Lynch Law in America

Source: The Arena 23 (January 1900): 15–24. Our country's national crime is lynching. It is…

Gender and Equality

"The influence of woman is not limited to the domestic circle. Society is her empire."…

The Niagara Movement’s “Address to the Country”

Source: W. E. B. Du Bois, “Address to the Country,” speech at Harpers Ferry, West…

Open Letters to Woodrow Wilson

Source: Editorial: “An Open Letter to Woodrow Wilson,” The Crisis (March 1913): 236–37; Editorial: “Another…

Dred Scott v. Sandford

 Source: 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393; https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/60/393 Chief Justice TANEY delivered the opinion of the court,…

Korematsu v. US

Source: 323 U.S. 214; https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/323/214 Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by…

Brown v. Board of Education

Source: 347 U.S. 483; https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483 Chief Justice WARREN delivered the unanimous opinion of the Court,…

Reynolds v. Sims

Source: 377 U.S. 533; https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/377/533 Chief Justice WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court, joined…

Plessy v. Ferguson

Source: 163 U.S. 537; https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/163/537 Justice BROWN delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by…

“The Right of the People, Men and Women, to Petition”

Source: Speech of John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, upon the Right of the People, Men…

CIRCULAR: Addressed to Benevolent Ladies of the United States

Source: CIRCULAR: Addressed to Benevolent Ladies of the United States . . . [Boston]: [Printed…

Green Party Platform 2000

Source: “Official Green Party Platform, as adopted at the National Nominating Convention” (Denver, CO: June…

The Supreme Court: Core Cases

This volume presents 25 core decisions of the Supreme Court. Arranged in chronological order, they…

The American Revolution

Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington militia, had received Paul Revere’s warning. Great Britain’s…

“Remember the Ladies”

Sources: Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776, Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0241; J.…

Massachusetts Antislavery Petition

Source: “To the Honorable Counsel & House of [Representa]tives of the State of Massachusetts Bay…

Chapter 19: The Progressive Era: Eugenics

A. Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker, Veto of Eugenics Law, March 30, 1905 https://document-readings.s3.amazonaws.com/Documents+and+Debates/Volume+2/Chapter+19/ch19+Pennypacker+Veto+of+Eugenics+Law+1905.mp3 Commonwealth of…

Chapter 14: John Brown’s Raid on Harpers 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 https://document-readings.s3.amazonaws.com/Documents+and+Debates/Volume+1/ch12/ch12+American+AntiSlavery+Society+1833.mp3 The Convention assembled in…

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…

Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society

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

Reply to the Dred Scott Decision

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

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…

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…

“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…

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…

Speech on the Oregon Bill

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

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…

“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…

Kansas: To Those that Desire that Kansas Should be Free.

Source: Printed Ephemera Collection, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.02000100/  

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/.  

Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Free-Soiler

Source: Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-92043  

Broadside Advertisement for Runaway Slave

Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/rbpe.18604300/.  

Caution!! Colored people of Boston

Source:  Library of Congress, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.06002200/.  

The Fugitive’s Song

Source:  Ephraim W. Bouve and Henry Prentiss. The Fugitive's Song. Boston, 1845. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-07616

Free & Slave-holding States and Territories

Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/95682125/.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Source: 60 U.S. 933, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/60/393. Mr. Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the court.…

The Union Must and Shall Be Preserved

Source: The Union must and shall be preserved. Air.- Star Spangled Banner. H. De Marsan,…

One-Day Seminar: Slavery and the Constitution, hosted by St. Thomas High School (Houston, TX)

Study deeply the problem of slavery within the context of the Constitutional Convention, the Constitution…

Implementing Brown v. Board of Education: One Southern Town’s Story

Part I: Behind the Scenes, an Interracial Team Plans Integration Ellen Deitz Tucker In May…
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