Getting Started with Primary Sources: US History

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History

From The Great American History Fact-Finder

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History

From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law

from Constitutional Amendments

From Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World
An Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio, July 13, 1787.

Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, That the said territory, for the purposes of temporary government, be one district, subject, however, to be divided into two districts, as future circumstances may, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient..

From The Environmental Debate: A Documentary History

Be it enacted …, That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the first January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public land, upon which said person may have filed a preemption claim, or which may, at the time the application is made, be subject to preemption at one dollar and twenty-five cents, or less, per acre

From Encyclopedia of World Trade: From Ancient Times to the Present
An Act to provide for the establishment of Federal reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.

From Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
A collapse in global credit markets in September 2008 turned a recession that had beset the U.S. since late 2007 into the worst economic downturn the country faced since the Great Depression. In response, President-Elect Barack Obama proposed a massive stimulus plan combining tax cuts with federal spending on infrastructure and grants to states.

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France works most sorely on the U.S. On this subject the Secretary of State has written to you fully. Yet I cannot forbear recurring to it personally, so deep is the impression it makes in my mind. It compleatly reverses all the political relations of the U.S. and will form a new epoch in our political course.

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, is an independent agency of the U.S. government established in 1915 and charged with keeping American business competition free and fair. The FTC has no jurisdiction over banks and common carriers, which are under the supervision of other governmental agencies. It has five members, not more than three of whom may be members of the same political party, appointed by the President, with the consent of the Senate, for seven-year terms.

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
Sec. 201. (a) All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.

From Milestone Documents of American Leaders
I have come this evening to talk with you on one of the greatest issues of our time–that is the preservation of human freedom.

from American Constitutional Law: The Bill of Rights and Subsequent Amendments

From American Constitutional Law: The Bill of Rights and Subsequent Amendments

from American Constitutional Law: The Bill of Rights and Subsequent Amendments

from American Constitutional Law: The Bill of Rights and Subsequent Amendments

From American Constitutional Law: The Bill of Rights and Subsequent Amendments

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
In the year 1511, they went over into the Island of Cuba, which extends as far in length as it is from Valladolid to Rome, in which there were many fair Provinces, inhabited with an infinite number of people, where the humanity and clemency of the Spaniards was not only as little as it had been in other places, but their cruelty and rage much greater.

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
I want to talk first of the causes which led me to leave the reservation. I was living quietly and contented, doing and thinking of no harm, while at the Sierra Blanca

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
Supreme Court chief justice Roger Brooke Taney led his Court to a decision in 1856 that would become a final impetus in the movement toward the Civil War.

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success.

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
This case turns upon the constitutionality of an act of the General Assembly of the state of Louisiana, passed in 1890, providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races….

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
There are in the United States some four million Negroes of school age, of whom two million are in school, and of these, four-fifths are taught by forty-eight thousand Negro teachers in separate schools.

From Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not “equal” and cannot be made “equal,” and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws.