Library

Founding Documents

The Continental Association (October 20, 1774)
The Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)
The Articles of Confederation (November 15, 1777)
The New Jersey Plan (June 15, 1787)
Alexander Hamilton’s Plan of Union (June 18, 1787)
George Washington: Letter of Transmittal (September 17, 1787)
The Constitution of the United States of America (September 17, 1787)
The Federalist Papers (1787-1788)
The Federalist Papers (Modern Language Interpretation) (1787-1788)
Bill of Rights Preamble (1789)
The Bill of Rights as Ratified (1789)
Madison’s Proposal for the Bill of Rights (June 8, 1789)
The Bill of Rights (December 15, 1791)
Amendments 11-27 to the Constitution of the United States (February 7, 1795)
Matthew Spalding: A Note on the Signers of The Declaration of Independence
State Constitutions
State Constitutions on Faith

Foundations of the West (Ancient-1492)

Exploration and the Colonial Era (1492-1765)

Privileges and Prerogatives Granted by Their Catholic Majesties to Christopher Columbus (1492)
The Letter of Columbus to Luis De Sant Angel Announcing His Discovery (1493)
A Letter from Christopher Columbus to the King and Queen of Spain (1494)
Martin Luther: Ninety-Five Theses (October 31, 1517)
The Augsburg Confession (1530)
Charter to Sir Walter Raleigh (March 25, 1584)
Ralph Lane: The Colony at Roanoke (1586)
Elizabeth I’s Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (1588)
Constitution of the Iroquois Nations (Late 16th century)
The First Virginia Charter (April 10, 1606)
Captain John Smith: The Settlement of Jamestown (1607)
The Second Virginia Charter (May 23, 1609)
The Third Virginia Charter (March 12, 1612)
The Mayflower Compact (1620)
Governor Edward Winslow: How the Pilgrims Lived (1621)
Charter Of Massachusetts Bay (1629)
The Act of Surrender of the Great Charter of New England to His Majesty (1635)
Agreement of the Settlers at Exeter in New Hampshire (1639)
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (January 14, 1639)
Fundamental Agreement, or Original Constitution of the Colony of New Haven (June 4, 1639)
The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England (May 19, 1643)
Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 (September 21, 1649)
Connecticut Colony Charter (1662)
The First Thanksgiving Proclamation (June 20, 1676)
English Bill of Rights (1689)
The Second Treatise of Government (1690)
Benjamin Franklin: An Apology for Printers (June 10, 1731)
Andrew Hamilton: Defense of John Peter Zenger (August 4, 1735)
George Washington’s Rules of Civility (c. 1748)
Albany Plan of Union (1754)
George Washington: Braddock’s Defeat (b July 18, 1755)
James Otis: In Opposition to Writs of Assistance (b February 1761)
Benjamin Franklin: The Way to Wealth (1758)

Independence and the Early State (1765-1789)

Resolutions of the Stamp Act (October 19, 1765)
Anonymous Account of the Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770)
Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress (October 14, 1774)
Articles of Association (October 20, 1774)
Yankee Doodle (1775)
Patrick Henry: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death! (March 23, 1775)
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (July 6, 1775)
Common Sense (1776)
Richard Henry Lee: The Lee Resolution (June 7, 1776)
Virginia Declaration of Rights (June 12, 1776)
George Washington: General Orders (July 2, 1776)
Samuel Adams Advocates American Independence (August 1, 1776)
Treaty of Alliance with France (1778)
George III’s Letter on the Loss of America (c. 1780)
Thomas Jefferson: The Commerce Between Master and Slave (1782)
Contract Between the King and the Thirteen United States of North America (1782) (July 16, 1782)
George Washington: Speech to Officers at Newburgh (1783)
Treaty of Paris (1783)
Declarations for Suspension of Arms and Cessation of Hostilities (January 20, 1783)
Contract Between the King and the Thirteen United States of North America (1783) (February 25, 1783)
Proclamation Declaring the Cessation of Arms (April 11, 1783)
Memorial and Remonstrance (June 20, 1785)
Virginia Act for Religious Freedom (1786)
The Annapolis Convention (Sept. 14, 1786)
Northwest Ordinance (1787)
James Madison & Edmund Randolph: The Virginia Plan (May 29, 1787)
Benjamin Franklin: Closing Speech at the Constitutional Convention (September 17, 1787)
Letter from the Federal Convention President to the President of Congress, Transmitting the Constitution (September 17, 1787)
James Madison: Speech in Defense of the Ratification of the Constitution (June 6, 1788)
Alexander Hamilton: On the Adoption of the Constitution (June 24, 1788)
Federal Judiciary Act (1789)
George Washington’s First Inaugural Address (April 30, 1789)

Antebellum America (1789-1860)

George Washington: First Thanksgiving Proclamation (October 3, 1789)
George Washington’s First State of the Union Address (January 8, 1790)
Militia Act of 1792 (May 2, 1792)
The Fugitive Slave Law (1793)
George Washington: The Proclamation of Neutrality (April 22, 1793)
The Treaty of Greenville (August 3, 1795)
George Washington’s Farewell Address (September 17, 1796)
Inaugural Address of John Adams (Saturday, March 4, 1797)
Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 (November 10th, 1798)
Daniel Boone Settles Kentucky (c. 1800)
Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1801)
Thomas Jefferson: Letter to the Danbury Baptists (January 1, 1802)
Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803)
Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Thomas Jefferson’s Secret Message to Congress on the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803)
Thomas Jefferson’s Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1805)
Tecumseh to Governor Harrison at Vincennes (August 12, 1810)
Tecumseh: Sleep not longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws (1811)
War of 1812 (June 18, 1812)
A British Account of the Burning of Washington (1814)
Treaty of Ghent (1814)
Dolley Madison: The Burning of Washington (August 23, 1814)
Francis Scott Key: Star Spangled Banner (September 14th, 1814)
Chief Justice John Marshall: McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
The Missouri Compromise (1820)
John Quincy Adams: Address on U.S. Foreign Policy (July 4, 1821)
How a Log Cabin Was Built (1822)
James Monroe: The Monroe Doctrine (December 2, 1823)
Chief Justice John Marshall: Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
Andrew Jackson’s Message to Congress ‘On Indian Removal’ (1830)
Daniel Webster: Second Reply to Hayne (January 26, 1830)
William Lloyd Garrison: To the Public (January 1, 1831)
Andrew Jackson: Proclamation Regarding Nullification (December 10, 1832)
American Anti-Slavery Society’s Declaration of Sentiments (1833)
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America, Volume 1, Part A (1835)
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America, Volume I, Part B (1835)
Andrew Jackson: Message to the Seminoles (February 16, 1835)
Andrew Jackson’s Farewell Address (1837)
Ralph Waldo Emerson: The American Scholar (1837)
Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Concord Hymn (1837)
Abraham Lincoln: The Lyceum Address (January 27, 1838)
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America, Volume II, Part A (1840)
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America, Volume II, Part B (1840)
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Self Reliance (1841)
Henry Highland Garnet’s ‘Call to Rebellion’ (1843)
Dorothea Dix: Memorial to the Massachusetts Legislature (1843)
Peter Wilson (Waowawanaonk) on The Empire State (May 4, 1847)
Horace Mann: Report No. 12 of the Massachusetts School Board (1848)
Seneca Falls Declaration (1848)
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Keynote Address at Seneca Falls (July 19, 1848)
Henry David Thoreau: On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849)
Henry Clay: Compromise of 1850 (1850)
Levi Coffin: The Underground Railroad (1850)
John C. Calhoun: The Clay Compromise Measures (March 4, 1850)
Frederick Douglass: What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (July 5, 1852)
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
Abraham Lincoln: Speech on the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise at Peoria, Illinois (October 16, 1854)
Massachusetts Personal Liberty Act (1855)
Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
Abraham Lincoln: ‘House Divided’ Speech (June 16, 1858)
Frank Lloyd Garrison: The Death of John Brown (1859)
John Brown’s Speech to the Court at his Trial (November 2, 1859)
Captain R. M. Potter: The Fall of the Alamo (1860)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (1860)
Abraham Lincoln: Address at Cooper Institute, New York City (February 27, 1860)
Frederick Douglas: A Plea for Free Speech in Boston (December 10, 1860)
James Madison’s Proclamation – Humiliation and Prayer (July 9, 1812)
Thomas Jefferson’s Decalogue of Canons (February 21, 1825)

Secession and War (1860-1865)

South Carolina Declaration of Secession (December 24, 1860)
Constitution of the Confederate States of America (1861)
Declaration of Causes of Seceding States (1861)
Maj. Robert Anderson: Telegram Announcing the Surrender of Fort Sumter (1861)
Julia Ward Howe: The Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861)
Jefferson Davis: Farewell Speech to the United States Congress (January 21, 1861)
Georgia Secession (January 29, 1861)
A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union (February 2, 1861)
Abraham Lincoln’s Farewell Address to Springfield (February 11, 1861)
Jefferson Davis: 1st Innaugural Address (February 18, 1861)
Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1861)
The Homestead Act (1862)
The Morrill Act (1862)
The Pacific Railway Act (1862)
Jefferson Davis: 2nd Innaugural Address (February 22, 1862)
Abraham Lincoln: The Emancipation Proclamation (September 22, 1862)
War Department General Order 143: Creation of the U.S. Colored Troops (1863)
Abraham Lincoln: The Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863)
The Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
Articles of Agreement Relating to the Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia (1865)
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (April 10, 1865)
Robert E. Lee’s Farewell Address to the Army of Northern Virginia (April 10, 1865)

Reconstruction and Westward Expansion (1865-1914)

Associate Justice David Davis: Ex parte Milligan (1866)
Frederick Douglas: Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage (January 1867)
Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
Horace White: The Great Chicago Fire (October 14, 1871)
Act Establishing Yellowstone National Park (1872)
Susan B. Anthony: Woman’s Rights to the Suffrage (1873)
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest on Race (July 6, 1875)
Freedmen’s Memorial (April 14, 1876)
Surrender Speech to the U.S. Army at Bears Paw Battle (October 5, 1877)
Ulysses S. Grant: Reasons for Being a Republican (September 28, 1880)
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Pendleton Act (1883)
Emma Lazarus: The New Colossus (1883)
David Crockett: Not Yours to Give (1884)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: Memorial Day Address (May 30, 1884)
Dawes Act (1887)
Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
Booker T. Washington: Address to the Atlanta Exposition (September 18, 1895)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
The People’s [Populist] Party Platform (1896)
William Jennings Bryan: Cross of Gold (July 9, 1896)
De Lôme Letter (1897)
Joint Resolution on the Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands (1898)
Theodore Roosevelt: The Strenuous Life (April 10, 1899)
William Jennings Bryan: Against Imperialism (August 8, 1900)
Platt Amendment (1903)
Theodore Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (December 6, 1904)
Theodore Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1905)
Theodore Roosevelt: On American Motherhood (March 13, 1905)
The San Francisco Earthquake (April 19, 1906)
W.E.B. Du Bois: Speech at Harpers Ferry: The Niagara Movement (August 16, 1906)
Muller v. Oregon (1908)
Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Lynching: A National Crime (April 1909)
Theodore Roosevelt: The New Nationalism (1910)

The Modern State and Foreign Engagement (1914-1945)

Anna Howard Shaw: The Fundamental Principle of a Republic (June 21, 1915)
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916 (1916)
Woodrow Wilson: Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Germany (1917)
Arthur Zimmermann Telegram (1917)
William Tyler Page: The American’s Creed (1917)
Emma Goldman: Address to the Jury (July 9, 1917)
Sen. Robert La Follette: Free Speech in Wartime (October 6, 1917)
The Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917)
Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918)
The Espionage Act (May 16, 1918)
Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr.: Speech Against the League of Nations (August 12, 1919)
Boulder Canyon Project Act (1928)
National Industrial Recovery Act (1933)
Tennessee Valley Authority Act (1933)
Franklin D. Roosevelt: 1st Inaugural Address (March 4, 1933)
National Labor Relations Act (1935)
Social Security Act (1935)
Franklin Roosevelt: “We Have Only Just Begun to Fight” (October 31, 1936)
Letter from FDR to President of National Federation of Federal Employees (August 16, 1937)
Winston Churchill: “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” (June 4, 1940)
FDR Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry (1941)
Lend-Lease Act (1941)
The Atlantic Charter (1941)
Franklin Roosevelt: The Four Freedoms (1941)
Franklin Roosevelt’s Infamy Speech (December 8, 1941)
FDR Executive Order 9066: Resulting in the Relocation of Japanese (1942)
General Eisenhower’s Order of the Day (1944)
Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (G.I. Bill) (1944)
FDR’s New Bill of Rights (Excerpt from his 1944 State of the Union) (January 11, 1944)
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Call to Prayer (June 6, 1944)
Korematsu v. United States (December 18, 1944)
Surrender of Germany (1945)
Surrender of Japan (1945)
Franklin Roosevelt’s Fourth Inaugural Address (January 20, 1945)
Charter of the United Nations (June 26, 1945)
Potsdam Declaration (July 26, 1945)
Harry S. Truman: Statement on the Bombing of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945)
International Organizations Immunities Act (December 9, 1945)
United Nations Participation Act (December 20, 1945)

Cold War, Cultural Upheaval, and the Reagan Era (1945-1991)

Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech (March 5, 1946)
Participation in UNESCO (July 30, 1946)
Truman Doctrine (1947)
The Marshall Plan (June 5, 1947)
Government Press Release Announcing U.S. Recognition of Israel (1948)
Truman Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the Armed Forces (1948)
North Atlantic Treaty (April 4, 1949)
Amendment of United Nations Participation Act (October 10, 1949)
Joseph McCarthy’s ‘Enemies From Within’ Speech at Wheeling, West Virginia (February 9, 1950)
Harry S. Truman: Recall of General Douglas MacArthur (April 16, 1951)
Dwight Eisenhower’s First Inaugural Address (January 20, 1953)
Armistice Agreement for the Restoration of the South Korean State (July 27, 1953)
Senate Resolution 301: Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1954)
Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954)
National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (1956)
Dwight Eisenhower’s Second Inaugural Address (January 21, 1957)
Eisenhower Executive Order 10730: Desegregation of Central High School (September 24, 1957)
Cooper v. Aaron (Brown II) (1958)
M. Stanton Evans: The Sharon Statement (1960)
John F. Kennedy’s Address to Southern Baptist Leaders (September 12, 1960)
JFK Executive Order 10924: Establishment of the Peace Corps (1961)
John F. Kennedy Appeals to the Congress for a Tax Cut (1961)
Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (January 17, 1961)
John F. Kennedy: 1961 Inaugural Address (January 20, 1961)
John Glenn’s Official Communication With the Command Center (1962)
Douglas MacArthur’s Farewell Speech to West Point (May 12, 1962)
John F. Kennedy: Statement on the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 22, 1962)
Test Ban Treaty (1963)
Martin Luther King, Jr.: Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream” (August 28, 1963)
Barry Goldwater’s Acceptance Speech for the GOP Presidential Nomination (1964)
Civil Rights Act (1964)
Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964)
Ronald Reagan: A Time for Choosing (October 27, 1964)
Voting Rights Act (1965)
Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968)
Richard Nixon: “Vietnamization” (November 3, 1969)
John Kerry: Vietnam War Testimony to the House Foreign Relations Committee (April 22, 1971)
War Powers Resolution (1973)
Roe v. Wade (January 22, 1973)
United States v. Nixon (1974)
Ronald Reagan’s Speech to the 1976 Republican National Convention (1976)
Ronald Reagan: The New Republican Party (February 6, 1977)
Ronald Reagan’s Acceptance Speech to the 1980 Republican National Convention (1980)
Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address (January 20, 1981)
Ronald Reagan: Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)
Ronald Reagan: The Evil Empire (March 8, 1983)
Ronald Reagan’s Remarks at Pointe du Hoc on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day (June 6, 1984)
Ronald Reagan’s Second Inaugural Address (January 21, 1985)
Ronald Reagan: “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!” (June 12, 1987)
America’s Economic Bill of Rights (July 3, 1987)
Reagan Executive Order 12612: Federalism (October 26, 1987)
Texas v. Johnson (1989)
President Reagan’s Farewell Speech (1989)
Secretary of State James Baker: Democracy and Foreign Policy (1990)

Contemporary America (1991-Present)

George H.W. Bush: Statement Announcing Operation Desert Storm (January 16, 1991)
Lawrence E. Walsh: Executive Summary of the Final Report of the Iran-Contra Investigation (1993)
Contract With America (1994)
George W. Bush: Statement by the President following the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks (September 11, 2001)
George W. Bush: Remarks at National Day of Prayer and Remembrance (September 13, 2001)
George W. Bush: Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People (September 20, 2001)
George W. Bush: Commencement of Military Strikes Against al Qaeda and the Taliban (October 7, 2001)
Marko Kloos: Why the Gun Is Civilization (March 23, 2007)
Timeline of Civil Rights in America

Party Platforms

Michael Norman Holmes Jr.

Writer, Artist, Multimedia Entrepreneur, Communications Expert, Human Rights Advocate, Geopolitical Analyst. Founder & Host of saveamerica.tv.

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