U.S. History I Honors · Primary Source Repository

American History Through Primary Sources

47 documents across 7 chapters. Click any highlighted phrase to explore its historical significance.

Links to the full, unabridged text of each primary source covered in this repository. All links go to peer-reviewed academic archives: the Yale Avalon Project (Yale Law School), Founders Online (National Archives), the Library of Congress, and Project Gutenberg. These sources are free, stable, and appropriate to cite in academic work.

Chapter 01 · Colonial America (1620s–1750s)
John Winthrop — “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630)
John Winthrop · 1630 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The Avalon Project hosts the complete text of Winthrop’s sermon from the full scholarly edition. Note that the famous “city upon a hill” phrase appears near the end of a much longer document about Puritan covenant theology.
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Roger Williams — “The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution” (1644)
Roger Williams · 1644 · Project Gutenberg
Williams’s full argument for religious liberty is a lengthy book-length work. Project Gutenberg hosts a complete digitized edition. The excerpts in your worksheet represent a small fraction of his broader argument.
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Jonathan Edwards — “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741)
Jonathan Edwards · 1741 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete sermon as delivered in Enfield, Connecticut. The full text runs considerably longer than the excerpts on your worksheet, with additional extended metaphors of divine wrath.
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Nathaniel Bacon — “Declaration of the People” (1676)
Nathaniel Bacon · 1676 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete declaration from Bacon’s Rebellion, including both the charges against Governor Berkeley and Bacon’s broader manifesto. A short document; the worksheet excerpt covers most of it.
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Chapter 02 · Road to Revolution (1750s–1776)
Benjamin Franklin — Albany Plan of Union (1754)
Benjamin Franklin · 1754 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete plan as Franklin drafted it, including all provisions for the President-General and Grand Council. The “Join or Die” cartoon itself is an image; this link provides the written plan and its context.
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Patrick Henry — “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” (1775)
Patrick Henry · 1775 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The reconstructed text of the speech, as recorded from memory by William Wirt in 1816. Because no written version was made at the time, this is the closest approximation available. The Avalon Project includes Wirt’s editorial note explaining this.
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Second Continental Congress — Olive Branch Petition (1775)
Second Continental Congress · 1775 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete petition as sent to King George III. The full text is considerably longer than the worksheet excerpt and includes detailed enumeration of colonial grievances, signed by 48 delegates.
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Second Continental Congress — Declaration of Causes of Taking Up Arms (1775)
Jefferson & Dickinson · 1775 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete declaration approved by Congress on July 6, 1775. Your worksheet includes the full text; this link provides the authoritative Avalon edition with additional historical context.
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Thomas Paine — Common Sense (1776)
Thomas Paine · 1776 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete pamphlet, which runs to about 50 pages in print. Your worksheet covers only the opening sections. The full text includes Paine’s extended argument against hereditary monarchy and his detailed case for American independence.
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Abigail Adams — “Remember the Ladies” Letter (1776)
Abigail Adams · 1776 · Massachusetts Historical Society
The Massachusetts Historical Society hosts a digitized image of the original handwritten letter alongside the full transcribed text. Also includes John Adams’s dismissive reply, which is essential context for understanding the exchange.
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Chapter 03 · Founding the Republic (1776–1800)
James Madison — Federalist No. 10 (1787)
James Madison · 1787 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete essay as originally published in the New York Packet. Your worksheet includes the full text; this link provides the authoritative Avalon edition.
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James Madison — Federalist No. 51 (1788)
James Madison · 1788 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete essay on checks, balances, and the compound republic. Your worksheet includes the full text; this link provides the authoritative Avalon edition with the complete argument.
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Alexander Hamilton — Federalist No. 78 (1788)
Alexander Hamilton · 1788 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete essay on judicial independence and the basis for judicial review. Your worksheet includes the full text; this link provides the authoritative Avalon edition.
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George Washington — Farewell Address (1796)
George Washington · 1796 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete Farewell Address as published. Your worksheet covers the major warnings about parties, sectionalism, and foreign alliances. The full text also includes Washington’s personal reflections on his career and a call for national unity.
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George Washington — Proclamation of Neutrality (1793)
George Washington · 1793 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete proclamation as issued. A short document; your worksheet includes essentially the full text. This link provides the Avalon edition with additional historical context about the Franco-British war.
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Thomas Jefferson — First Inaugural Address (1801)
Thomas Jefferson · 1801 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete inaugural address. Your worksheet includes the full text; this link provides the authoritative Avalon edition, which also notes variants between the handwritten draft and the delivered version.
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Hamilton & Jefferson — Debate on the National Bank (1791)
Hamilton & Jefferson · 1791 · Founders Online, National Archives
Founders Online is the National Archives’ authoritative digital edition of the Founding Fathers’ papers. This link goes to Hamilton’s full Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bank; Jefferson’s opposing opinion is also available there.
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Jefferson & Madison — Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798–1799)
Jefferson & Madison · 1798–1799 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
Both the Kentucky Resolutions (secretly authored by Jefferson) and the Virginia Resolutions (by Madison) are available in full on Avalon. These are the foundational texts of the nullification argument.
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Chapter 04 · Early Republic & Jacksonian Era (1800–1840s)
Thomas Jefferson — Embargo Act of 1807
U.S. Congress · 1807 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The full text of the Embargo Act as passed by Congress. A legal document rather than a speech; reading it alongside Jefferson’s defense of it reveals the gap between the law’s spare language and the controversy it generated.
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James Madison — War Message to Congress (1812)
James Madison · 1812 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete war message delivered to Congress on June 1, 1812. Your worksheet covers the major grievances; the full message also enumerates specific incidents of British impressment and trade interference in considerable detail.
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Hartford Convention — Report and Resolutions (1815)
New England Federalists · 1815 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete report and proposed constitutional amendments from the Hartford Convention. The full document is much longer than the worksheet excerpt and includes a detailed analysis of New England’s wartime grievances.
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Thomas Jefferson — Letter to John Holmes on Missouri (1820)
Thomas Jefferson · 1820 · Library of Congress
The Library of Congress hosts a high-resolution digitized image of the original handwritten letter alongside a full transcription. The letter is short; the worksheet includes essentially all of it.
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Andrew Jackson — Bank Veto Message (1832)
Andrew Jackson · 1832 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete veto message, which is much longer than the worksheet excerpt. The full text includes Jackson’s detailed constitutional argument against the Bank alongside his populist rhetoric about equality.
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Andrew Jackson — Nullification Proclamation (1832)
Andrew Jackson · 1832 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
Jackson’s complete proclamation to the people of South Carolina, which is a lengthy and forceful constitutional argument against nullification. The full document is far longer than the worksheet excerpt.
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Chapter 05 · Antebellum Reform (1820s–1850s)
Charles Finney — Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835)
Charles G. Finney · 1835 · Project Gutenberg
Finney’s full lectures, which were the primary vehicle for his revivalist theology. Project Gutenberg hosts the complete digitized edition. The worksheet excerpt on human free will in salvation is drawn from this broader work.
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Horace Mann — Twelfth Annual Report (1848)
Horace Mann · 1848 · Internet Archive
The Internet Archive hosts a digitized scan of Mann’s complete Twelfth Annual Report to the Massachusetts Board of Education. The “great equalizer” passage appears in a much longer argument for public schooling.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson — Nature (1836)
Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1836 · Project Gutenberg
The complete essay, which includes eight chapters beyond the excerpts on your worksheet: Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline, Idealism, Spirit, and Prospects. Project Gutenberg hosts a reliable digitized edition.
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Henry David Thoreau — Walden (1854)
Henry David Thoreau · 1854 · Project Gutenberg
The complete book, which includes 18 chapters beyond the “Economy” opening. Project Gutenberg hosts the authoritative text. The “quiet desperation” and “live deliberately” passages come from the opening chapter.
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Henry David Thoreau — Civil Disobedience (1849)
Henry David Thoreau · 1849 · Project Gutenberg
The complete essay (originally titled “Resistance to Civil Government”). Your worksheet now includes essentially the full text. Project Gutenberg’s edition is the standard reference version.
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Harriet Robinson — Loom and Spindle: Life Among the Early Mill Girls (1898)
Harriet Robinson · 1898 · Project Gutenberg
Robinson’s complete memoir of her years in the Lowell mills, written decades after the fact. The worksheet excerpts come from this longer work. Project Gutenberg hosts a digitized edition of the full text.
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Chapter 06 · Slavery, Abolition & the Coming of War (1831–1860)
John L. O’Sullivan — “Annexation” / Manifest Destiny (1845)
John L. O’Sullivan · 1845 · Library of Congress / Making of America
O’Sullivan’s original essay coining “manifest destiny,” published in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. The Library of Congress has digitized the original periodical. The phrase “manifest destiny” actually appears in the 1845 Texas annexation essay, not the 1839 one.
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James K. Polk — War Message to Congress (1846)
James K. Polk · 1846 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete war message. Your worksheet excerpt covers the main justification; the full text provides a more detailed account of the diplomatic history leading up to the war.
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William Lloyd Garrison — “To the Public” / First Liberator Editorial (1831)
William Lloyd Garrison · 1831 · Documenting the American South, UNC
Documenting the American South (University of North Carolina) hosts Garrison’s complete opening editorial from The Liberator, January 1, 1831. A reliable academic archive for abolitionist primary sources.
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Frederick Douglass — “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (1852)
Frederick Douglass · 1852 · Library of Congress
The Library of Congress hosts the complete text of Douglass’s speech. Your worksheet includes the key passages; the full speech is much longer and includes a detailed defense of the Constitution as an anti-slavery document.
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Sojourner Truth — “Ain’t I a Woman?” (1851)
Sojourner Truth · 1851 · National Park Service
The National Park Service Women’s Rights National Historical Park hosts the complete text with historical context. Note that the version most commonly reprinted (by Frances Gage, 1863) differs from the original account by Marius Robinson published in 1851.
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton — Declaration of Sentiments (1848)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton · 1848 · National Archives
The National Archives hosts the complete Declaration of Sentiments alongside a high-resolution scan of the original document. The full text includes all the resolutions passed at Seneca Falls, not just the preamble.
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David Wilmot — The Wilmot Proviso (1846)
David Wilmot · 1846 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete text of the Proviso as proposed in Congress, plus the Congressional debate record. A short document; the worksheet essentially includes the full text of the Proviso itself.
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Charles Sumner — “The Crime Against Kansas” (1856)
Charles Sumner · 1856 · Internet Archive
The complete two-day Senate speech, which runs to over 100 pages in print. The worksheet excerpt covers the opening passages. The Internet Archive hosts the original printed pamphlet edition.
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Chapter 07 · Civil War & Reconstruction (1858–1868)
Abraham Lincoln — “House Divided” Speech (1858)
Abraham Lincoln · 1858 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete speech as delivered at the Illinois Republican State Convention. Your worksheet now includes the full text; this link provides the authoritative Avalon edition for citation purposes.
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Abraham Lincoln — Gettysburg Address (1863)
Abraham Lincoln · 1863 · Library of Congress
The Library of Congress hosts high-resolution scans of all five known manuscript versions of the Gettysburg Address, with the full text of each. Comparing the versions reveals Lincoln’s revisions, including the addition of “under God.”
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Abraham Lincoln — Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
Abraham Lincoln · 1863 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete Proclamation as signed. Your worksheet now includes the full text; this link provides the Avalon edition for citation. The National Archives also holds the original signed document.
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Abraham Lincoln — Second Inaugural Address (1865)
Abraham Lincoln · 1865 · Avalon Project, Yale Law School
The complete address. Your worksheet now includes the full text; this link provides the authoritative Avalon edition. The Library of Congress also holds Lincoln’s handwritten manuscript of the address.
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Thaddeus Stevens — Speech on Reconstruction (1865)
Thaddeus Stevens · 1865 · Internet Archive
Stevens’s complete speech in the House of Representatives, September 6, 1865, arguing for Congressional control of Reconstruction and land redistribution. The Internet Archive hosts the original printed pamphlet.
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton — “Manhood Suffrage” (1868)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton · 1868 · Internet Archive / The Revolution
The speech was published in The Revolution, the women’s rights newspaper Stanton co-founded. The Internet Archive holds digitized issues. This is one of the more difficult documents to find online; the Archive is the best available public source.
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Primary Source Links

Each document below links to the full original text at an authoritative online source. The Yale Avalon Project and the Library of Congress are the two most reliable free repositories for American historical primary sources. Founders Online (founders.archives.gov) is a National Archives project with the complete writings of the Founding era founders. All three are scholarly, peer-reviewed, and free.