Constitution Archives - Teaching American History

Notes on the State of Virginia

Source: Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1787), 270–75. https://archive.org/details/notesonstateofvi1787jeff/page/270…

Chapter 22: The New Deal: Social Security

A. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speech to Congress on Social Security, January 17, 1935 In…

Chapter 17: Reconstructing the West: Grant’s Peace Policy

A. President Ulysses S. Grant, First Annual Message, December 6, 1869 https://document-readings.s3.amazonaws.com/Documents+and+Debates/Volume+2/Chapter+17/vol2ch17+Grant+First+Annual+Message.mp3 . . .…

Chapter 14: John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry

A. Lydia Maria Child, Governor Henry Wise of Virginia, and John Brown, Correspondence, October 1859…

Chapter 12: The Peculiar Institution: Positive Good or Pernicious Sin?

A. American Anti-Slavery Society, Declaration of Sentiments, December 6, 1833 The Convention assembled in the…

Chapter 11: The Nullification Crisis

A. Excerpts from Ratification Documents of Virginia and New York Virginia Ratification Statement, June 26,…

Chapter 7: The Debate over Ratification

A.(Robert Yates), Brutus I, October 18, 1787 . . . We have felt the feebleness…

Chapter 6: Revolutionary Considerations of Citizenship and Self-Government

A.John Adams to Abigail Adams and James Sullivan, March 31–May 26, 1776 Abigail Adams to…

Religious Liberty: Core Court Cases

Amendment I. Ratified December 15, 1791 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,…

“IS IT A CRIME FOR A U.S. CITIZEN TO VOTE?”

Susan B. Anthony, “Is It a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?” in Rochester…

One-Day Seminar: Supreme Court Cases That Changed America hosted by Fayette County Schools (Fayetteville, GA)

While many Supreme Court cases have shaped American policies and history, this seminar explores cases…

Causes of the Civil War

This volume of primary documents on the causes of the Civil War presents the history…

Democratic Party Platforms

Source: 1860 Democratic Party Platform, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American…

South Carolina’s Declaration of the Causes of Secession

Source: Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina…

Reply to the Dred Scott Decision

Source: Frank Crosby, LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, HIS EARLY HISTORY AND POLITICAL CAREER; TOGETHER WITH…

Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society

Source: Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, Centenary Edition, Volume II, Marion Mills Miller, ed.,…

Republican Party Platform

Source: Republican Party Platform of 1860, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The…

The Webster-Hayne Debates

Source: Daniel Webster, The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Constitution: Selected Documents, ed. Herman Belz…

“On the Constitution and the Union”

Source: William Lloyd Garrison, “The Great Crisis,” The Liberator, 52, 2 (December 29, 1832), 206–207.…

Speech on Abolition Petitions

Source: John C. Calhoun, Speeches of John C. Calhoun: delivered in the Congress of the…

Letter to John Holmes

Source: Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes. -04-22, 1820. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mtjbib023795/. I…

Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the American People

Source: Congressional Globe, Senate, 33rd Congress, First Session, 281–282, https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage. As senators and representatives in…

Compromise of 1850

Source: Congressional Globe, 31st Congress, 1st Session, 244–47, https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=022/llcg022.db&recNum=331. Clay presented his resolutions in a…

Speech on the Oregon Bill

Source: Speech of Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, on the Oregon Bill, Delivered in the…

“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

Source: Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, ed. Philip S. Foner (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1999),…

“An Irrepressible Conflict”

Source: The Irrepressible Conflict: A Speech Delivered at Rochester, Monday, Oct. 25, 1858 (New York:…

“Homecoming” Speech at Chicago

Source: Political debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the celebrated campaign of…

First Inaugural Address

Source: Abraham Lincoln, Inaugural Address Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American…

Poster Advertising Sale of a “Valuable Gang of Young Negroes”

Source: Duke University Libraries Digital Collections, https://repository.duke.edu/dc/broadsides/bdsla10566.

Fragment on the Constitution and Union

Source: New Letters and Papers of Lincoln, compiled by Paul M. Angle (Boston: Houghton Mifflin…

Distribution of the Slave Population by State

Source: Henry S. Graham Washington, 1861. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/99447026/.

One-Day Seminar: The Constitution and Federalist Papers, hosted by the Nevada Department of Education (Las Vegas, NV)

Join teachers from the Las Vegas area for TAH's first Seminar in Nevada, to be…

One-Day Seminar: TR, Wilson, and the Progressive Reformers, hosted by Hays CISD (ONLINE)

Study the Progressive Era through the words and ideas of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and…

One-Day Seminar: The Constitution and Limited Government, hosted by Hays CISD (ONLINE)

Study the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other documents from America's political history as you…

Purchase of Louisiana

Source: “Purchase of Louisiana," New-York Evening Post, July 5, 1803, Founders Online, National Archives, accessed…

One Day Seminar: Documents and Debates – the Constitutional Ratification Debate, hosted by Canyons School District (Salt Lake City area, UT)

Join teachers from the Salt Lake City area to dive deeply into the ideas and…

One-Day Seminar: Lincoln and the Problems of Reconstruction, hosted by the Missouri Humanities Council (Kansas City, MO) [MOVED ONLINE]

Study the problems that faced Abraham Lincoln regarding a reconstructed Union before, during, and after…

One-Day Seminar: The Federalist Papers and the Debate Over the Constitution, hosted by the USS Midway Museum (San Diego, CA)

Join area teachers to study the debate over the creation and ratification of the Constitution,…