100 key documents in American democracy

Colonial America. Letter to John Smith / Powhatan (1609)

Mayflower Compact (1620)

A model of Christian charity(excerpt) / John Winthrop (1631)

In memory of my dear grandchild / Anne Bradstreet (1665)

Petition of an accused witch / Mary Easty (1692)

Sinners in the hands of an angry god (excerpt) / Jonathan Edwards (1741)

Defense of John Peter Zenger (excerpt) / Andrew Hamilton (1735)

Journal on slavery (excerpt) / John Woolman (1757)

Considerations on behalf of the colonists (excerpt) / James Otis (1765)

Speech to the Second Virginia Convention (excerpt) / Patrick Henry (1775)

Common Sense (excerpt) / Thomas Paine (1776)

Letter to John Adams / Abigail Adams (1776)

To his Excellency General Washington / Phillis Wheatley (1776).

The Early Republic. Federalist Paper No. 10 (excerpt) / James Madison (1787)

Report on manufacturing (excerpt) / Alexander Hamilton (1791)

Farewell address (excerpt) / George Washington (1796)

First inaugural address / Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Opinion by John Marshall / Marbury v. Madison

Report to Thomas Jefferson (excerpt) / Meriwether Lewis

Speech on freedom of religion / Jacob Henry

Address to Congress: the majority is to govern (excerpt) / Andrew Jackson

Appeal of the Cherokee Nation.

Ante-Bellum Reform. The meaning of patriotism in America (excerpt) / Francis Wright

Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education (excerpt) / Horace Mann

The laboring classes (excerpt) / Orestes Brownson

An American scholar (excerpt) / Ralph Walso Emerson

Resistence to civil government (excerpt) / Henry David Thoreau

The liberator (excerpt)

Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass (excerpt) / Frederick Douglass

Human rights not founded on sex (excerpt) / Angelina Grimke

Seneca Falls declaration and resolutions

Uncle Tom's Cabin (excerpt) / Harriet Beecher Stowe

Last statement to the court / John Brown

True Americanism (excerpt) / Carl Schurz

Vote yourself a farm / Anonymous.

The Civil War and reconstruction. The Emancipation Proclamation / Abraham Lincoln

Gettysburg Address / Abraham Lincoln

Second inaugural address / Abraham Lincoln

Advice to ex-slaves (excerpt) / Martin R. Delany

When woman gets her rights man will be right (excerpt) / Sojourner Truth

Address on the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the District of Columbia (excerpt) / Frederick Douglass.

Westward and industrial expansion. We will fight no more, forever / Chief Joseph

Century of dishonor (excerpt) Helen Hunt Jackson

Democratic vistas (excerpt) / Walt Whitman

Omaha Platform (excerpt) / People's Party (Populists)

Negro question in the south (excerpt) / Thomas Watson

Cross of gold (excerpt) / William Jennings Bryan

The new colossus / Emma Lazarus

Preamble to the consitution of the Knights of Labor

Address to the court (excerpt) August Spies

What does the working man want (excerpts) / Samuel Gompers

Progress and poverty (excerpt) / Henry George

IWW little red songbook (selections).

VI. The Progressive Era. The jungle (excerpt) / Upton Sinclair

Competition (excerpt) / Louis Brandeis

Promise of American life (excerpt) / Herbert Croly

The natural resources of the nation (excerpt) / Theodore Roosevelt

Address to National American Woman Suffrage Association (excerpt) / Carrie Chapman Catt

Women and economics (excerpt) / Charlotte Perkins Gilman

My fight for birth control (excerpt) / Margaret Sanger

Souls of black folk (excerpt) / W.E.B, Du Bois

America's mission / William Jennings Bryan

War message (excerpt) / Woodrow Wilson

Dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States (excerpt) / Oliver Wendell Holmes

Trans-National America (excerpt) / Randolph Bourne.

VII. Modernizing America. Campaign address (excerpt) / Al Smith

Defense of John Scopes (excerpt) / Clarence Darrow

I, too / Langston Hughes

My life and work (excerpt) / Henry Ford

Testimony on unemployment / Oscar Ameringer

First Inaugural Address / Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Radio address on social security / Frances Perkins

Every man a king / Huey Long

Guests at labor's table / John L. Lewis

This land is your land / Woody Guthrie.

VIII. World War II and the Cold War. War message / Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Economic bill of rights / Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The spirit of liberty / Judge Learned Hand

Korematsu v United States, Dissenting opinions by Justices Frank Murphy and Robert H. Jackson

Keynote address to the March on Washington Movement / A. Philip Randolph

Who is loyal to American / Henry Steele Commager

TV comment on Joseph McCarthy / Edward R. Murrow.

IX. Recent America. To secure these rights / President's Committee on Civil Rights

Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

I have a dream / Martin Luther King, Jr.

We shall overcome

Address on civil rights / John F. Kennedy

Testimony before the Credentials Committee of the Democratic National Convention / Fannie Lou Hamer

Why I am sailing into the Pacific bomb-test area / Albert S. Bigelow

Farewell address / Dwight D. Eisenhower

Port Huron statement / Students for a Democratic Society

A sick society / J. William Fullbright

The great society / Lyndon B. Johnson

The other America / Michael Harrington

The feminine mystique / Betty Friedan

Roe v Wade, Majority opinion / Justice Harry Blackmun

Letter from Delano / Cesar Chavez

Order and opinion on Presidential (Watergate) tapes / Judge John J. Sirica

Speech at Moscow State University / Ronald Reagan

Common ground and common sense / Jesse Jackson

The Declaration of Independence

The constitution of the United States of America (including amendments.