Civil War exhibit opens at National Constitution Center

PHILADELPHIA – The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is unveiling the nation’s first permanent exhibit exploring the constitutional debates of the Civil War.

“Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality” opens to the public on Thursday.

The museum says visitors will “learn how the equality promised in the Declaration of Independence was finally inscribed in the Constitution by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.”

The exhibit features over 100 artifacts, including original copies of those amendments. It also features Dred Scott’s signed petition for freedom, a pike bought by John Brown for an armed raid to free slaves, a fragment of the flag that Abraham Lincoln raised at Independence Hall, and a ballot box marked “colored” from Virginia’s first statewide election that allowed black men to vote in 1867.