In this speech at the federal Constitutional Convention, John Dickinson of Delaware insisted that the new government should be as well-designed and harmonious as the solar system. During the Enlightenment,...
This speech is by Edmund Randolph at the Virginia ratifying convention for the new Constitution. Although a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Randolph refused to sign the final...
Ezra Stiles, a Congregational minister and future president of Yale, wrote this letter to Catharine Macaulay, the famous historian of Great Britain. In 1775 many colonists began to anticipate armed...
This image is one of the first printed copies of the Declaration of Independence. John Dunlap, official printer to the Continental Congress, produced about two hundred copies after the Congress...
When he posed for this portrait, Frederick Douglass was one of the most well-known men in America. Douglass escaped slavery to become a leading abolitionist writer and orator. In one...
In this letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, George Washington expresses satisfaction with the Constitution that emerged from the Philadelphia Convention. He believes the proposed government will be strong and...
In this speech at the New York ratifying convention, Alexander Hamilton defended the kind of representative government created by the Constitution. Hamilton criticized the idea of direct democracy as it...
In this letter written in 1824, James Madison writes to a member of the House of Representatives about limits on the Congress’s authority to provide funds for the construction of...
In this letter, James Madison praised Virginia’s “Magnificent” college in Charlottesville. Though Madison shared Jefferson’s belief in the need to educate citizens in a republic, Virginia was not the first...
In this letter, James Madison explains to his friend Thomas Jefferson why he opposes the addition of a bill of rights to the U.S, Constitution. Madison, who had played a...