PHILADELPHIA Constitution Center museum to open

Visitors can leave their opinions at the museum.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A new national museum honoring the U.S. Constitution will open its doors Friday at the northern end of Independence Mall, and its curators say the timing couldn't be better for a monument to our national charter.
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is scheduled to join a list of politicians and celebrities at the dedication of the $185 million National Constitution Center, whose glass-walled galleries will offer sweeping views of the Constitution's historic birthplace, Independence Hall, three blocks to the south.
The museum was conceived more than a decade ago and has been under construction for three years, but it opens to a public that has been both consumed by patriotism since the Sept. 11 attacks and concerned that civil liberties might be compromised in a clampdown on terror.
"That is the challenge that the framers faced, the challenge of balancing liberty with security, and it is a challenge that has echoed down through the ages," said Stephen Frank, the center's director of research. "It is an opportunity for us -- the fact that these kinds of questions have risen -- and they are issues we confront."
Museum's exhibits
Indeed, the museum has lovingly embraced 216 years of constitutional controversy in its exhibits.
One of Palm Beach County's infamous butterfly ballots from the 2000 presidential election will be on display. So will tickets to President Andrew Johnson's 1868 impeachment trial and a lock pick used during the Watergate burglary.
Everywhere within the museum's central, circular gallery are reminders of the role of the everyday citizen in challenging the way we interpret the Constitution.
When the museum picked 100 Americans to be featured in an exhibit called the "National Family Tree," it bypassed presidents and politicians in favor of many who fell into the history lexicon by less traditional means, like Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, included for his court battles over free speech and pornography.
There is a collection of petitions -- some with thousands of signatures -- sent to Congress demanding the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage and rights for American Indians.
Several exhibits will allow guests to write out their opinions on sticky notes and slap them to the wall. The museum's second-floor cafe will include terminals where visitors can e-mail their congressmen.
"It promotes the idea that the Constitution is not so much a document that contains answers to society's problems that mysteriously reveal themselves to us, as much as it is a document that sets up a framework for Americans to solve problems themselves," said University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Kim Roosevelt.
Founding fathers
The founding fathers are also represented, but looking far more human than they often do in textbooks.
In the museum's final gallery, visitors walk among life-size statues of the 39 men who signed the Constitution. Here, the statues rest on the floor, not on pedestals, and giants like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton seem surprisingly short and thin -- almost delicate. Only Washington, at 6-foot-2, towers over the common man.
"We want you to see them as real people making choices," said the center's president, Joseph Torsella.
In the same room, the museum will encourage visitors to sign a copy of the present-day Constitution before leaving -- or to dissent. Three delegates, Torsella noted, refused to sign the original constitution. Their statues stand in a corner.
The National Constitution Center was established by Congress in 1988 and is partly funded by the federal government.