154 items
Ira Berlin, Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Maryland, describes how the complex interplay of regional and generational factors shaped the development of slavery in the antebellum United States.
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Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character
Roger Kennedy, former director of the National Park Service, discusses the "fatal twins," Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, whose military, legal, and political careers intersected for nearly thirty years before they came to duel in...
Slavery and the Constitution
Historian James Oliver Horton briefly examines the protections for slavery embedded in the US Constitution.
The Story of America: Essays on Origins
Historian Jill Lepore (David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard and a staff writer at the New Yorker ) discusses her 2012 book, The Story of America: Essays on Origins (Princeton University Press).
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Anti-Federalism and Dissent in Constitutional History
For our first live web chat for Affiliate Schools, Fordham University historian Saul Cornell joined Gilder Lehrman Institute President James Basker to discuss constitutional history and the modern-day implications of dissent in the...
John Adams Describes the "Ten Talents" of George Washington: Document in a Minute
Gilder Lehrman curator Beth Huffer discusses a letter from John Adams to Benjamin Rush in which Adams describes Washington's greatest talents as a "handsome Face," an "elegant Form," and "graceful Attitudes and Movement."
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Hamilton's New York: Lower Manhattan Walking Tour
Join the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Professor Cindy Lobel on a virtual walking tour of Alexander Hamilton’s Lower Manhattan.
Alexander Hamilton: Witness to the Founding Era
This series of online exhibitions explores the importance of Alexander Hamilton to the founding of the United States. Each mini-exhibition features locations where Alexander Hamilton made history and documents written by or about him...
George Washington on the abolition of slavery, 1786
Of the nine presidents who were slaveholders, only George Washington freed all his own slaves upon his death. Before the Revolution, Washington, like most White Americans, took slavery for granted. At the time of the Revolution, one...
Two versions of the Preamble to the Constitution, 1787
On May 25, 1787, the fifty-five delegates to the Constitutional Convention began meeting in a room, no bigger than a large schoolroom, in Philadelphia’s State House. They posted sentries at the doors and windows to keep their "secrets...
George Washington’s reluctance to become president, 1789
From 1787 to 1789, as the Constitution was submitted for ratification by the states, most Americans assumed that George Washington would be the first president. In this April 1789 letter to General Henry Knox, his friend from the...
George Washington discusses Shays’ Rebellion and the upcoming Constitutional Convention, 1787
On January 25, 1787, Daniel Shays and his insurrectionists confronted a Massachusetts state militia force outside the Springfield armory. Shays’ Rebellion had begun in the summer of 1786, when Shays, a former Continental Army captain,...
Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery
On the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was "defective from the start." He pointed out that the framers...
Historical Context: The First National Census
Early in August 1790, David Howe, an assistant federal marshal, began the difficult task of counting all the people who lived in Hancock County, Maine. One of 650 federal census takers, charged with making "a...perfect enumeration.....
Historical Context: The Survival of the US Constitution
The United States has the oldest written national framework of government in the world. At the end of the twentieth century, there were about 159 other national constitutions in the world, and 101 had been adopted since 1970. While...
Revolutionary in America
The image is so clear in our minds, seen first in elementary school and reinforced countless times since: a few dozen gentlemen with powdered wigs and period suits (coats, waistcoats, and knee-length breeches) gathered in a large...
John Avlon - "Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations"
Order Washington's Farewell at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
Alexander Keyssar - "Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?"
Order Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College? at the Gilder Lehrman Book Shop We receive an affiliate commission from every purchase through the link provided. Thank you for supporting our programs!
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