Trump Is Literally Frying a Rare Copy of the Emancipation Proclamation

Bedrock civil rights milestones are at risk of withering away under the Trump administration—including in the physical sense. Hot conditions in a new National Park Service exhibit under the Lincoln Memorial are imperiling rare 1860s copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment, Emma Uber of City Cast DC reported Wednesday.

Uber cites unnamed NPS staff members who are concerned that “screens designed to shield the records from harsh light have been defective and temperatures inside the display case have repeatedly reached more than 80 degrees.”

For reference, the National Archives advises families to store their archives below 75 degrees, and it keeps its own display featuring the Constitution and Emancipation Proclamation at 67. A preservation specialist told Uber that historic documents should not be stored in environments exceeding 75 degrees, “and even then … that level of heat is only safe if humidity and light are carefully controlled.”

The documents at the Lincoln Memorial Undercroft carry Abraham Lincoln’s original signature, and—a detail perhaps more likely to move the Trump administration’s top brass—they’re worth millions of dollars.

An NPS spokesperson assured Uber in somewhat vague terms that the documents are “cared for.” But while on the scene at the undercroft, the reporter spied unsubtle evidence of the heat problem: a fan conspicuously directed toward the display case. “The Park Service did not respond to questions about why the fan was there,” Uber reports. ...