50 Core American Documents: Required Reading for Students, Teachers, and Citizens

The Ashbrook Center's 50 Core American Documents is meant to introduce readers to America's story as it has unfolded from the American Founding into the Twentieth Century. Many of the documents emphasize America's uniqueness and contributions to the world, but they also present different views on some of the major issues and disputes in American history and government, especially the meaning of liberty, the injustice of slavery, and the demands of progress. Taken as such, the documents reveal a kind of political dialogue to readers, an ongoing and profoundly consequential conversation about how Americans have agreed and often disagreed on the meaning of freedom and self-government. 50 Core American Documents invites teachers and citizens alike to join in this American political dialogue.

Documents include
Declaration of Independence
Constitution of the United States
Brutus I
The Federalist Nos. 1, 10, and 51
James Madison's Speech on Amendments to the Constitution
Bill of Rights
George Washington's Farewell Address
Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
Abraham Lincoln's Fragment on the Constitution and Union
The Gettysburg Address
The "I Have a Dream" Speech
Ronald Reagan's "A Time for Choosing"