of state government, and the Legislature met here until 1961. Today the governor and her staff still occupy offices in the Capitol.
The State Capitol’s mission is to preserve and interpret the architecture, history and functions of the 1840 Capitol building and Union Square, where it is located. In downtown Raleigh, the Capitol is bounded by Edenton, Salisbury, Morgan and Wilmington streets. Free parking is available in state lots near the Capitol. For more information call (919) 733-4994 or go to http://www.nchistoricsites.org/capitol.
Administered by the Division of State Historic Sites, the State Capitol is part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, a state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. Join the Cultural Resources 2009 theme observance of “Treasure N.C. Culture.” For more information, visit www.ncculture.com.