Asheville – Brunk Auctions has announced a live auction for an official, signed ratification copy of the United States Constitution. The document is one of nine lots of related materials going up for auction in a special session on September 28. Interested parties may bid in person, online, or by phone. They may also bid by proxy. However they wish to participate, they must preregister. “We want to be sure the bidders are legitimate,” explained Lauren Brunk, vice president of Brunk Auctions.
Brunk said they’ve had a lot of inquiries to date. They’re coming from all over the world, mostly from institutions and private collectors. Bidding will start at $1,100,000, the $1,000,000 opening bid having already been placed.
Remarkably, this copy is typeset and not handwritten. Brunk explained that this was one of 100 printed copies of the Constitution sent to the states for ratification. Secretary of the Congress Charles Thomson signed only a few of these, and only eight or nine signed copies are known to remain. This is the only signed copy held privately.
It was found in a home in Edenton formerly owned by Samuel Johnston, who served as the state’s governor at the time the documents were circulated and presided over the state’s ratifying convention. The home was bequeathed to the Wood family, who continued to live in it for several generations.
The library at the Edenton estate contained many historic documents, like one of the first 200 copies of the Declaration of Independence ever printed. In 1993, the family sold this to Williams College for a record $412,500. To conserve the remaining books and documents, the family donated them to the North Carolina Collection at the Wilson Library at UNC Chapel Hill. They are now housed in an accurate reproduction of the estate’s library on campus.
Two years ago, the owners decided to sell the Edenton home to a foundation so it could receive historic designation and be preserved for posterity. While doing due diligence, appraisers found the ratification copy of the Constitution in a two-drawer file cabinet in a storage room. “Nobody knows exactly when it came into the family’s possession,” said Brunk.
Brunk said it is an honor to have learned so much about the history of the document while preparing it for auction. “They were asking the states to sign off on a plan for a functional federal government. The existing government had no teeth, and everybody realized it wouldn’t work.”
She recalled James Madison saying that the Constitutional Convention had generated “nothing more than the draft of a plan, nothing but a dead letter, until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people, speaking through the several state conventions.”
“This is the moment,” she said, “when the voice of the people was made manifest through the governor. It was a manifestation of the agreement of the people to allow themselves to be governed.”
Brunk’s husband, Andrew, who serves as president and CEO, said, “For all of us here at Brunk Auctions, it is a great honor to bring to market the extraordinary documents in this catalog. This ratification copy of the Constitution—the only known copy in private hands—is the manifestation of the most crucial element of the great experiment launched by the Founding Fathers: the connection point between government and the will of the people. In a time of monarchs, they chose democracy of ‘We the People.’”
Items found with this document that are also going up for auction as coming from “A Historic Edenton Family Collection” include important documents pertaining to North Carolina’s support for the Constitution. One is a letter sent from Johnston to President George Washington and a response. This is typeset in two columns and looks like it was torn out of a magazine. Brunk said that in those days, before mass media was so pervasive, letters from politicians and their responses were intended to be published as a way of communicating positions or statements.
Other lots going up for auction come from different collections from the same era. Standing out is what is believed to be a 19th-century German replica of Emanuel Leutze’s painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware.
The lots will be sold during three days of auctions. Bidding on the ratification Constitution will take place in the last session, which will start at 2:00 p.m. Brunk Auctions is located at 117 Tunnel Road in Asheville. Serious parties may set an appointment to preview the lots by calling 828-254-6846.