c-span: pauline maier, author of "american scripture," where did you get that title? >> guest: it began, actually, as "sacred scripture." i was interested in how what was a workaday con--document of the second continental congress became a sacred document for americans. and i was told "sacred scripture" wasn't going to work because it would get classified as a religious book. so in the course of negotiations, we retitled the book. c-span: and what's this book about? >> guest: it's about the declaration of independence, about how it was originally drafted, about the event, independence, that it announced to the world and particularly to the people of the united states and then how really the american people and ultimately, with the very eloquent help of abraham lincoln, redefined it into a document that served a very different purpose. c-span: early on in the book you tell a story about two summers ago--1995. >> guest: yes. c-span: you were at a woodrow wilson scholars seminar and you walked across the street to the national archives. >> guest: exactly. c-span: for wha