Guided Readings Guided Readings: Conflict over Ratifying the Constitution Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12 View these Guided Readings as a printable PDF.
Guided Readings Guided Readings: Federalists and Jeffersonians Economics, Government and Civics, World History Reading 1 Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. —Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia ...
Guided Readings Guided Readings: Impact of the Revolution on Women and African Americans Government and Civics 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Reading 1 I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Henry Knox on the British invasion of New York, 1776 When twenty-six-year-old Henry Knox, the Continental Army’s artillery commander, penned this letter to his wife, Lucy, on July 8, 1776, patriot morale was at a low point. The summer of 1776 was a particularly hard time as word of...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The horrors of slavery, 1805 Originally circulated in 1805 to educate the public about the treatment of slaves, this broadside, entitled "Injured Humanity," continues to inform twenty-first-century audiences of the true horrors of slavery. As evidenced by this...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Slavery in the New York State census, 1800 Government and Civics While numbers do not explain the everyday realities of slavery in the eighteenth century, they do provide a sense of the pervasiveness of the peculiar institution even in a northern state like New York. This broadside provides figures...
Spotlight on: Primary Source George Washington and the Newburgh Conspiracy, 1783 Economics, Government and Civics 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In March of 1783, George Washington faced a serious threat to his authority and to the civil government of the new nation. The Continental Army, based in Newburgh, New York, was awaiting word of peace negotiations between Great...
Spotlight on: Primary Source George Washington from Valley Forge on the urgent need for men and supplies, 1777 George Washington’s words in this letter represent a stirring plea for help at the darkest moment of the American Revolution. As few other documents do, this letter illustrates Valley Forge as an icon of American perseverance and...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Alexander Hamilton’s "gloomy" view of the American Revolution, 1780 Government and Civics By October 1780, in the midst of the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton was discouraged by the apparent apathy of the American people and the ineffectuality of their elected representatives, as well as by the recent discovery of...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Thomas Jefferson's opposition to the Federalists, 1810 Government and Civics The Federalist Party evolved from the core of Federalists, like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, who wrote and defended the US Constitution in 1787–1788. The political party advocated a strong central government and supported...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Articles of Confederation, 1777 A day after appointing a committee to write the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress named another committee to write the Articles of Confederation. The members worked from June 1776 until November 1777, when...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Ratification of the US Constitution in New York, 1788 Government and Civics This unique copy of the US Constitution was printed by Claxton and Babcock in Albany, New York, between February 11 and March 21, 1788. Copies of the Constitution were widely distributed following the document’s signing by the members...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Aaron Burr, fugitive and traitor, 1804 On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr shot former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Nine days later he wrote this cryptic letter (partially in cipher) to his son-in-law, Joseph...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Hamilton’s Report on the Subject of Manufactures, 1791 Economics, Government and Civics When George Washington became president in 1789, he appointed Alexander Hamilton as his secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton’s vision for the economic foundation of the United States included three main programs: 1) the federal...
Spotlight on: Primary Source A plan for a new government, 1775 Government and Civics More than a decade before the Constitutional Convention in 1787—and months before the United States declared independence—John Adams wrote a plan for a new form of government for the American colonies. In it Adams described the basic...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Jefferson on the French and Haitian Revolutions, 1792 Geography, Government and Civics, World History When Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, three revolutions—the American, French, and Haitian—occupied the minds of these two renowned leaders. While the American Revolution had been won nearly a decade...
Spotlight on: Primary Source George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, 1789 Government and Civics, Literature After officially enacting the newly ratified US Constitution in September 1788, the Confederation Congress scheduled the first inauguration for March 1789. However, bad weather delayed many congressmen from arriving in the national...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Whiskey Rebellion, 1794 Economics, Government and Civics In 1791, the federal government imposed a tax on distilled spirits to pay off the nation’s debts from the American Revolution. The tax, which was payable only in cash, was particularly hard on small frontier farmers, who bartered and...
Spotlight on: Primary Source John Adams describes George Washington’s ten talents, 1807 Eight years after George Washington’s death, John Adams penned this letter to Benjamin Rush explaining why George Washington was considered a hero by the American people. He wrote it on November 11, 1807, in response to a letter from...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Conscientious objectors: Madison pardons Quakers, 1816 Government and Civics In 1816, seven Quakers in Baltimore, Maryland, petitioned President James Madison for pardons after refusing to serve in the militia or pay the exemption fee. Secretary of State James Monroe requested additional information on the men...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Battle of Horseshoe Bend and the end of the Creek War, 1814 On May 12, 1814, Tennessee settler Isaac Stephens wrote to his uncle Henry Mackey in Virginia about the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama. In that battle on March 27, 1814, US Army and Tennessee militia troops under General Andrew...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Reports on the yellow fever epidemic, 1793 Between August 1 and November 9, 1793, approximately 11,000 people contracted yellow fever in the US capital of Philadelphia. Of that number, 5,000 people, 10 percent of the city’s population, died. The disease gets its name from the...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Black Volunteers in the Nation’s First Epidemic, 1793 The new republic was only four years old, its capital recently established in Philadelphia, when the country suffered its first catastrophic epidemic. Yellow fever broke out in August 1793 and ravaged the city for three months, only...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Thomas Rowe and Joshua Hooper: Sedition charges, 1815 Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Even though the Sedition Act of 1798 had expired in 1801, individuals could still be charged with sedition. On January 20, 1815, Thomas Rowe and Joshua Hooper, publishers of the Massachusetts newspaper The Yankee , printed an article...
Spotlight on: Primary Source The Sedition Act, 1798 Government and Civics 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 On August 14, 1798, the Columbian Centinel , a Boston newspaper aligned with the Federalist Party, printed this copy of the Sedition Act. It was the last in a series of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the...