MANHATTAN (PIX11)– A new exhibition in Lower Manhattan is offering visitors a chance to stand face-to-face with the documents that shaped the United States.

At South Street Seaport Museum, the exhibition “The Promise of Liberty: Words That Shaped a Nation” brings together rare printings of the Declaration of Independence, early editions of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and artifacts connected to generations of Americans fighting to expand the meaning of liberty.

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Housed inside the museum’s historic 19th-century A.A. Thomson building, the exhibition also reopens a floor that has not been accessible to the public in years.

The exhibition includes a first-run printed version of the Declaration. It’s known as a broadside intended for public display shortly after independence was declared.

“A lot of people are familiar with the Declaration that was signed and is in Washington, D.C.,” said Martina Caruso, the museum’s director of collections and exhibitions. “There were many versions that were printed on July 14, 1776.”

Caruso said the exhibit was designed to let visitors experience history not as abstract ideas in textbooks, but as physical objects that traveled through time.

“This Declaration of Independence would have been printed for a poster for the public to read 250 years ago,” she explained. “You can see the paper is really thick, the lettering coming out of it, and you can read the grievances against the King of England, and they’re still powerful in today’s mindset.”

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Beyond the nation’s founding documents, the exhibition traces the continuing struggle over who fully shares in the promise of liberty.

Among the featured artifacts are an advance copy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and congressional documents tied to the abolition of slavery.

Curators say the goal is not simply a patriotic celebration, but a reflection.

“The idea is to talk about the documents as promissory notes,” Caruso said. “The country is a work in progress. Decades and centuries later, there are things we need to do to keep up and get better.”

For museum president and CEO Captain Jonathan Boulware, the experience of standing beside the documents has proven unexpectedly emotional.

“I was unprepared for how emotional and moving it is to be in the presence of the documents,” Boulware said. “Tears, standing next to the Constitution.”

Boulware said the exhibition also tells a New York story that is rooted in the city’s maritime and printing history.

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“We are an experiential museum,” he said. “The Promise of Liberty is one floor in a building from 1868. We are doing the work where the work was.”

The museum’s broader campus highlights New York’s maritime past and the role the waterfront played in commerce, immigration, communication, and the spread of revolutionary ideas.

For more information about the exhibition, visit South Street Seaport Museum

The timing of the exhibition coincides with preparations for the nation’s semiquincentennial celebrations. The South Street Seaport area is expected to draw large crowds this summer as dozens of tall ships sail into New York Harbor for Sail4th 250 festivities. Historic vessels, including the Wavertree and a schooner connected to the Seaport Museum, are already docked along the East River at Pier 16.

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