| |
SourceLine from LocalVoter
A collection of important documents,
speeches, and historical events that have shaped our modern
democracy
Classical Period
-
Medieval
-
Enlightenment
Revolution -
Early U.S. -
Growing to Power -
Modern -
Current Events
Other Resources
|
|
| |
|
Classical Period
|
|
|
386 B.C. |
Plato, Apology of Socrates
full text
background
|
|
360 B.C. |
Plato, The Republic
full text
background
|
|
350 B.C. |
Aristotle, Athenian Constitution
full text
background
|
|
350 B.C. |
Aristotle, Spartan Constitution (from Politics)
summary
background
|
|
350 B.C. |
Aristotle, Politics
full
text
background
|
|
c.60 B.C. |
Cicero, On the Republic
excerpt
|
|
c.96 |
Tacitus, The End of the Republic
excerpt
|
|
313 |
Constantine, The Edict of Milan
full text
|
|
410 |
Augustine, City of God
excerpts
|
|
622 |
Constitution of Medina
full text
|
|
|
Medieval
return to top
|
|
1215 |
Magna Carta
full text
background
|
|
1321 |
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
full text
background
|
|
1387 |
The Saga of Eric the Red
excerpts
& background
|
|
c.1450 |
Iroquois Constitution
full text
background
|
|
1492 |
Journal of Christopher Columbus
full text
background
|
|
1509 |
Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly
full text
background
|
|
1515 |
Machiavelli's The Prince
full
text
background
|
|
1516 |
Sir Thomas Moore, Utopia
full
text
background
|
|
1517 |
Martin Luther, 95 Theses
full
text
background
|
|
1563 |
Council of Trent
excerpt
full
text
background
|
|
1581 |
Dutch Declaration of Independence
full
text & background
|
|
1588 |
Thomas Hariot, A Brief and True Report on the New Found
Land of Virginia
full
text
background
|
|
|
Enlightenment
return to top
|
|
1620 |
The Mayflower Compact
full text
background
|
|
1625 |
Sir Francis Bacon, Essay on Empire
full text
background
|
|
1628 |
The Petition of Rights, English Parliament
full text
background
|
|
1629 |
Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
full text
|
|
1648 |
Treaty of Westphalia
full text
background
|
|
1649 |
Statement of the Levellers
full text
background
|
|
1649 |
Women's Petition
full text
|
|
1651 |
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1675 |
Indian Complaints About the English Settlers
full text
|
|
1676 |
Thanksgiving Declaration
full text
background
|
|
1679 |
Habeas Corpus Act, English Parliament
full text
background
|
|
1689 |
English Bill of Rights
full text
background
|
|
1690 |
John Locke, Of the Beginning of Political Societies
full text
background
|
|
1755 |
Rousseau, A Discourse on Political Economy
full text
background
|
|
1763 |
Voltaire, A Treatise on Tolerance
full text
|
|
1766 |
Declaratory Act, House of Commons
full text
background
|
|
|
Revolution
return to top
|
|
1774 |
John Wesley, Thoughts Upon Slavery
full text
background
|
|
1775 |
Former British Prime Minister William Pitt, Speech to
Parliament on the Stamp Act
full text
background
|
|
1775 |
Patrick Henry, Liberty or Death Speech
full text
background
|
|
1776 |
Adam Smith, On the Wealth of Nations
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1776 |
Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
full text
background
|
|
1776 |
Thomas Paine, Common Sense
full text
background
|
|
1777 |
Articles of Confederation
full text
background
|
|
1782 |
Thomas Jefferson, On Slavery
full text
background
|
|
1783 |
Paris Peace Treaty
full text
background
|
|
1786 |
Virginia Act Establishing Religious Freedom
full text
background
|
|
1787 |
The Federalist Papers
full text
background
|
|
1787 |
Benjamin Franklin, Speech for Adoption of the Constitution
full text
background
|
|
1789 |
US Constitution
full text
background
|
|
1789 |
President George Washington, Thanksgiving Declaration
full text
|
|
1789 |
National Assembly of France, Declaration of the Rights of
Man
full text
background
|
|
1791 |
US Bill of Rights
full text
background
|
|
1791 |
Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man
full text
background
|
|
1793 |
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, US Congress
full text
background
|
|
1796 |
President George Washington's Farewell Address
full text
background
|
|
1798 |
The Alien and Sedition Acts, US Congress
full text
background
|
|
|
Early US
return to top
|
|
1801 |
President Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address
full text
background
|
|
1802 |
President Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Danbury Baptists
(Separation of Church & State Letter)
full text
|
|
1806 |
Journals of Lewis & Clark
full text
background
|
|
1817 |
David Ricardo, The Iron Law of Wages
full text
|
|
1820 |
Missouri Compromise
full text
background
|
|
1823 |
The Monroe Doctrine
full text
background
|
|
1823 |
Rev. Dr. Richard Furman, Views of the Baptists Relative to the
Colored Population
full text
background
|
|
1829 |
President Andrew Jackson, First Inaugural Address
full text
background
|
|
1831 |
Alexis De'Tocqueville, Democracy in America
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1831 |
Confessions of Nat Turner
full text
background
|
|
1836 |
William Travis, Letter from the Alamo
full text
background
|
|
1836 |
Texas Declaration of Independence
full text
background
|
|
1837 |
G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of History
full text
background
|
|
1839 |
John O'Sullivan, On Manifest Destiny
full text
|
|
1842 |
Charles Dickens, American Notes
full text
background
|
|
1848 |
Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto
full text
background
|
|
1848 |
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration, Seneca Falls
Convention
full text
background
|
|
1849 |
Senator John Calhoun, Southern Address
full text
background
|
|
1849 |
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
full text
background
|
|
1850 |
Dred Scott v. Sanford, US Supreme Court Decision
full text
background
|
|
1850 |
Second Fugitive Slave Act, US Congress
full text
background
|
|
1852 |
Frederick Douglass, What is the 4th of July to a Slave?
full text
|
|
1854 |
Chief Seattle's Speech
full text
background
|
|
1854 |
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
full text
background
|
|
1859 |
J.S. Mill, On Liberty
full text
background
|
|
1859 |
John Brown, Final Speech
full text
background
|
|
1861 |
Mississippi Declaration of Secession
full text
background
|
|
1861 |
President Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1861 |
Senator Jefferson Davis, Farewell Speech to US Senate Following
Secession
full text
|
|
1861 |
Confederate Constitution
full text
background
|
|
1861 |
Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Inaugural Address
full text
background
|
|
1861 |
President Abraham Lincoln, Message to Special Session of Congress
full text
background
|
|
1863 |
Emancipation Proclamation
full text
background
|
|
1863 |
President Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
full text
background
|
|
1865 |
General Robert E. Lee, Letter on Arming Slaves
full text
background
|
|
1865 |
General Robert E. Lee, Farewell to his Army
full text
background
|
|
1865 |
President Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address
full text
background
|
|
1865 |
Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloom'd
full text
background
|
|
|
Growing to Power
return to top
|
|
1866 |
Frederick Douglass, Reconstruction
full text
background
|
|
1868 |
Treaty of Fort Laramie
full text
background
|
|
1869 |
Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad
excerpts
|
|
1871 |
Mark Twain, 'Roughing It' Lectures
full text
background
|
|
1873 |
Susan B. Anthony, Speech After Being Convicted of Voting
full text
background
|
|
1882 |
Chinese Exclusion Act, US Congress
full text
background
|
|
1883 |
Frederick Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1883 |
Harper's Weekly, A Hashish House in New York
full text
|
|
1885 |
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
full text
background
|
|
1889 |
Andrew Carnegie, Wealth
full text
background
|
|
1892 |
Populist Party Platform
full text
background
|
|
1895 |
Booker T. Washington, Atlanta Compromise Speech
full text
background
|
|
1895 |
Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage
full text
background
|
|
1898 |
Plessy v. Ferguson, US Supreme Court Decision
full text
background
|
|
1898 |
President William McKinley, Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation
full text
background
|
|
1900 |
Senator Albert Beveridge, Speech on the 'Philippine
Question'
full text
background
|
|
1901 |
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1901 |
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1902 |
Vladimir Lenin, What is to Be Done?
full text
& background
|
|
1903 |
W.E.B. DuBois, Critique of Booker T. Washington (from Souls
of the Black Folk)
full text
|
|
1903 |
W.E.B. DuBois, Souls of the Black Folk
full text
background
|
|
1904 |
Ruben Dario, To Roosevelt
full text
background
|
|
1905 |
Max Weber, Protestantism and the Theory of Capitalism
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1905 |
President Theodore Roosevelt, Inaugural Address
full text
background
|
|
1906 |
William Jennings Bryant, White Man's Burden
full text
background
|
|
1906 |
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle
full text
background
|
|
1906 |
John Foster, The Chinese Boycott
full text
|
|
1909 |
Gandhi on Indian Home Rule
full text
|
|
1910 |
Former President Theodore Roosevelt, Square Deal Speech
full text
background
|
|
1916 |
Keating-Owen Child Labor Act, US Congress
full text
background
|
|
1917 |
The Zimmerman Note
full text
background
|
|
1917 |
Balfour Declaration
full text
background
|
|
1917 |
Telegram from the US Consul General in Petrograd
full text
background
|
|
1917 |
President Woodrow Wilson, Address on War Resolution
full text
background
|
|
1917 |
Marcus Garvey, The Conspiracy of the East St. Louis Riots
full text
background
|
|
1918 |
Wilfred Owen, On Seeing a Piece of Our Heavy Artillery
Being Brought Into Action
full text
background
|
|
1918 |
President Woodrow Wilson, 14 Points
full text
background
|
|
1918 |
Eugene Debs, Statement After Conviction Under the Sedition
Act
full text
background
|
|
1919 |
Treaty of Versailles
full text
background
|
|
1920 |
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bernice Bobs her Hair
full text
background
|
|
1920 |
John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace
full text
background
|
|
1921 |
The Eruption of Tulsa, The Nation
full text
background
|
|
1922 |
British White Paper on Palestine
full text
background
|
|
1927 |
President Calvin Coolidge, Intervention in Nicaragua
full text
background
|
|
1928 |
Josef Stalin, Industrialization of the Country
full text
background
|
|
1930 |
Sinclair Lewis, Nobel Address
full text
background
|
|
1932 |
Aldous Huxley, A Brave New World
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1932 |
Benito Mussolini, What is Fascism?
excerpts & background
|
|
1933 |
President Frankin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address
full text
background
|
|
1934 |
Huey Long, Share the Wealth Society
full text
background
|
|
1935 |
Nazi Race Laws, Forced Sterilization
full text
background
|
|
1936 |
Hitler's Speech at Nuremburg
excerpt
background
|
|
1936 |
John Maynard Keynes, General Theory of Employment,
Interest, and Money
full text
background
|
|
1937 |
New York Times Report on Nanking Massacre
excerpt
background
|
|
1937 |
Mao Tse-Tung, Guerilla Warfare
full text
background
|
|
1938 |
Munich Agreement
full text
background
|
|
1938 |
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's 'Peace in Our Time' Speech
full text
background
|
|
1938 |
The Nation, Jews and the Fate of Poland
full text
|
|
1939 |
MacDonald White Paper on Palestine
full text
background
|
|
1940 |
Prime Minister Winston Churchill's 'Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat' Speech
full text
background
|
|
1940 |
Prime Minister Winston Churchill's 'We Will Fight them on
the Beaches...' Speech
full text
background
|
|
1941 |
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor Speech
full text
background
|
|
1942 |
General Douglas MacArthur, 'I Shall Return'
full text
|
|
1943 |
Heinrich Himmler's Speech to SS Officers at Poznan
full text
background
|
|
1944 |
General George Patton, Speech to 6th Army
full text
background
|
|
1944 |
General Dwight D. Eisenhower's D-Day Address
full text
background
|
|
1945 |
Yalta Agreement
full text
background
|
|
1945 |
US Soldier Harry Herder Describes Liberation of Buchenwald
Concentration Camp
full text
background
|
|
1945 |
George Orwell, The Coming Age of Superpowers
full text
|
|
1945 |
Chief Prosecutor's Opening Statement, Nuremburg War Crimes
Trial
full text
background
|
|
1945 |
George Orwell, Animal Farm
full text
background
|
|
1945 |
Charter of the United Nations
full text
background
|
|
|
Modern
return to top
|
|
1946 |
Prime Minister Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech
full text
background
|
|
1946 |
Stalin's Response to Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech
full text
background
|
|
1946 |
George Kennan's Soviet Containment Theory
full text
background
|
|
1946 |
Breton Woods Agreement
full text
background
|
|
1946 |
Testimony of Rudolph Hoess at Nuremburg Trial
full text
background
|
|
1947 |
President Harry Truman, Speech to Joint Session of Congress
(Truman Doctrine)
full text
background
|
|
1947 |
Japanese Occupation Constitution
full text
background
|
|
1947 |
UN Resolution 181, Partition of British Palestine Mandate
full text
background
|
|
1948 |
Golda Meir, Fundraising Speech to Council of Jewish
Federations
full text
background
|
|
1948 |
George Orwell, 1984
excerpt
full text
background
|
|
1948 |
UN Declaration of Human Rights
full text
background
|
|
1950 |
Senator Joseph McCarthy, Communists in the State Department Speech
full text
background
|
|
1950 |
Senator Margaret Chase Smith, Response to McCarthy
full text
background
|
|
1951 |
General Douglas MacArthur, Farewell Speech to Congress
full text
background
|
|
1951 |
Senator Joseph McCarthy, Speech Outlining the 'Great Conspiracy'
full text
background
|
|
1951 |
Langston Hughes, A Dream Deferred
full text
background
|
|
1954 |
Brown v. Board of Education, US Supreme Court
full text
background
|
|
1954 |
Senate Resolution Censuring Joseph McCarthy
full text
background
|
|
1956 |
Gamel Abdel Nasser, Speech on Suez Crisis
full text
background
|
|
1956 |
Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech"
Denouncing Stalin
full text
background
|
|
1957 |
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
excerpt background
|
|
1957 |
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
full text background
|
|
1957 |
President Dwight Eisenhower, Executive Order for
Desegregation of Central High School
full text background
|
|
1958 |
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
summary background
|
|
1960 |
Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev, Speech to UN General
Assembly
full text background
|
|
1961 |
President Dwight Eisenhower, 'Military-Industrial Complex' Speech
full text background
|
|
1961 |
President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address
full text
background
|
|
1961 |
Exchange of Notes between US and USSR on the Berlin Wall
full text
background
|
|
1962 |
President John F. Kennedy, Speech at the Berlin Wall
full text
background
|
|
1963 |
Governor George Wallace, Speech at University of Alabama
full text
background
|
|
1963 |
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail
full text
|
|
1963 |
Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream
full text
background
|
|
1964 |
Malcolm X, 'The Ballot or the Bullet Speech'
full text
background
|
|
1964 |
President Lyndon Johnson, Speech on Tonkin Gulf Crisis
full text
background
|
|
1964 |
Senator Barry Goldwater, Address to Republican National Convention
full text
background
|
|
1964 |
Civil Rights Act of 1964
full text
background
|
|
1964 |
Ronald Reagan, A Time for Choosing
full text
background
|
|
1964 |
Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy" Campaign Commercial
full text
background
|
|
1965 |
French President Charles de Gaulle, Speech on America in
Vietnam
full text
background
|
|
1968 |
Martin Luther King's Final Speech
full text
background
|
|
1968 |
Senator Robert Kennedy's Speech after Receiving News of King's
Assassination
full text
background
|
|
1968 |
President Lyndon Johnson's Speech Declining Nomination
full text
background
|
|
1969 |
President Richard Nixon's Inaugural Address
full text
background
|
|
1971 |
Gloria Steinem, Commencement Address at Smith College
full text
background
|
|
1973 |
Roe v. Wade, US Supreme Court
full text
background
|
|
1973 |
War Powers Resolution
full text
background |
