Who owns the Declaration of Independence?

For decades, Anna Plumstead of Wiscasset, Me had a treasure in her attic: a 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence. It had been sent to the town in that decisive year as part of a campaign to spread its message throughout the 13 rebelling colonies. At that time, Wiscasset was part of Massachusetts. When Ms Plumstead died, her heirs cleaned out the attic and found the copy. It was sold at an estate auction and has since changed hands several times. Most recently it was bought by a private collector in New Jersey who paid $475,000 for it in 2001. Now the state of Maine is trying to reclaim it, citing a statute that says a public document remains a public document until explicitly relinquished by the Maine government. "In our view it belongs to the community," said William Stokes, a deputy state attorney general. He will represent Maine at a trial next month in a suit filed by the collector. "It got separated from the community through the passage of time, but our position is it never belonged to anyone other than the town of Wiscasset." This strikes us as the most idiotic claim we have ever heard in a court of law. A state is claiming jurisdiction over a document that was created when it didn’t exist! Why don’t these greedy Yankees claim ownership of Jefferson’s original handwritten copy? It would make about as much sense.