Topic: Legal History
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First Continental Congress
This 1782 print shows the First Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia in September 1774. Fifty-six members represented twelve colonies. Hoping for British help to fight Native Americans, Georgia sent no...
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First Edition, Declaration of Independence
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...
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George Washington’s Diary
This is an entry from George Washington’s diary. He wrote it immediately after the Constitutional Convention ended in September 1787. Washington indicates that he was amazed at how hard the...
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Jefferson to Charles William Frederick Dumas
In this letter, Thomas Jefferson, the American minister to France, assures Charles Dumas, a European who aided the Americans throughout the American Revolution, that the Philadelphia convention would produce a...
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Jefferson to Henry Lee
In this letter written almost fifty years after composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson explains his understanding of the document’s purpose. He insists that the Declaration was not meant...
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Jefferson to James Madison
In this letter, Thomas Jefferson explains to his friend James Madison why he supports the addition of a bill of rights to the U.S. Constitution. Madison, who had played a...
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Jefferson to James Madison
In a letter written almost fifty years after writing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson disputes certain statements made by John Adams concerning the document’s composition. Jefferson notes that he...
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Jefferson to John Adams
When Jefferson wrote this letter in 1819, the U.S. was in the middle of a severe financial crisis that ruined many Americans–including the former president. Yet Jefferson believed that Missouri’s...
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Jefferson to John Adams
As Jefferson explained to John Adams, the Statute for Religious Freedom weakened the clergy’s influence over the people’s minds. For Jefferson, that was a good thing because he believed that...
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