Want to see one of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence without leaving Richmond? Then you might want to head to the Virginia Historical Society tomorrow. The museum on North Boulevard in Richmond will display one of only 26 known original printed copies of the declaration. It marks the first time the document will be displayed in Richmond.

A rare broadside printing of America’s Declaration of Independence will go on display Oct. 1 at the Yorktown Victory Center.

This morning, on Independence Day, Americans will turn on their televisions or radios and hear Thomas Jefferson’s ringing affirmation of human dignity: “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 wealthy Fairfax County collector can keep a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence that was claimed by the small Maine town where it was sent in 1776. Yesterday a unanimous Supreme Court of Virginia upheld a lower court ruling that Internet pioneer Richard L. Adams Jr., who bought the document for $475,000 in 2001, had a stronger claim to ownership than did the town of Wiscasset.

A wealthy Fairfax County collector can keep a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence claimed by the small Maine town where it was sent in 1776, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled this morning.

The Supreme Court of Virginia yesterday heard arguments in Maine’s last chance to obtain a 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence it says belongs to the town of Wiscasset. “Public documents belong to the government, they don’t belong to people,“ Thomas A. Knowlton, a Maine assistant attorney general, told the Virginia justices yesterday. He said the print belongs to the town.

In December 2001, Richard L. Adams Jr., a Fairfax County Internet pioneer, paid a rare-book dealer in London $475,000 for a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Several years later, the state of Maine claimed it was a public record belonging to the town of Wiscasset, where it was read from a pulpit by the Rev. Thomas Moore and then delivered to the local clerk on Oct. 19, 1776.