Legal History
Lawyer Pays $21.3M for Magna Carta
Posted Dec 19, 2007, 11:19 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A lawyer has paid $21.3 million at auction for a 710-year-old copy of the Magna Carta.
David Rubenstein, a lawyer and founder of The Carlyle Group, a private equities firm, told reporters he bought the document so it can remain on display at the National Archives, Reuters reports. The Magna Carta curbed the power of the English king and established legal rights.
The document was the only copy of the Magna Carta in the United States and the only one that is privately owned.
"I have always believed that the three most important documents were the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta," Rubinstein said, according to an account in the Irish Times.
Rubenstein was once a domestic policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter. He says his office is just a few hundred yards from the archives, so he won’t have to travel far to see the document.
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