RALEIGH - A copy of the Bill of Rights stolen from the state Capitol during the Civil War now officially belongs to the people of North Carolina, state Attorney General Roy Cooper said today.

Superior Court Judge Henry W. Hight Jr. issued an order today that ended all remaining claims to the document. Hight declared that North Carolina owns its original copy of the Bill of Rights, Cooper's office said in a news release.

The judgment ended a lengthy legal battle by the state for ownership of the historic document.

The document dates to 1789, when Congress requested President George Washington to send 13 handwritten copies of the proposed Bill of Rights to the original states for ratification.

North Carolina's copy was preserved with the state's other archival papers in the Capitol. During the occupation of Raleigh by U.S. General William Sherman's army in 1865, the copy and other papers were taken by Union troops as souvenirs.

The document resurfaced in 2003, when a Connecticut antiques dealer, Wayne E. Pratt, offered it for sale to the National Constitutional Center in Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania officials contacted the state, which fought to recover the document. The dealer, Wayne E. Pratt, relinquished his claims, and it was returned to the state in 2005.