\t\t\t\t\tOPA-LOCKA, FLA. (WSVN) – <\/p>\n
Miami was selected as one of the homes of a special delivery to celebrate a major milestone for the United States.<\/p>\n
On Monday, a group of documents that helped forge our nation arrived at Opa-locka Executive Airport on a specially decorated Boeing 737.<\/p>\n
These special documents, which include an original engraving of the Declaration of Independence and a rare draft copy of the Constitution with notations and oaths of allegiance signed by Founding Fathers George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr, will be on display at the Museum of Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not people that agreed on everything, but they actually negotiated and sacrificed and convened to make a promise, really of an experiment in self-government that had never existed before,\u201d said Natalia Crujeiras, CEO of the Museum of Miami.<\/p>\n
It will be part of an eight-city landmark traveling exhibition by the National Archives called \u201cFreedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carefully encased in boxes and kept under climate-controlled conditions, staff offloaded the nine documents that stitch together the U.S.\u2019 early story. Once on the ground, the documents were loaded into a van and headed to the downtown museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re really feeling the spirit, the ideas, the boldness of what the founders really were doing,\u201d said Patrick Madden, CEO of National Archives Foundation.<\/p>\n
Other documents included in the group: a treaty that ended the Revolutionary War and a draft of the Bill of Rights, complete with scratch-outs and scribbles, as contributors refined what would become the First Amendment.<\/p>\n
The scribbles are a common theme throughout these early papers, as this group of farmers, inventors, lawyers, merchants, and others pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the new nation they were crafting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of editing. Even Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration, a couple of his friends came in and made edits to it. He wasn\u2019t too happy about it,\u201d said Madden.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a country that has always been becoming. And what is it that they dreamed of? And what is that they aspire to?\u201d said Crujeiras.<\/p>\n
The Museum of Miami will host this exhibition from June 20 through July 5.<\/p>\n