“It is serendipitous that in time of war our government entrusted to clergy our founding document…”

On August 24, 1814, Secretary of State James Monroe rode 40 miles to the Patuxent River village of Benedict, in Charles County, Maryland to investigate the rumor that the British were landing there on their way to attack the nation’s capital at Washington, D.C.

He found an observation point about a quarter mile out from Benedict and saw that the British had the capital guard vastly outnumbered.

Secretary Monroe sent a fast-riding messenger with a note to his clerk, Stephen Pleasanton, telling him of the danger and instructing him to “take the best care of the books and papers of the office which might be in your power. (1)

Pleasanton immediately bought some coarse linen, made it up into bags, and was in the process of filling them when Secretary of War Armstrong passed by on the way to his own office. Armstrong told the clerk that he did not believe the British invasion was a serious threat and that that there was no need to be overly alarmist about their approach.

Pleasanton just kept doing the job Monroe had asked him to do, and soon he had packed up the journals of the first Congress, the papers of George Washington, the Constitution, and all the laws, treaties and correspondence of the State Department. (2)

After the last load of linen bags had been put onto a waiting wagon, Pleasanton took one final look around his office, and it was then that he realized a framed item hanging on his office wall had become so familiar and common that he had almost overlooked it – the original Declaration of Independence. Quickly, he cut it out of its frame and secured it along with the other important papers.

He took the papers to Rokeby House, near Leesburg, Virginia, 35 miles away from D.C. (3)

Pleasanton likely chose Rokeby House because it had been built of stone by Charles Binns II, the first clerk of the Circuit Court of Loudoun County (4) and had a cellar vault with an iron door. As Pleasanton was storing our nation’s founding documents in that Leesburg vault, the British were burning all the public buildings in the capital city.

Pleasanton returned to D.C. and entrusted the keys of the vault (5) to the home’s occupant, Rev. John Littlejohn. (6)

It is serendipitous that in time of war our government entrusted to clergy our founding document that says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

A clergyman would appreciate the theological discussion: If our inalienable rights are given to us by God, has He also given to us an equally binding set of inalienable responsibilities?

The answer is right there in front of us, but like Pleasanton’s framed office decoration, sometimes the most important items have become so familiar and common that they are in danger of being overlooked.

When God entrusted to Moses the stone tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments, He declared to us our dependence upon Him: “I am the Lord your God.”

From that single foundational truth flows His ability to endow us with our inalienable rights and His authority to impose upon us inalienable responsibilities to worship only Him and to refrain from our selfish acts of adultery, deception, murder, and theft. (7)

As guardians of those truths, now is the time for our clergy to bring them up out of the vault and present them once again to the people.

(1) “Constitution is saved from the flames” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_J._Bunche_Library
(2) “The Declaration of Independence: A History, Early Travels, 1776-1814″, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_history.html
(3) Carr, Eve “Paper Trail: Travels of the Declaration of Independence” The Free Lance Star, July 9, 2005, reprinted at http://www.monroefoundation.org/7.9.05travel.html
(4) Fanizzi, Justin “Rokeby House Becomes Nation’s Capital: Was Leesburg really the U.S. capital in 1814?” Ashburn Connection, July 23, 2008, http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=317610&paper=67&cat=230
(5) “Safeguarding the Declaration of Independence: Leesburg, Virginia” http://research.history.org/pf/safeguarding/1814_leesburg.cfm
(6) “The Declaration of Independence”, The New York Times, July 2, 1905 http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9405E4D61738EF32A25751C0A9619C946497D6CF
(7) Exodus 20:3 (NKJV)

Mike Sharman, a resident of Foothills of Faith Farm in Madison County, Virginia, has served as an attorney and guardian for children for more than two decades. Mike writes a weekly editorial column published by the Culpeper Star-Exponent and other,. You may contact him at
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[email protected]

[Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]