1. Instructions for the Virginia Colony (1606)
In the first decade of the seventeenth century England began a second round of colonizing attempts. This time joint-stock
companies were used as the vehicle to plant settlements rather than giving extensive grants to a landed proprietor such as
Gilbert or Raleigh, whose attempts at colonization in the 1570s and 1580s had failed.
The founding of Virginia marked the beginning of a twenty-five year period in which every colony in the New World was
established by means of a joint-stock company. A variety of motives intensified the colonizing impulse - international rivalry,
propagation of religion, enlarged opportunity for individual men - but none exceeded that of trade and profit. The companies
were created to make a profit; their investments in the colonies were based on this assumption. Early in the 1630's merchants
and investors discovered that they could employ their money in other more rewarding enterprises. After 1631, therefore, no
colony was founded by mercantile enterprise, but by that date the enterprisers had left a legacy of colonization that was to
endure.
In these instructions for the Virginia Company, the power of Spain and the fear derived from past failures can be clearly seen.
The detail and precision of the instructions reflect the work of experienced men.
As we doubt not but you will have especial care to observe the ordinances set down by the
King's Majesty and delivered unto you under the Privy Seal; so for your better directions upon
your first landing we have thought good to recommend unto your care these instructions and
articles following.
When it shall please God to send you on the coast of Virginia, you shall do your best
endeavour to find out a safe port in the entrance of some navigable river, making choice of
such a one as runneth farthest into the land, and if you happen to discover divers portable
rivers, and amongst them any one that hath two main branches, if the difference be not great,
make choice of that which bendeth most toward the North-West for that way you shall
soonest find the other sea.
When you have made choice of the river on which you mean to settle, be not hasty in landing
your victuals and munitions; but first let Captain Newport discover how far that river may be
found navigable, that you make election of the strongest, most wholesome and fertile place;
for if you make many removes, besides the loss of time, you shall greatly spoil your victuals
and your caske, and with great pain transport it in small boats.
But if you choose your place so far up as a bark of fifty tuns will float, then you may lay all
your provisions ashore with ease, and the better receive the trade of all the countries about
you in the land; and such a place you may perchance find a hundred miles from the river's
mouth, and the further up the better. For if you sit down near the entrance, except it be in
some island that is strong by nature, an enemy that may approach you on even ground, may
easily pull you out; and if he be driven to seek you a hundred miles [in] the land in boats, you
shall from both sides of the river where it is narrowest, so beat them with your muskets as
they shall never be able to prevail against you.
And to the end that you be not surprised as the French were in Florida by Melindus, and the
Spaniard in the same place by the French, you shall do well to make this double provision.
First, erect a little stoure at the mouth of the river that may lodge some ten men; with whom
you shall leave a light boat, that when any fleet shall be in sight, they may come with speed to
give you warning. Secondly, you must in no case suffer any of the native people of the
country to inhabit between you and the sea coast; for you cannot carry yourselves so towards
them, but they will grow discontented with your habitation, and be ready to guide and assist
any nation that shall come to invade you; and if you neglect this, you neglect your safety.
When you have discovered as far up the river as you mean to plant yourselves, and landed
your victuals and munitions; to the end that every man may know his charge, you shall do
well to divide your six score men into three parts; whereof one party of them you may appoint
to fortifie and build, of which your first work must be your storehouse for victuals; the other
you may imploy in preparing your ground and sowing your corn and roots; the other ten of
these forty you must leave as centinel at the haven's mouth. The other forty you may imploy
for two months in discovery of the river above you, and on the country about you; which
charge Captain Newport and Captain Gosnold may undertake of these forty discoverers.
When they do espie any high lands or hills, Captain Gosnold may take twenty of the company
to cross over the lands, and carrying a half dozen pickaxes to try if they can find any minerals.
The other twenty may go on by river, and pitch up boughs upon the bank's side, by which the
other boats shall follow them by the same turnings. You may also take with them a wherry,
such as is used here in the Thames; by which you may send back to the President for supply
of munition or any other want, that you may not be driven to return for every small defect.
You must observe if you can, whether the river on which you plant doth spring out of
mountains or out of lakes. If it be out of any lake, the passage to the other sea will be more
easy, and [it] is like enough, that out of the same lake you shall find some spring which run[s]
the contrary way towards the East India Sea; for the great and famous rivers of Volga,
Tan[a]is and Dwina have three heads near joynd; and yet the one falleth into the Caspian Sea,
the other into the Euxine Sea, and the third into the Paelonian Sea.
In all your passages you must have great care not to offend the naturals [natives], if you can
eschew it; and imploy some few of your company to trade with them for corn and all other . . .
victuals if you have any; and this you must do before that they perceive you mean to plant
among them; for not being sure how your own seed corn will prosper the first year, to avoid
the danger of famine, use and endeavour to store yourselves of the country corn.
Your discoverers that pass over land with hired guides, must look well to them that they slip
not from them: and for more assurance, let them take a compass with them, and write down
how far they go upon every point of the compass; for that country having no way nor path, if
that your guides run from you in the great woods or desert, you shall hardly ever find a
passage back.
And how weary soever your soldiers be, let them never trust the country people with the
carriage of their weapons; for if they run from you with your shott, which they only fear, they
will easily kill them all with their arrows. And whensoever any of yours shoots before them,
be sure they may be chosen out of your best marksmen; for if they see your learners miss
what they aim at, they will think the weapon not so terrible, and thereby will be bould to
assault you.
Above all things, do not advertize the killing of any of your men, that the country people may
know it; if they perceive that they are but common men, and that with the loss of many of
theirs they diminish any part of yours, they will make many adventures upon you. If the
country be populous, you shall do well also, not to let them see or know of your sick men, if
you have any; which may also encourage them to many enterprizes.
You must take especial care that you choose a seat for habitation that shall not be over
burthened with woods near your town; for all the men you have, shall not be able to cleanse
twenty acres a year; besides that it may serve for a covert for your enemies round about.
Neither must you plant in a low or moist place, because it will prove unhealthfull. You shall
judge of the good air by the people; for some part of that coast where the lands are low, have
their people blear eyed, and with swollen bellies and legs; but if the naturals be strong and
clean made, it is a true sign of a wholesome soil.
You must take order to draw up the pinnace that is left with you, under the fort: and take her
sails and anchors ashore, all but a small kedge to ride by; least some ill-dispositioned persons
slip away with her.
You must take care that your marriners that go for wages, do not mar your trade; for those that
mind not to inhabite, for a little gain will debase the estimation of exchange, and hinder the
trade for ever after; and therefore you shall not admit or suffer any person whatsoever, other
than such as shall be appointed by the President and Counsel there, to buy any merchandizes
or other things whatsoever.
It were necessary that all your carpenters and other such like workmen about building do first
build your storehouse and those other rooms of publick and necessary use before any house be
set up for any private person: and though the workman may belong to any private persons yet
let them all work together first for the company and then for private men.
And seeing order is at the same price with confusion, it shall be adviseably done to set your
houses even and by a line, that your street may have a good breadth, and be carried square
about your market place and every street's end opening into it; that from thence, with a few
field pieces, you may command every street throughout; which market place you may also
fortify if you think it needfull.
You shall do well to send a perfect relation by Captaine Newport of all that is done, what
height you are seated, how far into the land, what commodities you find, what soil, woods and
their several kinds, and so of all other things else to advertise particularly; and to suffer no
man to return but by pasport from the President and Counsel, nor to write any letter of
anything that may discourage others.
Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of
one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God the Giver of
all Goodness, for every plantation which our Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted
out.
2. John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
(1630)
John Wynthrop was the elected governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, and he led a fleet of seven ships carrying about
700 Puritans settlers to New England in 1630. This sermon was written and delivered on board the Arbella on their way to
New England. The following excerpt is the last part of the sermon, when he applied his earlier arguments about Christian
love and charity to their present trip. The most famous part („City upon a Hill”) is in bold. The spelling has been modernized,
and some new paragraphs created.
….
It rests now to make some application of this discourse, by the present design, which gave the
occasion of writing of it. Herein are 4 things to he propounded; first the persons, secondly the
work, thirdly the end, fourthly the means.
1. For the persons. Wee are a company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ, in
which respect only though we were absent from each other many miles, and had our
employments as far distant, yet we ought to account ourselves knit together by this bond of
love, and, live in the exercise of it, if we would have comfort of our being in Christ. …
2nly for the work we have in hand. It is by a mutual consent, through a special overvaluing
providence and a more than an ordinary approbation of the Churches of Christ, to seek out a
place of cohabitation and Consortship under a due form of Government both civil and
ecclesiastical. In such cases as this, the care of the public must oversway all private respects,
by which, not only conscience, but mere civil policy, doth bind us. For it is a true rule that
particular Estates cannot subsist in the ruin of the public.
3ly The end is to improve our lives to do more service to the Lord; the comfort and increase
of the body of Christ, whereof we are members; that ourselves and posterity may be the better
preserved from the common corruptions of this evil world, to serve the Lord and work out our
Salvation under the power and purity of his holy ordinances.
4thly for the means whereby this must be effected. They are twofold, a conformity with the
work and end we aim at. These we see are extraordinary, therefore we must not content
ourselves with usual ordinary means. Whatsoever we did, or ought to have, done, when we
lived in England, the same must we do, and more also, where we go. That which the most in
their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant
practise; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love
one another with a pure heart fervently. We must bear one another’s burthens. We must not
look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren. Neither must we think that
the Lord will bear with such failings at our hands as he doth from those among whom we
have lived; and that for these 3 Reasons;
1. In regard of the more near bond of mariage between him and us, wherein he hath taken us
to be his, after a most strict and peculiar manner, which will make them the more jealous of
our love and obedience. … 2ly, because the Lord will be sanctified in them that come near
him. We know that there were many that corrupted the service of the Lord; some setting up
altars before his own; others offering both strange fire and strange sacrifices also; yet there
came no fire from heaven, or other sudden judgement upon them, as did upon Nadab and
Abihu, who yet we may think did not sin presumptuously. 31y When God gives a special
commission he looks to have it strictly observed in every article; When he gave Saul a
commission to destroy Amaleck, Hee indented with him upon certain articles, and because he
failed in one of the least, and that upon a fair pretense, it lost him the kingdom, which should
have been his reward, if he had observed his commission. Thus stands the cause between God
and us. We are entered into Covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a
commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to
enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon besought
Him of favour and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to
the place we desire, then hath hee ratified this covenant and sealed our Commission, and will
expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the
observation of these articles which are the ends wee have propounded, and, dissembling with
our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking
great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us;
be revenged of such a [sinful] people and make us know the price of the breach of such a
covenant.
Now the only way to avoid this shipwrack, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the
counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we
must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly
affection. Wee must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of
other's necessities. Wee must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness,
gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other's conditions our
own; rejoice together, mourn together, labour and suffer together, always having before our
eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we
keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to
dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways. So
that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we
have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us
shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when he shall make us a praise and glory
that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "the Lord make it likely that of New England."
For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are
upon us. So that if wee shall deal falsely with our God in this work wee have undertaken,
and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a
by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways
of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy
servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of
the good land whither we are going.
I shall shut up this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord,
in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30. Beloved there is now set before us life and good, Death
and evil, in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one
another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his Ordinance and his laws,
and the articles of our Covenant with him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the
Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn
away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship and serve other Gods, our
pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish
out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it;
Therefore let us choose life that we, and our seed may live, by obeying His voice and cleaving
to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity.
3. Gottlieb Mittelberger: On the Misfortune of
Indentured Servants (1754)
Indentured, or bonded, servants were an important source of labor in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America. The term
generally refers to immigrants who, in return for passage from Europe to America, had bound themselves to work in America
for a number of years, after which time they would become completely free. The practice was closely related to the tradition
of apprenticeship, in which a youth was assigned to work for a master in a certain trade and in return was taught the skills of
the trade.
Gottlieb Mittelberger came to Pennsylvania from Germany in 1750. He returned to Europe four years later. Mittelberger's
own fortunes were not so bleak as those of his shipmates. Mittelberger served as a schoolmaster and organist in Philadelphia
for three years. He returned to Germany in 1754.
Both in Rotterdam and in Amsterdam the people are packed densely, like herrings so to say,
in the large sea-vessels. One person receives a place of scarcely 2 feet width and 6 feet length
in the bedstead, while many a ship carries four to six hundred souls; not to mention the
innumerable implements, tools, provisions, water-barrels and other things which likewise
occupy much space.
On account of contrary winds it takes the ships sometimes 2, 3 and 4 weeks to make the trip
from Holland to England. But when the wind is good, they get there in 8 days or even sooner.
Everything is examined there and the custom-duties paid, whence it comes that the ships ride
there 8, 10 to 14 days and even longer at anchor, till they have taken in their full cargoes.
During that time every one is compelled to spend his last remaining money and to consume
his little stock of provisions which had been reserved for the sea; so that most passengers,
finding themselves on the ocean where they would be in greater need of them, must greatly
suffer from hunger and want. Many suffer want already on the water between Holland and
Old England.
When the ships have for the last time weighed their anchors near the city of Kaupp [Cowes] in
Old England, the real misery begins with the long voyage. For from there the ships, unless
they have good wind, must often sail 8, 9, 10 to 12 weeks before they reach Philadelphia. But
even with the best wind the voyage lasts 7 weeks.
But during the voyage there is on board these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror,
vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils,
scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food
and meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably.
Add to this want of provisions, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, anxiety, want, afflictions
and lamentations, together with other trouble, as the lice abound so frightfully, especially on
sick people, that they can be scraped off the body. The misery reaches the climax when a gale
rages for 2 or 3 nights and days, so that every one believes that the ship will go to the bottom
with all human beings on board. In such a visitation the people cry and pray most piteously.
When in such a gale the sea rages and surges, so that the waves rise often like high mountains
one above the other, and often tumble over the ship, so that one fears to go down with the
ship; when the ship is constantly tossed from side to side by the storm and waves, so that no
one can either walk, or sit, or lie, and the closely packed people in the berths are thereby
tumbled over each other, both the sick and the well - it will be readily understood that many
of these people, none of whom had been prepared for hardships, suffer so terribly from them
that they do not survive it.
I myself had to pass through a severe illness at sea, and I best know how I felt at the time.
These poor people often long for consolation, and I often entertained and comforted them
with singing, praying and exhorting; and whenever it was possible and the winds and waves
permitted it, I kept daily prayer-meetings with them on deck. Besides, I baptized five children
in distress, because we had no ordained minister on board. I also held divine service every
Sunday by reading sermons to the people; and when the dead were sunk in the water, I
commended them and our souls to the mercy of God.
Among the healthy, impatience sometimes grows so great and cruel that one curses the other,
or himself and the day of his birth, and sometimes come near killing each other. Misery and
malice join each other, so that they cheat and rob one another. One always reproaches the
other with having persuaded him to undertake the journey. Frequently children cry out against
their parents, husbands against their wives and wives against their husbands, brothers and
sisters, friends and acquaintances against each other. But most against the soul-traffickers.
… Many people whimper, sigh and cry piteously for their homes; most of them get homesick. Many hundred people necessarily die and perish in such misery, and must be cast into
the sea, which drives their relatives, or those who persuaded them to undertake the journey, to
such despair that it is almost impossible to pacify and console them.
No one can have an idea of the sufferings which women in confinement have to bear with
their innocent children on board these ships. Few of this class escape with their lives; many a
mother is cast into the water with her child as soon as she is dead. One day, just as we had a
heavy gale, a woman in our ship, who was to give birth and could not give birth under the
circumstances, was pushed through a loop-hole [port-hole] in the ship and dropped into the
sea, because she was far in the rear of the ship and could not be brought forward.
Children from 1 to 7 years rarely survive the voyage. I witnessed misery in no less than 32
children in our ship, all of whom were thrown into the sea. The parents grieve all the more
since their children find no resting-place in the earth, but are devoured by the monsters of the
sea.
That most of the people get sick is not surprising, because, in addition to all other trials and
hardships, warm food is served only three times a week, the rations being very poor and very
little. Such meals can hardly be eaten, on account of being so unclean. The water which is
served out on the ships is often very black, thick and full of worms, so that one cannot drink it
without loathing, even with the greatest thirst. Toward the end we were compelled to eat the
ship's biscuit which had been spoiled long ago; though in a whole biscuit there was scarcely a,
piece the size of a dollar that had not been full of red worms and spiders nests.
At length, when, after a long and tedious voyage, the ships come in sight of land, so that the
promontories can be seen, which the people were so eager and anxious to see, all creep from
below on deck to see the land from afar, and they weep for joy, and pray and sing, thanking
and praising God. The sight of the land makes the people on board the ship, especially the
sick and the half dead, alive again, so that their hearts leap within them; they shout and
rejoice, and are content to bear their misery in patience, in the hope that they may soon reach
the land in safety. But alas!
When the ships have landed at Philadelphia after their long voyage, no one is permitted to
leave them except those who pay for their passage or can give good security; the others, who
cannot pay, must remain on board the ships till they are purchased, and are released from the
ships by their purchasers. The sick always fare the worst, for the healthy are naturally
preferred and purchased first; and so the sick and wretched must often remain on board in
front of the city for 2 or 3 weeks, and frequently die, whereas many a one, if he could pay his
debt and were permitted to leave the ship immediately, might recover and remain alive.
The sale of human beings in the market on board the ship is carried on thus: Every day
Englishmen, Dutchmen and High-German people come from the city of Philadelphia and
other places, in part from a great distance, say 20, 30, or 40 hours away, and go on board the
newly arrived ship that has brought and offers for sale passengers from Europe, and select
among the healthy persons such as they deem suitable for their business, and bargain with
them how long they will serve for their passage money, which most of them are still in debt
for. When they have come to an agreement, it happens that adult persons bind themselves in
writing to serve 3, 4, 5 or 6 years for the amount due by them, according to their age and
strength. But very young people, from 10 to 15 years, must serve till they are 21 years old.
Many parents must sell and trade away their children like so many head of cattle; for if their
children take the debt upon themselves, the parents can leave the ship free and unrestrained;
but as the parents often do not know where and to what people their children are going, it
often happens that such parents and children, after leaving the ship, do not see each other
again for many years, perhaps no more in all their lives.
It often happens that whole families, husband, wife, and children, are separated by being sold
to different purchasers, especially when they have not paid any part of their passage money.
When a husband or wife has died at sea, when the ship has made more than half of her trip,
the survivor must pay or serve not only for himself or herself, but also for the deceased.
When both parents have died over half-way at sea, their children, especially when they are
young and have nothing to pawn or to pay, must stand for their own and their parents'
passage, and serve till they are 21 years old. When one has served his or her term, he or she is
entitled to a new suit of clothes at parting; and if it has been so stipulated, a man gets in
addition a horse, a woman, a cow.
When a serf has an opportunity to marry in this country, he or she must pay for each year
which he or she would have yet to serve, 5 to 6 pounds. But many a one who has thus
purchased and paid for his bride, has subsequently repented his bargain, so that he would
gladly have returned his exorbitantly dear ware, and lost the money besides.
If some one in this country runs away from his master, who has treated him harshly, he cannot
get far. Good provision has been made for such cases, so that a runaway is soon recovered. He
who detains or returns a deserter receives a good reward.
If such a runaway has been away from his master one day, he must serve for it as a
punishment a week, for a week a month, and for a month half a year.
4. Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress
October 19, 1765
The members of this Congress, sincerely devoted, with the warmest sentiments of affection
and duty to His Majesty's Person and Government, inviolably attached to the present happy
establishment of the Protestant succession, and with minds deeply impressed by a sense of the
present and impending misfortunes of the British colonies on this continent; having
considered as maturely as time will permit the circumstances of the said colonies, esteem it
our indispensable duty to make the following declarations of our humble opinion, respecting
the most essential rights and liberties Of the colonists, and of the grievances under which they
labour, by reason of several late Acts of Parliament.
I.
That His Majesty's subjects in these colonies, owe the same allegiance to the Crown of
Great-Britain, that is owing from his subjects born within the realm, and all due
subordination to that august body the Parliament of Great Britain.
II.
That His Majesty's liege subjects in these colonies, are entitled to all the inherent
rights and liberties of his natural born subjects within the kingdom of Great-Britain.
III.
That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of
Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given
personally, or by their representatives.
IV.
That the people of these colonies are not, and from their local circumstances cannot
be, represented in the House of Commons in Great-Britain.
V.
That the only representatives of the people of these colonies, are persons chosen
therein by themselves, and that no taxes ever have been, or can be constitutionally
imposed on them, but by their respective legislatures.
VI.
That all supplies to the Crown, being free gifts of the people, it is unreasonable and
inconsistent with the principles and spirit of the British Constitution, for the people of
Great-Britain to grant to His Majesty the property of the colonists.
VII.
That trial by jury is the inherent and invaluable right of every British subject in these
colonies.
VIII.
That the late Act of Parliament, entitled, An Act for granting and applying certain
Stamp Duties, and other Duties, in the British colonies and plantations in America,
etc., by imposing taxes on the inhabitants of these colonies, and the said Act, and
several other Acts, by extending the jurisdiction of the courts of Admiralty beyond its
ancient limits, have a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the
colonists.
IX.
That the duties imposed by several late Acts of Parliament, from the peculiar
circumstances of these colonies, will be extremely burthensome and grievous; and
from the scarcity of specie, the payment of them absolutely impracticable.
X.
That as the profits of the trade of these colonies ultimately center in Great-Britain, to
pay for the manufactures which they are obliged to take from thence, they eventually
contribute very largely to all supplies granted there to the Crown.
XI.
That the restrictions imposed by several late Acts of Parliament, on the trade of these
colonies, will render them unable to purchase the manufactures of Great-Britain.
XII.
That the increase, prosperity, and happiness of these colonies, depend on the full and
free enjoyment of their rights and liberties, and an intercourse with Great-Britain
mutually affectionate and advantageous.
XIII.
That it is the right of the British subjects in these colonies, to petition the King, Or
either House of Parliament.
Lastly, That it is the indispensable duty of these colonies, to the best of sovereigns, to the
mother country, and to themselves, to endeavour by a loyal and dutiful address to his Majesty,
and humble applications to both Houses of Parliament, to procure the repeal of the Act for
granting and applying certain stamp duties, of all clauses of any other Acts of Parliament,
whereby the jurisdiction of the Admiralty is extended as aforesaid, and of the other late Acts
for the restriction of American commerce.
5. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen
united States of America (July 4, 1776)
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of
the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils
are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces
a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the
patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to
alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is
a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of
an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless
suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he
has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless
those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right
inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from
the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance
with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his
invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby
the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for
their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion
from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the
Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations
hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for
establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the
amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our
people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our
legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and
unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should
commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing
therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an
example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally
the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War
against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our
people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of
death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy
scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized
nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against
their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves
by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the
inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms:
Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character
is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from
time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of
our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our
connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of
consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress,
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,
do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent
States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace
contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which
Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm
reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives,
our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James
Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson,
Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
6 Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people
to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the
Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but
upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a
presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces,
or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person
be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be
compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty,
or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use,
without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by
an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his
defence.
Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right
of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined
in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual
punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
7. The Monroe Doctrine (1823)
The Monroe Doctrine was expressed during President James Monroe’s seventh annual message to Congress, December 2,
1823. It was a reaction to the recent upheaval in the Spanish colonies in Latin America, since during the preceding years
Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia declared its independence from Spain, and the US recognized them in 1822.
Spain was trying to create an alliance with France and Russia to re-conquer its colonies in 1823. Monroe was urged by his
Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, to make a statement of principle and declare that the US opposes any further
colonization of the American continent or an attack on sovereign American countries by European powers while also
declaring a lack of interest in any conflict between European powers.
Although originally the Monroe Doctrine wanted to express the support of the US for the newly independent Latin-American
countries, subsequently, especially after the turn of the century, it was reinterpreted as the exclusive right of the US to extend
its own influence over Latin America and exclude European powers.
. . . At the proposal of the Russian Imperial Government, made through the minister of the
Emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of
the United States at St. Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and
interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A similar proposal has
been made by His Imperial Majesty to the Government of Great Britain, which has likewise
been acceded to. The Government of the United States has been desirous by this friendly
proceeding of manifesting the great value which they have invariably attached to the
friendship of the Emperor and their solicitude to cultivate the best understanding with his
Government. In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements
by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle
in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American
continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are
henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. .
.
It was stated at the commencement of the last session that a great effort was then making in
Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of the people of those countries, and that it
appeared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be remarked that
the results have been so far very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in that
quarter of the globe, with which we have so much intercourse and from which we derive our
origin, we have always been anxious and interested spectators. The citizens of the United
States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their
fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating
to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is
only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make
preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more
immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial
observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from
that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective
Governments; and to the defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much
blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under
which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it,
therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those
powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to
any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing
colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not
interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it,
and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles,
acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or
controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than
as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. In the war between
those new Governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition,
and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur
which, in the judgement of the competent authorities of this Government, shall make a
corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security.
The late events in Spain and Portugal shew that Europe is still unsettled. Of this important fact
no stronger proof can be adduced than that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on
any principle satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal concerns
of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on the same principle, is a
question in which all independent powers whose governments differ from theirs are
interested, even those most remote, and surely none of them more so than the United States.
Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have
so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to
interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as
the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those
relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every
power, submitting to injuries from none. But in regard to those continents circumstances are
eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the allied powers should extend
their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and
happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would
adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such
interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and
resources of Spain and those new Governments, and their distance from each other, it must be
obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave
the parties to themselves, in hope that other powers will pursue the same course. . . .
8. Abraham Lincoln
First inaugural address, Monday, March 4, 1861
Abraham Lincoln's inauguration took place during one of the most difficult moments of American history. Jefferson Davis
had been inaugurated as the President of the Confederacy two weeks earlier, so the threatening split of the United States
became reality. In his speech, Lincoln tried both to persuade Southerners once again that he did not advocate the abolition of
slavery in the South, while making it clear that he was not going to tolerate the secession of the Southern states from the
Union.
In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address
you briefly and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United
States to be taken by the President "before he enters on the execution of this office."
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration
about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of
a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be
endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the
most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their
inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I
do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that-I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the
States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do
so.
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and
many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the
platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic
resolution which I now read:
'Resolved', That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right
of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment
exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our
political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of
any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the
most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and
security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I
add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be
given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause-as cheerfully to one section as to another.
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The
clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another,
shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or
labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be
due.
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the
reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All
members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution--to this provision as much
as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this
clause "shall be delivered up" their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort
in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of
which to keep good that unanimous oath?
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by
State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be
surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is
done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely
unsubstantial controversy as to 'how' it shall be kept?
...
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National
Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have in
succession administered the executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it
through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I
now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and
peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now
formidably attempted.
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States
is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national
governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic
law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National
Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by
some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the
nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the
parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it--break it, so to speak--but does it
not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation
the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older
than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was
matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured,
and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be
perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared
objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the
Union is 'less' perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the
Union; that 'resolves' and 'ordinances' to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence
within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or
revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and
to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon
me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be
only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful
masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative
manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the
declared purpose of the Union that it 'will' constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be
forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy,
and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and
imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no
using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in
any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens
from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among
the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce
the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly
impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.
…
All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true,
then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily,
the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think,
if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has
ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any
clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution;
certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of
minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations,
guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning
them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every
question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any
document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall
fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does
not expressly say. 'May' Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does
not expressly say. 'Must' Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does
not expressly say.
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon
them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or
the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is
acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than
acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of
their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such
minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence
arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from
it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing
this.
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new union as to
produce harmony only and prevent renewed secession?
Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by
constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of
popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects
it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a
minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority
principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.
…
One section of our country believes slavery is 'right' and ought to be extended, while the other
believes it is 'wrong' and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The
fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave
trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the
moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people
abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can
not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases 'after' the separation of the sections
than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived
without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would
not be surrendered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from
each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced
and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our
country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable
or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more
advantageous or more satisfactory 'after' separation than 'before'? Can aliens make treaties
easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens
than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when,
after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old
questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall
grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their 'constitutional' right of
amending it or their 'revolutionary' right to dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant
of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National
Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize
the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the
modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor
rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to
add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to
originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject
propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not
be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed
amendment to the Constitution--which amendment, however, I have not seen--has passed
Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic
institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction
of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as
to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection
to its being made express and irrevocable.
…
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and 'well' upon this whole subject. Nothing
valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to 'hurry' any of you in hot haste to a
step which you would never take 'deliberately', that object will be frustrated by taking time;
but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the
old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under
it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either.
If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is
no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm
reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in
the best way all our present difficulty.
In 'your' hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in 'mine', is the momentous issue
of civil war. The Government will not assail 'you'. You can have no conflict without being
yourselves the aggressors. 'You' have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the
Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend
it."
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion
may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all
over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely
they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
9. Abraham Lincoln:
The Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
On Jan. 1, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared free all slaves residing in territory in rebellion against the federal
government. This Emancipation Proclamation actually freed few people. It did not apply to slaves in border states fighting on
the Union side; nor did it affect slaves in southern areas already under Union control. Naturally, the states in rebellion did not
act on Lincoln's order. But the proclamation did show Americans-- and the world--that the civil war was now being fought to
end slavery.
Lincoln had been reluctant to come to this position. A believer in white supremacy, he initially viewed the war only in terms
of preserving the Union. As pressure for abolition mounted in Congress and the country, however, Lincoln became more
sympathetic to the idea. On Sept. 22, 1862, he issued a preliminary proclamation announcing that emancipation would
become effective on Jan. 1, 1863, in those states still in rebellion. Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end
slavery in America – this was achieved by the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on Dec. 18, 1865 – it did
make that accomplishment a basic war goal and a virtual certainty.
By the President of the United States of America:
A PROCLAMATION
Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the
President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or
designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United
States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the
United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain
the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them,
in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the
States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in
rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on
that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen
thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have
participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive
evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United
States."
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in
me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of
actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit
and necessary war measure for supressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D.
1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of
one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and
parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the
United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St.
John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St.
Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties
designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton,
Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and
Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation
were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all
persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward
shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military
and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless
in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor
faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received
into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other
places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.
And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution
upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor
of Almighty God.
10. The Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S.
Constitution
Amendment XIII (1865)
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Amendment XIV (1868)
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their
respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President
and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and
judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the
male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age,1 and citizens of the United
States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis
of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male
citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age16 in such
state.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President
and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any
state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the
United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of
any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection
or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress
may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including
debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection
or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume
or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations
and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the
provisions of this article.
Amendment XV (1870)
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
1
See the 26th Amendment.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
11. Supreme Court:
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
The decision of the Supreme Court in this case established the judicial precedent popularly called „separate but equal”. The
essence of the majority opinion was that the separation of the two races is not necessarily unconstitutional as long as it does
show any preference towards either race. This decision basically allowed Southern states to pass laws which made racial
segregation legal and official in the South.
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the Court.
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...
The constitutionality of this act is attacked upon the ground that it conflicts both with the
Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, abolishing slavery, and the Fourteenth
Amendment, which prohibits certain restrictive legislation on the part of the States.
1. That it does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is too clear for argument...
The proper construction of the 14th amendment was first called to the attention of this court in
the Slaughter-house cases,...which involved, however, not a question of race, but one of
exclusive privileges. The case did not call for any expression of opinion as to the exact rights
it was intended to secure to the colored race, but it was said generally that its main purpose
was to establish the citizenship of the negro; to give definitions of citizenship of the United
States and of the States, and to protect from the hostile legislation of the States the privileges
and immunities of citizens of the United States, as distinguished from those of citizens of the
States.
The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two
races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish
distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or
a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and
even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do
not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not
universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of
their police power. The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of
separate schools for white and colored children, which has been held to be a valid exercise of
the legislative power even by courts of States where the political rights of the colored race
have been longest and most earnestly enforced...
So far, then, as a conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, the case reduces itself
to the question whether the statute of Louisiana is a reasonable regulation, and with respect to
this there must necessarily be a large discretion on the part of the legislature. In determining
the question of reasonableness it is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages,
customs and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort, and
the preservation of the public peace and good order. Gauged by this standard, we cannot say
that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public
conveyances is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to the Fourteenth Amendment than the acts
of Congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia, the
constitutionality of which does not seem to have been questioned, or the corresponding acts of
state legislatures.
We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that
the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If
this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race
chooses to put that construction upon it. The argument necessarily assumes that if, as has been
more than once the case, and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race should become
the dominant power in the state legislature, and should enact a law in precisely similar terms,
it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position. We imagine that the white
race, at least, would not acquiesce in this assumption. The argument also assumes that social
prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the
negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this
proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of
natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other's merits and a voluntary consent of
individuals...Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions
based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the
difficulties of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal one
cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially,
the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane...
Justice Harlan, dissenting.
While there may be in Louisiana persons of different races who are not citizens of the United
States, the words in the act, "white and colored races," necessarily include all citizens of the
United States of both races residing in that State. So that we have before us a state enactment
that compels, under penalties, the separation of the two races in railroad passenger coaches,
and makes it a crime for a citizen of either race to enter a coach that has been assigned to
citizens of the other race...
In respect of civil rights, common to all citizens, the Constitution of the United States does
not, I think, permit any public authority to know the race of those entitled to be protected in
the enjoyment of such rights. Every true man has pride of race, and under appropriate
circumstances when the rights of others, his equals before the law, are not to be affected, it is
his privilege to express such pride and to take such action based upon it as to him seems
proper. But I deny that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the race of
citizens when the civil rights of those citizens are not involved. Indeed, such legislation, as
that here in question, is inconsistent not only with that equality of rights which pertains to
citizenship, National and State, but with the personal liberty enjoyed by every one within the
United States...
The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in
achievements, in education, in wealth and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for
all time, if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional
liberty. But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no
superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all
citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law
regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil
rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. It is, therefore, to be
regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has
reached the conclusion that it is competent for a State to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of
their civil rights solely upon the basis of race.
In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as
the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case...The present decision, it may well be
apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating, upon the
admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that it is possible, by means
of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United States
had in view when they adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution, by one of which
the blacks of this country were made citizens of the United States and of the States in which
they respectively reside, and whose privileges and immunities, as citizens, the States are
forbidden to abridge. Sixty millions of whites are in no danger from the presence here of eight
millions of blacks. The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked
together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit
the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law. What can more certainly arouse
race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races,
than state enactments, which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so
inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white
citizens? That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in
Louisiana...
If evils will result from the commingling of the two races upon public highways established
for the benefit of all, they will be infinitely less than those that will surely come from state
legislation regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race. We boast of the
freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that
boast with a state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation
upon a large class of our fellow-citizens, our equals before the law...
I am of opinion that the statute of Louisiana is inconsistent with the personal liberty of
citizens, white and black, in that State, and hostile to both the spirit and letter of the
Constitution of the United States. If laws of like character should be enacted in the several
States of the Union, the effect would be in the highest degree mischievous. Slavery, as an
institution tolerated by law would, it is true, have disappeared from our country, but there
would remain a power in the States, by sinister legislation, to interfere with the full enjoyment
of the blessings of freedom; to regulate civil rights, common to all citizens upon the basis of
race; and to place in a condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens, now
constituting a part of the political community called the People of the United States, for
whom, and by whom through representatives, our government is administered.
12. Woodrow Wilson:
Fourteen Points Speech, January 8, 1918
President Woodrow Wilson put forward his ideas about a post-war settlement in a speech before Congress in January 1918,
while the First World War was still going on. His Fourteen Points were widely publicized as a generous and fair program to
settle the conflicts of European nations. The speech generated high hopes among the losers, including members of the
Hungarian opposition, who expected the Entente Powers to act in accordance with Wilson’s program. Unfortunately, much of
Wilson’s ideas never became reality as France and Britain had very different plans for a post-war settlement.
Gentlemen of the Congress ...
It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be
absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of
any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret
covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlookedfor moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of
every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which
makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of
the world to avow now or at any other time the objects it has in view.
We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick
and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world
secured once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is
nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and
particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to
live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the
other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world
are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless
justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world's peace, therefore,
is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this:
1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private
international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly
and in the public view.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace
and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action
for the enforcement of international covenants.
3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an
equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and
associating themselves for its maintenance.
4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the
lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
5. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based
upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of
sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the
equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting
Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world
in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the
independent determination of her own political development and national policy and
assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of
her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she
may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations
in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension
of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and
unselfish sympathy.
7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any
attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free
nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among
the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the
government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole
structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong
done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has
unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that
peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.
9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable
lines of nationality.
10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see
safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous
development.
11. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored;
Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several
Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically
established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the
political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan
states should be entered into.
12. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure
sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be
assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of an
autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a
free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories
inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and
secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and
territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.
14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the
purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial
integrity to great and small states alike.
In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to
be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the
Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until
the end.
For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until
they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable
peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this
program does not remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in
this program that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of
pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish
to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight
her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself
with us and the other peace-loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and
fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, -the new world in which we now live, -- instead of a place of mastery.
Neither do we presume to suggest to her any alteration or modification of her institutions. But
it is necessary, we must frankly say, and necessary as a preliminary to any intelligent dealings
with her on our part, that we should know whom her spokesmen speak for when they speak to
us, whether for the Reichstag majority or for the military party and the men whose creed is
imperial domination.
We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete to admit of any further doubt or question.
An evident principle runs through the whole program I have outlined. It is the principle of
justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and
safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak. Unless this principle be made its
foundation no part of the structure of international justice can stand. The people of the United
States could act upon no other principle; and to the vindication of this principle they are ready
to devote their lives, their honor, and everything that they possess. The moral climax of this
the culminating and final war for human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own
strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test.
13. Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
First inaugural address, Saturday, March 4, 1933
Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the Presidency during the worst period of the Great Depression. He won the election because
he promised a vigorous government program to combat the worst effects of the economic collapse. He addressed the nation
by radio and announced his plans for a New Deal. His speech contains the most important ideas of his program. The phrase
that became most famous from it is in bold.
I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will
address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our Nation impels.
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need
we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure
as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that
the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which
paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life
a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people
themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support
to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern,
thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen;
our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of
income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of
industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings
of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an
equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities
of the moment.
…
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and
action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it
wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the
Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same
time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and
reorganize the use of our natural resources.
Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our
industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide
a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite
efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the
output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss
through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the
Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be
drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often
scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and
supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which
have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can
never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a
return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits
and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there
must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session
detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several
States.
Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in
order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly
important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound
national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no
effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at
home cannot wait on that accomplishment.
The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly
nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the
various elements in all parts of the United States – a recognition of the old and permanently
important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is
the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.
In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor –
the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of
others – the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements
in and with a world of neighbors.
If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before
our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that
if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the
good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no
leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and
property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger
good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a
sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.
With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people
dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.
Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have
inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible
always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of
essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly
enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast
expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.
It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly
adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented
demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal
balance of public procedure.
I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation
in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the
Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional
authority, to bring to speedy adoption.
But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event
that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will
then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis
– broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that
would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.
For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can
do no less.
We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the
clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that
comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of
a rounded and permanent national life.
We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not
failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action.
They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the
present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.
In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and
every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.
14. Supreme Court Case
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the leading civil rights organization in the
country, had never accepted the legitimacy of the "separate but equal" rule, and in the 1940s and 1950s had brought a series
of cases designed to show that separate facilities did not meet the equality criterion. In 1952 the NAACP brought five cases
before the Court specifically challenging the doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. The one that was ultimately discussed by the
Court was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
A number of reports indicate that the justices, while agreed that segregation was wrong, were divided over whether the Court
had the power to overrule Plessy. Then Chief Justice Vinson, who reportedly opposed reversing Plessy, unexpectedly died,
and the new chief justice, Earl Warren, skillfully steered the Court to its unanimous and historic ruling on May 17, 1954.
The ruling, which struck down racially enforced school segregation, is one of the most important in American history, as it
began to dismantle the legally imposed segregation and inferiority of blacks. With this decision, the nation picked up where it
had left the cause of equal protection more than eighty years earlier, and began its efforts to integrate fully the black minority
into full partnership in the American nation.
Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. In
each of the cases, minors of the Negro race seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission
to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they had
been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or
permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the
plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment... 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. Argument was heard in the 1952
Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded by the Court.
Reargument was largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the 14th
Amendment in 1868. It covered exhaustively consideration of the Amendment in Congress,
ratification by the states, then existing practices in racial segregation, and the views of
proponents and opponents of the Amendment. This discussion and our investigation convince
us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with
which we are faced. At best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War
Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among "all persons
born or naturalized in the United States." Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic
to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited
effect. What others in Congress and the state legislature had in mind cannot be determined
with any degree of certainty.
An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment's history, with respect to
segregated schools, is the status of public education at that time. In the South, the movement
toward free common schools, supported by general taxation, had not yet taken hold.
Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups. Education of Negroes
was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of
the Negroes was forbidden by law in some states. Today, in contrast, many Negroes have
achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences as well as in the business and
professional world. It is true that public school education has advanced further in the North,
but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the
congressional debates. Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not
approximate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary; ungraded schools
were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states; and
compulsory school attendance was virtually unknown. As a consequence, it is not surprising
that there should be so little in the history of the 14th Amendment relating to its intended
effect on public education.
In the first cases in this Court construing the 14th Amendment, decided shortly after its
adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposed discriminations against the
Negro race. The doctrine of "separate but equal” did not make its appearance in this Court
until 1896, ... involving not education but transportation. In this Court, there have been six
cases involving the "separate but equal" doctrine in the field of public education. … In more
recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in that specific benefits
enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational
qualifications ... In none of these cases was it necessary to reexamine the doctrine to grant
relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter the Court expressly reserved decision on
the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.
In the instant cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter, there
are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized or are
being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers,
and other "tangible" factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of
these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must
look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.
In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the Amendment
was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy was written. We must consider public education in
the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.
Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs
of the equal protection of the laws.
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.
Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both
demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is
required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the
armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principle instrument
in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and
in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any
child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an
education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which
must be made available to all on equal terms.
We come then to the question presented:
Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the
physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the
minority group of equal educational opportunities?
We believe that it does. In Sweatt in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could
not provide them equal educational opportunities, this Court relied in large part on "those
qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law
school." In McLaurin, the Court, in requiring that a Negro admitted to a white graduate school
be treated like all other students, again resorted to intangible considerations: "[his] ability to
study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to
learn his profession." Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and
high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of
their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect
their heart and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on
their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court
which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs:
"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the
colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of
separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A
sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of
law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of negro
children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a [racially]
integrated school system."
Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v.
Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v.
Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.
We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no
place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the
plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are by reason
of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by
the 14th Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such
segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Because these are class actions, because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because
of the great variety of local conditions, the formulation of decrees in these cases presents
problems of considerable complexity. On reargument, the consideration of appropriate relief
was necessarily subordinated to the primary question -- the constitutionality of segregation in
public education. We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal
protection of the laws. In order that we may have the full assistance of the parties in
formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the docket, and the parties are requested to
present further argument...
It is so ordered.
15. John Fitzgerald Kennedy:
Inaugural address, Friday, January 20, 1961
The election of 1960 had been close, and the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts was eager to gather support for his
agenda. His speech was almost exclusively devoted to the international situation, especially the threats posed by the Cold
War: it became famous for its elevated style, memorable phrases, and the lofty goals it set for the nation. The most famouse
parts are in bold.
Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President
Nixon, President Truman, reverend clergy, fellow citizens, we observe today not a victory of
party, but a celebration of freedom – symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning – signifying
renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn
oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all
forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs
for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe – the belief that the rights of
man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth
from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new
generation of Americans – born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and
bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage – and unwilling to witness or permit the slow
undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which
we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear
any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure
the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge – and more.
To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of
faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided,
there is little we can do – for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.
To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one
form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron
tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always
hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to remember that, in the past,
those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.
To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of
mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is
required – not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but
because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few
who are rich.
To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge – to convert our good
words into good deeds –in a new alliance for progress – to assist free men and free
governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot
become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to
oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know
that this Hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.
To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age
where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our
pledge of support – to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective – to strengthen
its shield of the new and the weak – and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.
Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but
a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of
destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.
We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt
can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.
But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present
course – both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the
steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that
stays the hand of mankind's final war.
So let us begin anew – remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and
sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to
negotiate.
Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which
divide us.
Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection
and control of arms – and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute
control of all nations.
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us
explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage
the arts and commerce.
Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah – to "undo the
heavy burdens ... and to let the oppressed go free."
And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join
in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the
strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days,
nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us
begin.
In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of
our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been
summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who
answered the call to service surround the globe.
Now the trumpet summons us again – not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as
a call to battle, though embattled we are – but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight
struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation" – a struggle against
the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.
Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and
West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of
defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shank from this responsibility – I
welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or
any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will
light our country and all who serve it – and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you
can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we
can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high
standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure
reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love,
asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our
own.
16. Martin Luther King Jr.:
"I have a dream"-speech, aug. 28, 1963
This famous speech was the most memorable event of the March on Washington – one of the largest mass demonstrations in
American history, when about 250,000 people gathered around the Washington and the Lincoln monuments in the center of
Washington D.C., to demonstrate against the discrimination of blacks and urge more government measures to achieve the
equality of races.
King’s speech was mostly pre-written, but towards the end, fired up by the sight of the enormous crowd, he began to
improvise, and the most famous part of his speech – the „I have a dream” bit – was created on the spot. Its metaphors and
imagery clearly demonstrate King’s training as a Baptist minister and his close familiarity with the Bible. The beginning of
this last part is marked in bold.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest
demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to
millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as
a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the
Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.
One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast
ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the
corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. So we have come here
today to dramatize an shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our
republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be
guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens
of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the
Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there
are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to
cash this check- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security
of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of
gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the
dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to
lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is
the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering
summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating
autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those
who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude
awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility
in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will
continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which
leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be
guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the
cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of
dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical
violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with
soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a
distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence
here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have
come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk
alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?"
We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of
police brutality.
We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain
lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a
larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as our chlidren are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of
their dignity by signs stating "for whites only."
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New
York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters
and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some
of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your
quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of
police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the
faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia,
go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that
somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow,
I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons
of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of
injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom
and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be
judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor
having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right
down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white
boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exhalted, every hill and mountain shall be
made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight,
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will
be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able
to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to
jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My
country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of
the Pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the
prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New
York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the
curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain
of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let
freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every
village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day
when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at
last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"