Please note that some of the links referenced in this work are no longer active.
One of the most exciting parts about researching American Treasures was the opportunity to examine a vast and rich array of primary and secondary sources that, for all intents and purposes, provide the connective tissue for virtually the entire time line of American history.
The theme that continued to emerge throughout my research was that America’s precious documents are so intrinsic to, and interwoven with, the nation’s identity and consciousness that their history helps illuminate the country’s priorities, struggles, and successes; in so many ways, the documents themselves define the American journey. Because of their impact upon the nation’s collective experience, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, and many other documents often have been written about and described in reverential and spiritual tones. And such references influence our nomenclature in current times. It is no accident that the exhibit area at the National Archives is referred to as a “shrine” or that historian Pauline Maier’s insightful book about the creation of the Declaration is entitled American Scripture.
As I’ve done in my previous books, below I provide an extensive and wide-ranging list of primary and secondary sources, and for certain ones, I include a brief explanation of how I used them in the narrative and why they were important. I have grouped them into chronological and topical categories for easy reference and understanding, based upon the many favorable comments readers have shared with me about this approach. While the World War II portions of the story appear throughout the braided narrative, I have grouped those sources in chronological order; thus they appear later in this bibliographic essay. I’m also pleased to note that in some cases—particularly the narrative about World War II and the relocation of documents from Washington, D.C., and in the transfer of the Charters of Freedom from the Library of Congress to the National Archives—many sources have either never, or rarely, been used before.
Of course, the ultimate primary-source documents, which I read multiple times during the research, were the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution (including the Bill of Rights), and the Gettysburg Address. The texts are worth reading and rereading for the simplicity of their language and the power of their ideas.
A final note: when an author writes about the grand sweep of American history, a certain level of selectivity needs to occur when amassing sources, particularly secondary sources. There is no way to read or refer to all of the great books written about the various momentous time periods described in this book—for example, the revolutionary and constitutional eras, the War of 1812, Lincoln and the Civil War, and World War II. The books and articles I list below are but a fraction of the thousands written, but in my view, they are among the best and most important, and they provided me with invaluable material for this work.
1776: The Creation of the Declaration of Independence
Primary Sources
Some of the most important sources from this time period are available digitally, and I referenced them often. The Journals of the Continental Congress, held by the Library of Congress (LC), is the best example, accessed at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwjc.html. The journals incorporate the proceedings of the First Continental Congress (which met from September 5 to October 26, 1774) and the Second Continental Congress (which ran from May 10, 1775 to March 2, 1789). The journals are the records of the daily proceedings of the Congress, kept by the office of its secretary, Charles Thomson. They were printed contemporaneously in different editions and in several subsequent reprint editions (the LC published the complete edition from 1904 to 1937 under the title Journals of the Continental Congress 1774–1789, and subtitled Edited from the Original Records in the Library of Congress by Gaillard Hunt, Chief, Division of Manuscripts).
It is important to note that these editions did not include the “secret journals,” or confidential records of the Congress, which were not published until 1821. Those journals, in multiple volumes, are entitled Secret Journals of the Acts and Proceedings of Congress and subtitled From the First Meeting Thereof to the Dissolution of the Confederation, by the Adoption of the Constitution of the United States. They carry the notation “Published under the direction of the President of the United States, conformably to Resolution of Congress of March 27, 1812, and April 21, 1820” (Boston: Printed and Published by Thomas B. Wait, 1821), and are available in e-book form at https://archive.org/details/secretjournalsof03unit.
Needless to say, these records were indispensable to telling the story of the creation of the Declaration of Independence, but because the official records were so sparse, I needed much more to round out the narrative. Among the most critical sources were:
• Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, edited by Edmund C. Burnett (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1921), a priceless collection of letters to and from Philadelphia in which delegates share so much of their thinking with colleagues and friends in the days and weeks leading up to July 1–4, 1776, and then express their views on their accomplishments after the Declaration was adopted.
• The Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, compiled and produced by the Massachusetts Historical Society, a treasure trove that I accessed frequently at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive. This amazing collection includes correspondence between John and Abigail Adams, the diary of John Adams, and the autobiography of John Adams. If you’re so inclined to visit, allow yourself ample time: it is easy to get lost in these records.
• The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, compiled by Princeton University (https://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu) and also as part of the Avalon Project at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subjectmenus/jeffpap.asp). I also made extensive use of Thomas Jefferson’s Writings, edited by Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Library of America, 1984), which includes the Declaration author’s autobiography, numerous public papers, addresses, messages, letters, his “A Summary View of the Rights of British America” and “Notes of the State of Virginia,” and other miscellaneous writings.
• The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, sponsored by the American Philosophical Society and Yale University, with the magnificent digital edition prepared by the Packard Humanities Institute. I accessed it frequently at http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/. The collection allows you to browse by date, name, and subject matter, and its ease of use almost guarantees that you will spend hours each time you visit.
• The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, Volume 1, 1762–1778, collected and edited by James Curtis Ballagh at Johns Hopkins University (New York: Macmillan Company, 1911), had some valuable insights into the man who offered the resolution for American independence.
• Letters to and from Caesar Rodney, 1756–1784, edited by George Herbert Ryden at the University of Delaware for the Historical Society of Delaware (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1933), provides an in-depth look into the Delaware delegate who made the overnight ride from Dover to Philadelphia in time to cast the vote for independence on July 2, 1776. The letters also offer insights into Rodney’s physical maladies, which affected him for much of his life, including his disfiguring facial cancer. His letters to his brother, Thomas, are particularly revealing and poignant. I gleaned additional material on Rodney and his ride from the booklet published in accompaniment with the unveiling of his statue in Dover on October 30, 1889, entitled: Proceedings of the Unveiling of the Monument to Caesar Rodney and the Oration Delivered on the Occasion by Thomas F. Bayard at Dover Delaware (Wilmington: Delaware Printing Company, 1889).
• Founders Online: Correspondence and Other Writings of Six Major Shapers of the United States (accessed frequently at http://founders.archives.gov/) includes an extensive and valuable collection of papers from, to, and about John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and Alexander Hamilton (and even includes a couple of entries from John Quincy Adams’s diary). The collection boasts more than 167,000 searchable documents and shows the value of online records when used properly.
• John Adams’s recollections of the creation of the Declaration of Independence years after the fact are recounted by Timothy Pickering during an Independence Day oration in Salem, Massachusetts, on July 4, 1823; the text of Pickering’s remarks is contained in Colonel Pickering’s Observations, Introductory to Reading the Declaration of Independence, at Salem, July 4, 1823 (Salem, MA: Warwick Palfray, 1823).
Other primary sources for this period included:
• Life in Early Philadelphia: Documents from the Revolutionary and Early National Periods, edited by Billy G. Smith (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1995), a collection of primary-source documents that provides a window into Philadelphia during this era. I used several of these to paint the picture of the city in the book’s Declaration and Constitution sections.
• The John Dunlap Broadside: The First Printing of the Declaration of Independence, by Frederick R. Goff (Washington: Library of Congress, 1976), a study of the first printing of the nation’s founding document. Goff was engaged by the Library of Congress to examine as many of the surviving copies as he could assemble in the library during May 1975. Of the twenty-one surviving copies, seventeen were brought together at that time from all over the United States, the first time so many had been gathered at one place. Goff offers a detailed explanation of his examination—including his methodology—and his findings, and includes photographs of each copy.
• Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution, 1764–1788, and the Formation of the Federal Constitution, 2nd ed., selected and edited by Samuel Eliot Morrison (Harvard: 1929), which contains a valuable introduction by the great historian and approximately seventy-five documents from the era.
• On June 30, 2000, Strom Thurmond, the senator from South Carolina (now deceased) read into the Congressional Record an oration entitled, “Remembering the Sacrifices Made for Freedom.” As the nation approached the Fourth of July, Senator Thurmond urged Americans to remember the sacrifices the Declaration signers made in 1776. He asked “unanimous consent” (and received it) to have printed in the record an article by historian T. R. Fehrenbach entitled “What Happened to the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence?” I list it in the Primary Source section because of its inclusion in the Congressional Record. Fehrenbach published a book in 1968 (updated in 2000) entitled: Greatness to Spare: The Heroic Sacrifices of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence.
• Last, but certainly not least, some scholars may quibble with including this volume under primary sources, but I would strenuously argue otherwise. John H. Hazelton’s The Declaration of Independence: Its History (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1906) is a book that includes observations from its author, but its greatest value is the prodigious amount of work Hazelton did in amassing a compilation of primary-source documents from many different quarters on all aspects of the Declaration: the debates, the drafting, the signing, and the impact of the document afterward. This volume is filled with letters, diary entries, official journal records, quotes, and other primary documents. It is impossible to consider writing about the Declaration of Independence without consulting Hazelton’s book. Through his labors, Hazelton saved so many other researchers enormous amounts of time, and for this reason, I include his work among my primary sources.
Secondary Sources
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
Both the Library of Congress and the National Archives have sponsored numerous articles and booklets about the Declaration of Independence. Among those I found most helpful was a booklet produced as part of the Milestone Documents in the National Archives series entitled The Declaration of Independence: A History (Washington: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), an excellent summary of the Declaration’s creation and travels. I also examined Stephen E. Lucas’s “The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence” (www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_style.html, accessed December 20, 2012); and “Travels of the Declaration of Independence: A Time Line” (www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/treasure/declaration_travels.html). From the Library of Congress perspective, I found valuable John Y. Cole’s “The Library and the Declaration: LC Has Long History with Founding Document,” published in the Library of Congress Information Bulletin in August 1997.
Declaration scholar Julian P. Boyd puts forth an interesting theory of a “lost” version of the famous document in his article “The Declaration of Independence: The Mystery of the Lost Original,” published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, October 1976. I found the seventeen-page piece most helpful for its excellent background on the Declaration’s creation and the quotes from founders. I also found intriguing the following: Mellen Chamberlain’s paper for the November 1884 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society entitled “The Authentication of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776,” which was published in 1885 (Cambridge: John Wilson and Son); William F. Dana’s “The Declaration of Independence,” published in the Harvard Law Review in January 1900 (vol. 13, no. 5); and Heather A. Phillips’s “Safety and Happiness: The Paradox of the Declaration of Independence,” published online by Archiving Early America at www.earlyamerica.com/review/2007summerfall/preserving-documents.html. The article, which I accessed several times, discusses the back-and-forth struggle by Americans to preserve the Declaration on the one hand and display it for all to see on the other.
For an excellent discussion on the hardships suffered by the signers of the Declaration of Independence, see William Hogeland’s “Suicide Pact: 56 Men Put their Lives on the Line by Signing the Declaration of Independence,” published in American History magazine in August 2013.
For more on the indefatigable and heroic midnight rider, Caesar Rodney, I was aided by Ann Decker’s graduate thesis at Lehigh University (December 2005) entitled “The Coalition of the Two Brothers: Caesar and Thomas Rodney and the Making of the American Revolution in Delaware,” a fine piece of research and writing.
For an excellent discussion on Declaration engrosser Timothy Matlack, I examined a paper entitled “Col. Timothy Matlack: Patriot and Soldier,” by Dr. A. M. Stackhouse, read before the Gloucester County Historical Society at the Old Tavern House in Haddonfield, New Jersey (read on April 14, 1908, and privately printed in 1910).
For information on Rhode Island’s Stephen Hopkins, including his famous quote, “My hands tremble but my heart does not,” I referred to a booklet published in 1918 by the Merchants National Bank of Providence to commemorate Providence’s centenary entitled Old Providence: A Collection of Facts and Traditions Relating to Various Buildings and Sites of Historic Interest in Providence.
Books
Works by some of America’s finest historians provided me with valuable background and insights into the founders themselves and the process of creating the Declaration of Independence.
As previously mentioned, Pauline Maier’s American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York: Vintage Books, 1997) was indispensable, as was John H. Hazelton’s The Declaration of Independence: Its History (which I included in the Primary Sources section). Others included Carl L. Becker’s The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (New York: Vintage Books edition, 1958), and Julian Boyd’s in-depth analysis, The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945), which contains a foreword by former Librarian of Congress (and Declaration protector) Archibald MacLeish.
I’m also grateful to excellent biographers who brought the founders to life and, I hope, helped me to do so. These include: Walter Isaacson’s colorful Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003); H. W. Brands’s The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Doubleday, 2000); David McCullough’s gripping John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001); and Jon Meacham’s extraordinary Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (New York: Random House, 2012). I also spent time with the first volume of Dumas Malone’s classic six-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson, entitled Jefferson the Virginian (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948).
Other books that provided me with insights and ideas from the founders, and background and analysis about the Declaration itself, included (in alphabetical order by author): Danielle Allen, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (New York: Liveright, 2014); Roberdeau Buchanan, Genealogy of the McKean Family of Pennsylvania (Lancaster, PA: Inquirer Printing Company, 1890); James MacGregor Burns, The Vineyard of Liberty (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982); William P. Frank, Caesar Rodney, Patriot: Delaware’s Hero for All Times and All Seasons (Dover: Delaware American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, 1975); Harry Clinton Green and Mary Wolcott Green, Wives of the Signers: The Women Behind the Declaration of Independence (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 1997); John Fitzpatrick, The Spirit of the Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924); and Jack Kelly, Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America’s Independence (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
I also referred to Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnese, Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2009); A. J. Languth, Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution (New York: Touchstone, 1988); Richard Henry Lee (grandson of the founder), Memoir of the Life of Richard Henry Lee and His Correspondence (Philadelphia: William Brown, 1825); Charlene Mires, Independence Hall in American Memory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002); David MuCullough, 1776 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005); John Sanderson, Robert Waln, and Henry Dilworth Gilpin, Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: R. W. Pomeroy, 1827); Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s History of the United States (New York: Penguin Group, 2004); and Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972).
1787–1791: The Creation of the United States Constitution
Primary Sources
James Madison unquestionably was the lifeblood of the United States Constitution, so it’s best to start with sources that helped me understand the Virginian who fought tirelessly for a strong national government and authored a large number of The Federalist Papers that helped convince states to ratify the new Constitution.
The Library of Congress has amassed a wonderful collection entitled The James Madison Papers, 1723–1836 (www.loc.gov/collections/james-madison-papers/, to which I referred frequently). It contains more than 12,000 items that span Madison’s public life, including letters, personal notes, legal and financial documents, drafts of correspondence and legislation, and an autobiography. Here, researchers can view actual letters, written in a neat, compact hand, from the man who became known as the Father of the Constitution. Of course, the collection includes his notes from the 1787 Constitutional Convention and writings about his pivotal role in the 1788 Virginia ratification convention. Correspondence in the collection includes letters to and from John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Dolley Madison, George Mason, James Monroe, Edmund Randolph, and George Washington. In addition, it contains extensive correspondence between President Madison and his secretary of war, James Armstrong, during the War of 1812.
Other Madison primary sources I referred to included: The Writings of James Madison, edited by Gaillard Hunt (New York: Putnam, 1900–1910); The Papers of James Madison, Purchased by Order of Congress, published under the direction of Henry D. Gilpin by Langree and O’Sullivan in 1840, which includes his reports of debates of the Constitutional Convention, and later republished as Letters and Other Writings of James Madison in Four Volumes (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1867); James Madison’s Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 and Their Relation to a More Perfect Society of Nations, by James Brown Scott, a U.S. delegate to the Second Hague Peace Conference (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918); and Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention, published online by the Avalon Project at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subjectmenus/jeffpap.asp).
As for other sources for the Constitutional Convention, the Yale Avalon Project’s Notes contains valuable information, as do the indispensable The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, revised edition, edited by Max Farrand (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937, reprinted 1966); and the Supplement to Max Farrand’s The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, edited by James H. Hutson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987).
For George Washington’s thoughts and feelings about the Federal Convention and other matters, I consulted frequently The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml.gwhome.html), the largest collection of original Washington documents in the world, with more than 65,000 items (along with so many presidential papers, it was part of the massive relocation effort by the library after the Pearl Harbor attacks). It includes correspondence, letter books, diaries, journals, military records, and other reports accumulated by Washington between 1741 and 1799. I also consulted often The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition from the University of Virginia Press (http://rotunda.upress/virginia.edu/founders/gewn.html), which includes his complete diaries; the University of Virginia’s Papers of George Washington: The Complete Correspondence (http://gwpapers.virginia.edu); and the National Archives’ comprehensive Founders Online series, Correspondence and Other Writings of Six Major Shapers of the United States (http://founders.archives.gov).
For the debates on ratification of the Constitution and the ensuing debates on the Bill of Rights, I consulted the Madison and Hamilton records already cited, and also relied on the following:
• The Federalist (also known as The Federalist Papers), by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, Papers No. 1–85, October 27, 1787–May 28, 1788, arranged, edited, and annotated by Jacob E. Cooke (Limited Edition, The Franklin Library: Franklin Center, Penn., 1977).
• The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, edited by Merrill Jensen, John P. Kaminski, et al. (Madison, WI: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976–). Volume 2 (1976) contains the ratification debate in Pennsylvania; volumes 8–10 (1988, 1990, 1993) contain the crucial debates in Virginia; and a subseries called Commentaries on the Constitution: Public and Private, contain the day-to-day debate about the Constitution that took place on a regional or national level in newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and public and private correspondence from diplomats.
• The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790, edited by Merrill Jensen, Robert A. Becker, and Gordon DenBoer (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976–1989).
• The Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America, edited by Linda Grant DePauw, Charlene Bangs Bickford, Helen E. Veit, and Kenneth R. Bowling (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972–1996).
• The Constitution Society, a private nonprofit organization, offers extensive primary-source documents, including comprehensive debates on the state ratification conventions at www.constitution.org/elliott.htm.), which I consulted frequently.
• The Massachusetts Historical Society offers primary-source documents on the state’s ratification convention in its collection entitled Massachusetts Considers Ratifying the U.S. Constitution (www.masshist.org/features/mass-raitification#TOCanchor1); TeachingAmericanHistory.org also offers ratification primary sources at http://teachingamericanhistory.org/ratification).
• The National Archives offers documents about the Constitution, the Federal Convention, and ratification at www.archives.gov/nationalarchivesexperience/constitution.html.
• I found Massachusetts’s Mercy Otis Warren’s writings opposing the Constitution in Michael P. Johnson’s Reading the American Past: Volume 1: To 1877 (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012).
• Francis Hopkinson provided a thorough first-hand account of the Grand Federal Procession in Philadelphia in 1788; see “An Account of the Grand Federal Procession Performed at Philadelphia on Friday, the 4th of July 1788,” in The Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings of Francis Hopkinson, Esq., vol. 2 (Philadelphia: T. Dobson, 1792), pp. 349–422.
Secondary Sources
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
As they did for the Declaration of Independence, both the Library of Congress and the National Archives have sponsored numerous articles and booklets about the Constitution. Among those I found most helpful were Arthur Plotnik’s “The Odyssey of the Constitution,” in Celebrating the Constitution: A Bicentennial Retrospective, a commemorative issue of Prologue, the quarterly publication of the National Archives edited by Timothy Walch (Washington, D.C.: 1988); the National Archives “A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the U.S. Constitution,” at www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitutionhistory.html, which is based on the introduction, by Roger A. Burns, to A More Perfect Union: The Creation of the United States Constitution, authored by the National Archives and Records Service (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Fund Board, 1978); and Henry Bain’s “Errors in the Constitution—Typographical and Congressional,” published in Prologue 44, no. 2 (2012).
In addition, while the Constitution was at Fort Knox, Library of Congress executives David Mearns and Verner Clapp published a booklet entitled The Constitution of the United States: An Account of Its Travels Since September 17, 1787 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1942); the pair updated the booklet in 1952 and included the text of the Constitution. Both versions end with the “silent ceremony” after the Library of Congress accessed the document in 1924.
Other important articles about the Constitutional Convention that I referenced include: A. E. Dick Howard, “The Constitutional Convention of 1787,” in Historians on America: Decisions That Made a Difference (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs, 2007); Jack N. Rakove, “The Great Compromise: Drafting the American Constitution,” History Today 37 (1987); Christopher Wolfe, “On Understanding the Constitutional Convention of 1787,” Journal of Politics, 39 (1977); Colleen Sheehan, “James Madison: Father of the Constitution,” in the Heritage Foundation’s First Principles: Foundational Concepts to Guide Politics and Policy, No. 8 (April 8, 2013); David Brian Robertson, “Madison’s Opponents and Constitutional Design,” American Political Science Review 46 (1986); and Michael Coenen, “The Significance of Signatures: Why the Framers Signed the Constitution and What They Meant by Doing So,” Yale Law Journal 119, no. 5 (March 2010).
I found immensely helpful the Lehrman Institute’s “The Making of the United States Constitution,” an exemplary sixty-page narrative of the events of the summer of 1787, complete with many primary-source quotes (http://lehrmaninstitute.or/history/constitution.asp, consulted frequently).
For information about the preamble’s author, Gouverneur Morris, I examined Richard Brookhiser, “The Forgotten Founding Father,” City Journal (Spring 2002); John K. Bush, “Gouverneur Morris,” America’s Forgotten Founders, 2nd ed., edited by Gary L. Gregg II and Mark David Hall (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2014); and Scott Bomboy, “The Man Who Wrote the Words ‘We the People,’” written for the National Constitution Center’s blog and posted on January 31, 2014 (http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/01/the-man-who-actually-wrote-the-words-we-the-people/).
Ron Soodalter asks whether George Washington overstepped the bounds of the presidency by asking Americans to give thanks to God for the new Constitution; see “For All the Great and Various Favors,” American History (December 2014).
Books
I believe that any research on the Constitutional Convention would be lacking—certainly mine would have been—without consulting the following three books: Max Farrand, The Framing of the Constitution of the United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1913), an early work that presents an overview of the convention based on primary sources; Catherine Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), the classic narrative study of the events in Philadelphia; and Richard Beeman, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution (New York: Random House, 2009), a wonderful account of the drama, the debates, and the motives of delegates during the Constitutional Convention.
I also found valuable Andrew C. McLaughlin’s The Confederation and the Constitution, 1783–1789 (New York: Crowell-Collier, 1962), and Gerry and Janet Souter’s The Constitution: The Story of the Creation and Adaptation of the Most Important Document in the History of the United States of America (San Diego, CA: Thunder Bay Press, 2013). For interesting anecdotes on all of the delegates, I found helpful Denise Kiernan’s and Joseph D’Agnese’s follow-up work to the Declaration book, this one entitled Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the United States Constitution (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2011).
Books on James Madison’s life that I found valuable were Lynne Cheney’s thorough and excellent biography, James Madison: A Life Reconsidered (New York: Viking, 2014); Ralph Louis Ketcham’s complete James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990); Jack N. Rakove’s readable James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (New York: HarperCollins, 1990); and Robert A. Rutland’s James Madison: The Founding Father (New York: Macmillan, 1987).
Of the hundreds of books written about George Washington (many focusing on his revolutionary military career or his presidency), I found these works most helpful in understanding his role at the Constitutional Convention: Edward J. Larson, The Return of George Washington: 1783–1789 (New York: William Morrow, 2014); Richard Brookhiser, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington (New York: Free Press, 1996); and Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).
For Benjamin Franklin’s role at the convention, I once again consulted the previously cited Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Brands’s The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin.
Books that I consulted on preamble author and Constitution polisher Gouverneur Morris include: Richard Brookhiser, Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris—the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution (New York: Free Press, 2003); William Howard Adams, Gouverneur Morris: An Independent Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); and Melanie Randolph Miller, An Incautious Man: The Life of Gouverneur Morris (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2008).
For information about the Grand Federal Procession on July 4, 1788, I consulted Len Travers’s Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997); and Diana Karter Appelbaum’s The Glorious Fourth: An American Holiday, An American History (New York: Facts of File Books, 1989).
I consulted many fine works about post–Constitutional Convention events, including the state ratification process, the writing of The Federalist, and the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Among the books I found valuable and highly recommend: Pauline Maier’s dramatic Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010); Jay Winik’s sweeping history, The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788–1800 (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), which describes how events in America influenced the French Revolution and Catherine the Great’s Russia; Michael J. Meyerson’s Liberty’s Blueprint: How Madison and Hamilton Wrote the Federalist Papers, Defined the Constitution, and Made Democracy Safe for the World (New York: Perseus Book Group, 2008); and Chris DeRose’s Founding Rivals, Madison vs. Monroe: The Bill of Rights and the Election That Saved a Nation (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2011), a thorough examination of the 1789 election in which Madison and Monroe ran against each other for Congress and how the outcome—Madison’s victory—helped ensure the passage of the Bill of Rights.
In addition, I found two books helpful when researching the all-important Virginia ratification process. These were W. Asbury Christian’s Richmond: Her Past and Present (Richmond, VA: L. H. Jenkins, 1912); and Hugh Blair Grigsby’s sweeping The History of the Virginia Federal Convention of 1788 with Some Account of the Eminent Virginians of That Era Who Were Members of the Body (Richmond, VA: Virginia Historical Society, 1891).
1814: The Burning of Washington
Primary Sources
To tell the remarkable story of the British invasion and near destruction of Washington, D.C., while James Madison was president, I made extensive use of the previously cited The James Madison Papers, 1723–1836 (collected by the Library of Congress) and The Writings of James Madison (edited by Gaillard Hunt). In addition, I consulted many of Dolley Madison’s writings in The Selected Letters of Dolley Payne Madison, edited by David B. Mattern and Holly C. Shulman (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003); Memoirs and Letters of Dolly [sic] Madison, wife of James Madison, President of the United States, edited by her grandniece, Lucia B. Cutts (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1888). Several of Dolley’s writings are also contained within The James Madison Papers, 1723–1836 from the database The Founding Era Collection, “The Dolley Madison Digital Edition, Correspondence and Related Documents, First Lady Years, 4 March 1809–3 March 1817.”
To learn about James Monroe’s efforts to scout British troop movements and protect the country’s founding documents, I relied on The Writings of James Monroe: Including a Collection of His Public and Private Papers and Correspondence Now for the First Time Printed, Volume 5, 1807–1816, edited by Stanislaus Murray Hamilton (New York: Putnam, 1901). In addition, there is Monroe–Madison correspondence in Madison’s papers and in American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States, March 3, 1789–March 3, 1819, Class V, Military Affairs, vol. 1. (Contained in this collection is Monroe’s warning to Madison: “You had better remove the records.”)
Stephen Pleasonton wrote a letter to Brigadier General William Winder on August 7, 1848, describing his role in relocating the Declaration and other vital papers. The letter is found in John C. Hildt’s “Letters Relating from the Capture of Washington,” in South Atlantic Quarterly 6 (1907): 58–65. This collection also contains the anonymous letter to President Madison from a “friend to the United States of America,” warning of the impending attack on Washington, plus several letters from James Monroe to President Madison detailing the movement of British troops in Maryland and around Washington. The Pleasonton-Winder letter is also contained in “How the Declaration Was Saved,” Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 10 (1886): 633–635. Pleasonton also recounted his service to America in a letter to James Buchanan on February 7, 1853. It is contained in the James Buchanan and Harriet Lane Johnston Papers, 1825–1887, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Box 2, Reel 2.
There is a rich collection of letters and documents on the Battle of Bladensburg and the attack on Washington in The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, vol. 3, 1814–1815, Michael J. Crawford, editor (Washington: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy, 2002). In addition, several riveting letters on these topics are contained in “Commodore Joshua Barney’s Official Report of the Battle of Bladensburg,” August 29, 1814, contained in Select Committee Papers and Reports (National Archives, Record Group 233). In addition, the Report on the Removal of Powder from the Navy Yard at the Time of the British Invasion of Washington, 1814 (National Archives RG 45/350) also contains extensive information about the dramatic events taking place in Washington in August 1814.
The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center contains copies of letters related to this period, including the correspondence to Patrick Magruder, clerk of the House of Representatives, from S. Burch and J. T. Frost (September 15, 1814), in which the two clerks provide their account of the difficulties in attempting to obtain carts to save the House records. The letter can be found at www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/more-perfect-union-congress-and-war-1812-part-1/knowledge/war-1812-congress-investigates?page=3#. Senate Clerk Lewis Machen, who along with messenger Tobias Simpson, managed to save a number of Senate records from the burning of Washington, described his efforts in a letter to Senator William C. Rives, written on September 12, 1836, more than twenty years after the fact. His dramatic recollection can be found in its original form at www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/MachenLetter1836.pdf, or in transcript form at www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/letterfrommanchentorives.hm.
I found additional information about the Leesburg farm where Pleasonton relocated the Declaration and the Constitution when the owners of the property applied for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places (U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of History Places, May 20, 1975). In the form, owners Mr. and Mrs. Frank R. Coughlan note: “The interesting cellar vault is believed to be where the papers were hidden.”
Secondary Sources
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
I referred to several excellent contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the events in Washington in August 1814 as recorded in the National Intelligencer. Specifically, I gleaned information from front-page accounts on August 30, August 31, September 7, and September 9 of that year.
White House History, the journal of the White House Historical Association, devotes its entire Fall 1998 issue to “The Burning of the White House During the War of 1812.” The issue contains several articles from historians on all aspects of the British invasion, including an overview of events, Dolley Madison’s efforts to save her husband’s papers, and eyewitness accounts of the burning. I found helpful the account of events by Thomas Fleming in “How Dolley Madison Saved the Day,” Smithsonian Magazine, March 2010. The National Archives also posted an online account entitled “The Burning of Washington,” in anticipation of the 200th anniversary of the British attack (posted on August 18, 2014, at http://blogs.archives.gov/prologue/?p=13456).
American History devoted a large section of its October 2014 issue to the events of August 1814, including the bombardment of Fort McHenry and Francis Scott Key’s writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” These articles included Marc Leepson’s “The Second American Revolution,” Don Hawkins’s “Rare First-Hand View of the Battle of Bladensburg,” and Leepson’s “‘Our Good Frank’s Patriotic Song’: Francis Scott Key, the Battle of Baltimore, and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’” In addition, American History published an excellent account of the meaning of the War of 1812 to Americans in “Oh Say Can you see…? How the War of 1812 Gave Us Something Worth Fighting For” (June 2013).
After Stephen Pleasonton’s career as a State Department clerk, he went on to become the man in charge of America’s lighthouses. His career, including an account of his heroic efforts to save the Declaration and the Constitution, are chronicled by Lighthouse Digest in an online story entitled “The Lighthouse Man Who Saved America’s History,” a story that first appeared in the July 2001 print edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The piece can be found at www.lighthousedigest.com/digest/StoryPage.cfm?StoryKey=1056.
As part of Maryland’s bicentennial commemoration of the War of 1812, the Maryland State Highway Administration’s archaeologists partnered with state, county, and federal agencies to locate, survey, and excavate War of 1812 battlefields, encampments, routes, etc. The War of 1812 Archaeology website posted an account on November 22, 2013, of Dolley Madison’s route after she fled the White House entitled “Dolley’s Difficult Run.” It can be found at http://warof1812archaeology.blogspot.com/2013/11/dolleys-difficult-run.html.
Books
In addition to previously cited biographies of James Madison, I found the following helpful for Dolley Madison’s efforts during this perilous time: Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation (New York: Henry Holt, 2007); Richard N. Cote, Strength and Honor: The Life of Dolley Madison (Mt. Pleasant, SC: Corinthian Books, 2004); and Hugh Howard, Mr. and Mrs. Madison’s War: American’s First Couple and the Second War of Independence (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2012).
For an overview of the destruction of Washington, I relied heavily on Anthony S. Pitch’s dramatic The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998); and A. J. Langguth’s excellent Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).
Other books that I consulted include: Carole Herrick, August 24, 1814: Washington in Flames (Falls Church, VA: Higher Education Publishing, 2005); Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990); Walter Lord, The Dawn’s Early Light (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972); and Steve Vogel’s gripping Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks That Saved the Nation (New York: Random House, 2013).
1826–1860: America’s Golden Jubilee and Years Following
Primary Sources
For a comprehensive look at John Quincy Adams, and to help me construct the scenes in which he was prominent, I consulted several sources. These included:
• The Massachusetts Historical Society’s The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection, which contains fifty-one volumes of Adams’s diaries, part of the Adams Family Papers. Adams began keeping his diary at the age of twelve (1779) and continued until shortly before his death in 1848. I looked specifically at volumes 30 to 37 (covering the years 1816 to 1828).
• The Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, vol. 7, edited by Charles Francis Adams (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1875).
• The Writings of John Quincy Adams, vols. 6–7, edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: Macmillan, 1913–1917).
• John Quincy Adams’s famous July 4, 1821, oration to Congress (“She goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy”) while he was secretary of state is found in many locations online; I relied on the official printed version entitled “An Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821 upon the Occasion of Reading the Declaration of Independence by John Quincy Adams” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1821).
The letters from the fiveb renowned Americans declining Roger C. Weightman’s invitation to the July 4, 1826, jubilee—including the last letter written by Thomas Jefferson—can be found in Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, D.C., vol. 22, edited by John B. Larner (Washington, D.C.: Columbia Historical Society, 1919).
A source rich in content and style was John A. Shaw’s Eulogy of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Delivered August 2, 1826, by the Request of the Inhabitants of Bridgewater (Taunton, MA: Samuel W. Mortimer, 1826). The lengthy oration—twenty manuscript pages—occurred on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration’s signing.
Secondary Sources
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
For the best and most thorough periodical account of America’s fiftieth-year celebration, please see L. H. Butterfield, “The Jubilee of Independence, July 4, 1826,” in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 61, no. 2 (April 1953): 119–140. Butterfield was the director of the Institute of Early American History and Culture at Williamsburg, and the article was originally delivered as the annual address to the Virginia Historical Society at its meeting on January 19, 1953. Butterfield cites numerous 1826 newspaper accounts in his article.
In addition to the many sources already cited on the history of the Declaration—the original and its derivatives—I also found helpful Catherine Nicholson’s “The Stone Engraving: Icon of the Declaration,” in Prologue 35, no. 3 (Fall 2003), accessible at www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2003/fall/stone-engraving.html.
For an analysis of John Quincy Adams’s 1821 “monsters to destroy” speech and how it pertains to our foreign policy today, see Charles Edel, “John Quincy Adams and American Foreign Policy in a Revolutionary Era,” E-Notes, published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, February 2013, and accessible at www.fpri.org/articles/2013/02/john-quincy-adams-and-american-foreign-policy-revolutionary-era.
The Secretary of State Office of the Historian publishes biographies of all secretaries, including Timothy Pickering. I consulted the Pickering biographical sketch for background at https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/pickering-timothy.
The National Intelligencer published several stories on Dolley Madison’s funeral in July 1849. I examined these as part of the Dolley Madison Project at the University of Virginia, accessible at www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/madison/.
Books
In addition to several books already cited, I found the following volumes helpful for this section: Fred Kaplan’s John Quincy Adams: American Visionary (New York: HarperCollins, 2014); Andrew Burstein’s compelling America’s Jubilee: How in 1826 a Generation Remembered Fifty Years of Independence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001); and—for an outstanding and thorough history of America during this period—Daniel Walker Howe’s What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
1860–1924: Creating the Gettysburg Address, America’s Centennial, The Documents Move to the Library of Congress
Primary Sources
Again, thanks to the wonders of technology, the Library of Congress has digitized the Abraham Lincoln Papers, a superb collection consisting of some 20,000 documents and available at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html. The collection is organized into three “general correspondence” series that include incoming and outgoing correspondence and enclosures, drafts of speeches, notes, and other printed material—it is a true research treasure. Included in this collection are the Nicolay and Hay copies of the Gettysburg Address; Edwin M. Stanton’s letter to Lincoln about arrangements for the trip to Gettysburg; Edward Everett’s letter to Lincoln complimenting the president for his words at Gettysburg; and several pieces of correspondence related to interested parties seeking copies of Lincoln’s address in late 1863 and 1864. I accessed this collection frequently.
There are also a number of primary-source documents at the Cornell University online project The Lincoln Presidency: Last Full Measure of Devotion, available at http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/lincoln/index.html. And, Cornell’s outstanding Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection (accessible at http://digital.library.cornell.edu/m/mayantislavery/), also contains numerous documents related to Gettysburg. For example, Edward Everett’s lengthy keynote speech, entitled “An Oration Delivered on the Battlefield of Gettysburg (November 19, 1863) at the Consecration of the Cemetery,” is available in its entirety.
In addition, I made use of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler et al. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953)—the first major scholarly effort to collect and publish the complete writings of the sixteenth president—and made available in electronic form through the efforts of The Abraham Lincoln Association in Springfield, Illinois, at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/.
I also found helpful Abraham Lincoln’s Speeches and Writings, 1859–1865, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher (New York: Library of America, 1989), a collection of Lincoln’s speeches, letters, presidential messages, proclamations, and miscellaneous writings.
Lincoln’s secretary, John G. Nicolay, offered his thorough first-hand account of the events of November 1863 more than thirty years after the fact in “Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,” published in a popular quarterly, The Century 47, no. 4 (February 1894).
An interesting collection of primary documents is contained in Lincoln As I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes & Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies, edited by Harold Holzer (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1999).
A collection of primary sources and letters on the 1876 Centennial Exhibition can be found in James Dabney McCabe’s The Illustrated History of the Centennial Exhibition Held in Commemoration of the One-Hundredth Anniversary of American Independence (Philadelphia: National Publishing Company, 1876). The title page description foretells much of the contents of the collection, including “With a full description of the great buildings and all the objects of interest exhibited in them,” “biographies of the leading members of the Centennial Commission,” a “complete description of the City of Philadelphia,” and “embellished with over 300 fine engravings of buildings and scenes of the Great Exhibition.” I also found helpful the Visitor’s Guide to the Centennial Exhibition and Philadelphia, May 10th to November 10th, 1876 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1876), authorized by the Centennial Board of Finance, and billed as “The Only Guide-Book Sold on the Exhibition Grounds.”
I developed the narrative about the controversy surrounding the “missing” Gettysburg Address and subsequent donations to the Library of Congress through several different primary sources, including: “Some Correspondence Regarding a Missing Copy of the Gettysburg Address,” in Lincoln Lore, part 1, no. 1437 (November 1957); the John Hay Papers, the John G. Nicolay Papers, and the Ainsworth Rand Spofford Papers at the Library of Congress; and the Library of Congress collection entitled Lincoln, Abraham—Gettysburg Address, 1909–1923, Administrative Case File, Manuscript Division. In addition, the Library of Congress Annual Report of 1916 offers a brief overview of the Gettysburg Address donation.
There are numerous secondary accounts of the “silent ceremony,” when the Declaration and Constitution were placed into the Library of Congress shrine in 1924; the primary sources I consulted included the Herbert Putnam Papers, 1783–1958 in the Library of Congress and Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1924 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1924).
Secondary Sources
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
For two good articles about Abraham Lincoln’s reverence for the founding fathers and the founding documents, I referenced the Lehrman Institute’s online site Mr. Lincoln and the Founders for the following pieces: Lewis Lehrman’s “Mr. Lincoln and the Declaration,” available at www.mrlincolnandthefounders.org/inside.asp?ID=1&subjectID=1; and Richard Behn’s “Mr. Lincoln’s Commitment to the Founders,” available at www.mrlincolnandthefounders.org/inside.asp?ID=3&subjectID=2.
For a fine analysis of the scene at Gettysburg and the impact of Lincoln’s words, see Glenn LaFantasie, “Lincoln and the Gettysburg Awakening” in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 16, no. 1 (Winter 1995): 73–89. A short but effective recap of the Gettysburg Address can be found at EyeWitnesstoHistory.com entitled “Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,” a 2005 article available at www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pfgtsburgaddress.htm.
Walter Nugent wrote a strong and helpful analysis on the Centennial of 1876 in “The American People and the Centennial of 1876” for the Indiana Magazine of History 75, no. 1 (1979): 53–69. I also found helpful Dennis T. Lawson’s “Centennial Exhibition of 1876,” in Historic Pennsylvania Leaflet No. 30 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1969). The New York Times reprinted a Harper’s Weekly cartoon from May 20, 1876, and included an analysis of the Centennial in its On This Day online series entitled “Columbia Welcoming the Nations,” found at www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/0520.html.
The most thorough secondary treatment of the “missing” Gettysburg Address is Martin P. Johnson’s “Who Stole the Gettysburg Address?” in the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 24, no. 2 (2003) (Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois). In addition, David Mearns, former chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress, wrote about the subject at “Unknown at This Address,” in Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address: Commemorative Papers, edited by Allen Nevins (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964).
The Washington Post ran a short story when the Gettysburg Address was donated to the Library of Congress on April 16, 1916, entitled “Give Lincoln Manuscripts: C. L. Hay and Miss Nicolay Present Documents to Government.”
The “silent ceremony” that took place in 1924 when the Declaration and the Constitution were moved to the Library of Congress is recounted in numerous sources already cited, and also in “The Library and the Declaration: LC Has Long History with Founding Document,” in the Library of Congress Information Bulletin, August 1997.
Books
It is often said that only Jesus, Shakespeare, and John F. Kennedy have had more written about them than Abraham Lincoln. Each generation, hundreds of books are written about the Great Emancipator. I relied on but a fraction, but I consider them among the best.
I found Richard Brookhiser’s Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Basic Books, 2014) invaluable in analyzing how the founders influenced Lincoln and why Lincoln revered the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Among the best general biographies on Lincoln that I consulted are David Herbert Donald’s masterful Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995); Benjamin P. Thomas’s Abraham Lincoln (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1952); and Phillip Shaw Paludan’s The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994).
For fine accounts of Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address, I recommend Garry Willis’s Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992); and Martin P. Johnson’s Writing the Gettysburg Address (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2013). For recountings of the battle itself, I consulted Stephen W. Sears’s Gettysburg (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003); and James McPherson’s classic Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
I found helpful Joshua Zeitz’s Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), a thorough and lively look into Lincoln’s official secretaries, who enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of his immediate family. They took seriously their role as the gatekeepers of Lincoln’s legacy.
For a colorful account on the Centennial of 1876, see the Library of Universal History: Containing a Record of the Human Race from the Earliest Historical Period to the Present Time by Israel Smith Clare and Moses Coit Tyler (New York: R. S. Peale and J. A. Hill, 1897). The piece appears in the section entitled “Recent History of the United States.”
Good information about the Gettysburg Address donations to the Library of Congress appears in David C. Mearns, The Lincoln Papers: The Story of the Collection with Selections to July 4, 1861, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1948).
For a recount of the “silent ceremony” and the Library of Congress itself, I consulted Lucy Salamanca’s Fortress of Freedom: The Story of the Library of Congress (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1942). Salamanca was head of the Inquiry and General Research Section of the Legislative Reference Service at the Library of Congress.
For a good general account of the time period covered in this section, I consulted Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People (New York: Harper Collins, 1997). I also consulted this volume for other sections of American Treasures.
1939–1945, World War II: To Fort Knox and Elsewhere
Primary Sources
The primary-source material about the Library of Congress’s relocation of the Charters of Freedom to Fort Knox, and thousands of other documents to inland repositories, is voluminous, but before this book, virtually untapped. I was grateful to make use of sources that only a handful of other historians and researchers have even perused.
First, a number of letters, photos of the evacuation, lists of collections to be evacuated, and reports from Library of Congress division heads were included in the Library of Congress Archives, Central Files Series, Boxes 342, 731, 733, 734, 735, 736, and 737, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division; from the American Council of Learned Society Records (ACLS Records) General Office File Series, 1919–1951, Boxes D10, D11, D12; and from The Archibald MacLeish Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C., including: “Correspondence 1907–1981,” Boxes 6, 11, 16, and 19; and “Additions, 1926–1981,” Box 58 Notebooks, 1933–1955 (eight volumes).
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) also contains numerous documents on the relocation of the Charters of Freedom, the protection of documents, and related events in Record Group 64, Records of the National Archives and Records Administration; Record Group 87 and The Records of the Secret Service; Record Group 187, Records of the National Resources Planning Board. Fort Knox material is included in NARA Record Group 319, Records of the Army Staff, and Record Group 87, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office.
The U.S. Secret Service provided me with biographies and other documents on the agents involved in the transfer and a collection of primary sources—mainly from the Library of Congress and National Archives—on the transfer of documents to Fort Knox.
In addition, more information about the document transfers and the work of the Library of Congress during wartime can be found in the U.S. Library of Congress: Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the years 1940–1946 (Washington, D.C., Library of Congress in all cases).
For excellent primary-source information on the protection of records see The Protection of Cultural Resources Against the Hazards of War: A Preliminary Handbook, published by the National Resources Planning Board, Committee on Conservation of Cultural Resources (Washington: National Resources Planning Board, 1942); and The Care of Records in a National Emergency, a bulletin of the National Archives, no. 3., December 1941.
In addition, Archibald MacLeish spoke and wrote extensively about the mission of libraries to protect records and act as wartime stewards of records and information. Among the best sources were (all by MacLeish): “The Library of Congress Protects Its Collections,” in the American Library Association Bulletin 36, no. 2, part 1 (February 1942); “Libraries in the Contemporary Crisis,” an address delivered at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Founders’ Day, October 19, 1939 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1939); and “The Librarian and the Democratic Process,” a paper delivered on May 31, 1940, at the American Library Association’s general session in Cincinnati, Ohio. MacLeish also wrote about these topics in several book collections of essays and papers, including: A Time to Speak: The Selected Prose of Archibald MacLeish (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941); A Time to Act: Selected Addresses of Archibald MacLeish (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943); Champion of a Cause: Essays and Addresses on Librarianship by Archibald MacLeish, compiled by Eva M. Goldschmidt (Chicago: American Library Association, 1971); and Archibald MacLeish: Reflections, edited by Bernard A. Drabek and Helen E. Ellis (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986). Several letters that offered insight into MacLeish’s character were included in Letters of Archibald MacLeish, 1907 to 1982, edited by R. H. Winnick (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983).
While he was chief assistant librarian of the Library of Congress, Luther H. Evans wrote a script for broadcast called “The Library of Congress Goes to War,” broadcast on April 29, 1942, and found at http://memory.loc.gov/service/mss/mff/003/003023/0001.gif; and an essay called “The Library of Congress and the War” on May 30, 1942, found at http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage.
The family of Harry E. Neal generously provided me with a number of his private documents and correspondence, including correspondence with MacLeish, photos, and a lengthy unpublished autobiography (and accompanying notes) that Neal entitled A Lucky Life.
For information about the Library of Congress taking possession of the Magna Carta, I was grateful to consult Magna Carta: The Lincoln Cathedral Copy Exhibited in the Library of Congress, Some Notes Prepared by David C. Mearns and Verner W. Clapp (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1939); and Archibald MacLeish’s remarks on November 28, 1939, entitled “Deposit of the Magna Carta in the Library of Congress,” and accessed at http://memory.loc.gov/service/mss/mff/003/003004/0001.gif.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s December 8, 1941, “date of infamy” speech is found in many locations. For a look at FDR’s handwritten transcript, go to www.archives.gov/education/lessons/day-of-infamy/. For Winston Churchill’s address to Congress on December 26, 1941, I accessed www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1941/411226a.html. In addition, Churchill’s own magnificent history, The Second World War, provided me with his thoughts, both on Pearl Harbor in The Grand Alliance, vol. 3 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), and on German attacks on London in Their Finest Hour, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1949).
The National Archives provided me with copies of the Jefferson Memorial dedication program, entitled “Program of Exercises Attending the Declaration of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, The Tidal Basin, West Potomac Park, Washington, Tuesday, April 13, 1943.” FDR’s dedication speech can be found at www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16383.
For an interesting first-hand account of World War II in Washington, D.C., I consulted Wartime Washington: The Secret OSS Journal of James Grafton Rogers, 1942–1943, edited by Thomas Troy (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1987).
Secondary Sources
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
I referenced many articles related to Archibald MacLeish’s selection as Librarian of Congress and his philosophy once he assumed the job. Many of these cited primary sources in their footnotes and endnotes, which augmented my own use of primary sources. In alphabetical order by author, these included: David Barber, “Archibald MacLeish’s Life and Career,” American National Biography, edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Nancy L. Benco, “Archibald MacLeish: The Poet Librarian,” Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 33, no. 3 (July 1976); Peter Buitenhuis, “Prelude to War: The Interventionist Propaganda of Archibald MacLeish, Robert E. Sherwood, and John Steinbeck,” Canadian Review of American Studies 26, no. 1 (Winter 1996); Eva Goldschmidt, “Archibald MacLeish: Librarian of Congress,” College & Research Libraries (January 1969); Betty Schwartz, “The Role of the American Library Association in the Selection of Archibald MacLeish as Librarian of Congress,” Journal of Library History (1974–1987) 9, no. 3 (July 1974); Eleanor M. Sickels, “Archibald MacLeish and American Democracy,” American Literature 15, no. 3 (November 1943); Frederick J. Stielow, “Librarian Warriors and Rapprochement: Carl Milam, Archibald MacLeish, and World War II,” Libraries and Culture 25, no. 4 (Fall 1990); Dennis Thomison “FDR, the ALA, and Mr. MacLeish: The Selection of the Librarian of Congress, 1939,” Library Quarterly 42, no. 4 (October 1972); and Sydney Weinberg, “What to Tell America: The Writers’ Quarrel in the Office of War Information,” Journal of American History. 55, no. 1 (June 1968).
I consulted numerous articles on the wartime atmosphere in Washington, D.C., both before and after Pearl Harbor. In alphabetical order by author, these included: Jane Aikin, “Preparing for a National Emergency: The Committee on Cultural Resources, 1939–1944,” Library Quarterly 77, no. 3 (July 2007); John Y. Cole, “The Library of Congress and the Democratic Spirit,” Libraries & Democracy: The Cornerstones of Liberty, edited by Nancy Kranich (Chicago: American Library Association, 2001); Douglas Cox, “National Archives and International Conflicts: The Society of American Archivists and War,” American Archivist 74 (Fall–Winter 2011); Anne Bruner Eales, “Fort Archives: The National Archives Goes to War,” Prologue 35, no. 2 (Summer 2003); Jerrold Orne, “The Library of Congress Prepares for Emergencies,” ALA Bulletin 35, no. 6 (June 1941); Kathy Peiss, “Cultural Policy in the Time of War: The American Response to Endangered Books in World War II,” Library Trends 55, no. 3 (Winter 2007); and Brett Spenser, “Preparing for an Air Attack: Libraries and American Air Raid Defense During World War II,” Libraries & the Cultural Record 43, no. 2 (2008).
For background and illustrative purposes, I consulted several articles on the universities to which the Library of Congress transferred documents after the Pearl Harbor attacks. These included Melissa Cragin’s article on Foster Mohrhardt, who served as the librarian at Washington and Lee University for eight years, beginning in 1938. It is entitled “Foster Mohrhardt: Connecting the Traditional World of Libraries and the Emerging World of Information Science,” Library Trends 52, no. 4 (Spring 2004). In addition, I found helpful a paper by Geoffrey Corey Harmon, “A Brief History of the Washington and Lee University Library, 1938–2003” (master’s thesis, School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009). The Denison University website contains a story by Ginger Moore entitled “Documents Stored Here Returned to Washington,” available at www.denison.edu/library/research/documentsstoredherereturnedt.html. The piece cites as its source the Denisonian, November 10, 1944. For the University of Virginia perspective, I consulted Jennings L. Wagoner and Robert L. Baxter Jr., “Higher Education Goes to War: The University of Virginia’s Response to World War II,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 100, no. 3 (July 1992): 399–428. In addition, I found helpful Lawrence Thompson’s more contemporaneous account, entitled “The Role of the University Library in the War Effort, with Special Reference to the Midwest,” College and Research Libraries (December 1942): 11–16.
For information on the Magna Carta held in the United States for safekeeping, I consulted Carl. L. Meyer, “Magna Carta in America,” American Bar Association Journal 26, no. 1 (January 1940); and John Pullinger and Robert R. Newlen, “Parliamentary Libraries Celebrate the 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta,” a paper submitted for the World Library and Information Congress Assembly in Helsinki in 2012.
Robert Penn Warren, who served as editor of the Library of Congress Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, told for the first time the story of the transfer of the Charters of Freedom to Fort Knox in an illustrated feature story in the November 1944 issue of the publication. The Chicago Tribune ran several stories in early 1937 on the relocation of gold bullion to the Fort Knox depository, including: “U.S. Armored Trains Preparing to Move Four Billions [sic] in Gold” (January 11, 1937); “Move Millions in Gold to New Treasure House” (January 13, 1937); “120 Milliions [sic] in U.S. Gold Sent out of New York (January 19, 1937); “Hide 200 Million in Gold as Army of Guards Looks On” (January 14, 1937); and “U.S. Gold Again Buried, This Time in Vaults” (January 24, 1937). Secrecy still shrouds Fort Knox in many ways; however, a good history of the fort and the depository appears on the Fort Knox website at www.knox.army.mil/history.asp. In addition, the U.S. Department of the Treasury includes information about the bullion depository at www.treasury.gov/about/education/Pages/fort-knox.aspx.
Other articles I consulted for this period included the New York Times article on the bombing of Buckingham Palace, headlined “Five German Bombs Hit Buckingham Palace in Day and Night of Air Terror; Lords Also Hit; R.A.F. Pounds Nazi Bases; Italy Masses Troops,” published on September 14, 1940; Malcolm Freiberg, “All’s Well That Ends Well: A Twentieth-Century Battle over the Declaration of Independence,” Massachusetts Historical Review 1 (1999); and the National Gallery of Art, “A Guide to Research Resources Relating to World War II” (1999).
Books
The literature on World War II, of course, is voluminous. The books I cite here are a few that helped me shape the braided narrative for American Treasures.
A complete biography of Archibald MacLeish was written by Scott Donaldson and entitled Archibald MacLeish: An American Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992).
For books about potential attacks on America during World War II, see (in alphabetical order by author): James P. Duffy, Target America: Hitler’s Plan to Attack the United States (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2004); Manfred Griehl, Luftwaffe over America: The Secret Plans to Bomb the United States in World War II (London: Greenhill Books, 2004); Robert C. Mikesh, Japan’s World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 1973); my own Due to Enemy Action: The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle 56 (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2005); Clint Richmond’s Fetch the Devil: The Sierra Diablo Murders and Nazi Espionage in America (Lebanon, NH: ForeEdge, 2014); and Harold Everett Wessman and William Allen Rose, Aerial Bombardment Protection (New York: Wiley, 1942).
There are also several fine books about the home front during World War II. The two I relied on most heavily were Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Home Front in World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), and Craig Shirley, 1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2011). Others I relied on included (in alphabetical order by author): David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War: The Extraordinary Story of the Transformation of a City and a Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988); Lorraine Diehl, Over Here! New York City During World War II (Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 2010); Scott Hart, Washington at War: 1941–1945 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970); and Richard Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On? The American Home Front 1941–1945 (New York: Putnam, 1970).
I read Walter S. Bowen’s and Harry E. Neal’s book The United States Secret Service (New York: Chilton Company, 1960) for a good summary on the organization that Harry Neal loved.
For works on Pearl Harbor—itself a major area of World War II literature—I relied on Steven M. Gillon, Pearl Harbor: FDR Leads the Nation into War (New York: Basic Books, 2011); and Stanley Weintraub, Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941 (New York: Da Capo, 2011).
An excellent work on the early days of American intelligence is former CIA analyst Thomas F. Troy’s Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981).
Michael O’Malley’s Face Value: The Entwined Histories of Money and Race in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012) contains an interesting discussion of Fort Knox and the Roosevelt administration’s efforts to portray it as an impregnable fortress to protect the nation’s money supply.
Other works that I consulted for this section included (alphabetical by author): Dick Camp, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Stories of American Special Operations During WWII (Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press, 2013); Robert M. Edsel, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (New York: Center Street, 2009); David Edward Finley, A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 1973); Donald R. McCoy, The National Archives: America’s Ministry of Documents 1934–1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978); and Gertrude Dana Parlier, Pursuits of War: The People of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Virginia, in the Second World War (Charlottesville, VA: Albemarle Historical Society, 1948).
1952 and Beyond: Onto the National Archives
Primary Sources
The National Archives holds extensive correspondence and information on the discussions between Luther Evans and Wayne Grover to transfer the Charters of Freedom from the Library of Congress to the National Archives. These are found in Record Group 64 (1932–1998), Case Files, 052-144, Box 79. The documents include letters between the two, memos and official circulars, Grover’s memo that summarizes discussions with Evans, and reports from archives staffers to Grover on the transfer. Also included is the program from the enshrinement ceremony, entitled “Ceremonies on the Occasion of the Enshrining of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights” (December 15, 1952).
In addition, information about the transfer of documents is included in the Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1953 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1954). President Harry Truman’s speech at the ceremony can be found at the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum and is available online at http://trumanlibrary.org/calendar/viewpapers.php?pid=2012.
The National Archives also holds voluminous records on the Freedom Train, which probably deserves a book in itself. These are contained in the American Heritage Foundation files at Collection AHF, A1 27120X, file “Freedom Train Correspondence 1947–1951,” Box 4. The documents include reports of the Freedom Train Committee, information about the construction of the train, correspondence on how the documents would be protected, and news on the train’s travels around the country. The previously mentioned RG 64 also contains information about the Freedom Train.
Secondary Sources
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
Milton Gustafson of the National Archives wrote a piece entitled “Travels of the Charters of Freedom” in Prologue 34, no. 4 (Winter 2002), which details the journey of the Declaration and the Constitution from their creation and includes the transfer from the Library of Congress to the National Archives. Gustafson had previously written a more thorough and lengthy story on the 1952 transfer, entitled “The Empty Shrine: The Transfer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the National Archives,” in American Archivist 39, no. 3 (July 1976).
Greg Bradsher wrote an excellent piece on Wayne Grover called “Shaping the National Archives: Longest-Serving Archivist Wayne Grover Steered Agency During Critical Years,” in Prologue 41, no. 4 (Winter 2009).
Bradsher also posted a story about the Freedom Train on the National Archives blog on September 14, 2012, entitled “The Travels of the Bill of Rights, Emancipation Proclamation, and Other National Archives Holdings on the Freedom Train, 1947–49,” which can be accessed at http://blogs.archives.gov/TextMessage/2012/09/14/the-travels-of-the-bill-of-rights-emancipation-proclamation-and-other-national-archives-holdings-on-the-freedom-train-1947–1949/. The most extensive photo display of the Freedom Train’s trek across all forty-eight states was captured in National Geographic issue of October 1949. In addition, I referred to Stuart J. Little, “The Freedom Train: Citizenship and Postwar Political Culture 1946–1949,” American Studies 34 (1993). Finally, the Lincoln Highway National Museum and Archives in Galion, Ohio, contains online information about the Freedom Train that can be accessed at www.lincoln-highway-museum.org/FT/TF-Index.html.
Books
The most helpful book for this section was the official book of the Freedom Train entitled Heritage of Freedom: The History and Significance of the Basic Documents of American Liberty, by Frank Monaghan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947). The book not only catalogues the documents that traveled aboard the Freedom Train, but offers excellent analyses of the history and significance of each.
Epilogue
Primary Sources
On the issue of preservation, I consulted Preservation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, a report by the National Bureau of Standards to the Library of Congress (National Bureau of Standards Circular 505, July 2, 1951). I also found helpful the Report of the Ad-hoc Charters Committee of the National Archives Advisory Committee on Preservation (August 3, 1982), which helped lead to the Charters Monitoring System.
In addition, I found helpful two reports to the National Archives from the Jet Propulsion Library at the California Institute of Technology: “Conceptual Design of a Monitoring System for the Charters of Freedom” (numerous authors, March 15, 1984); and Edward A. Miller’s “Final Report: System to Assess the State of Preservation of the Charters of Freedom: System Analysis and Performance of the NARA Charters Monitoring System” (December 31, 1989). Finally, I found interesting National Institute of Standards and Technology Charles R. Tilford’s “Monitoring the United States Charters of Freedom,” a paper delivered at the 2004 National Conference of Standards Laboratories.
Secondary Sources
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
The National Archives published information about the Charters of Freedom reencasement project at www.archives.gov/press/press-kits/charters.html. These include photos, fact sheets, and renovation information. I also found these helpful: Catherine Nicholson and Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, “The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights: Scientific Basis and Practice of Encasement,” in Art on Paper, edited by Judith Rayner, Joanna M. Kosek, and Birthe Christensen (London: Archetype Books, 2005); and Nicholson and Ritzenhaler, “A New Era Begins for the Charters of Freedom in the National Archives,” Prologue 35, no. 3 (Fall 2003). In the same publication, Richard Biondo writes “A Top-to-Bottom Renovation for the National Archives Building.” In Prologue 35, no 4 (Winter 2003), a non-bylined piece ran entitled “The Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom Reopens at the National Archives.” The Charters of Freedom reencasement project photo gallery can be viewed at www.archives.gov/press/press-kits/charters-photos/index.html.
In addition, I consulted the work of Kenneth E. Harris and Susan E. Schur, “A Brief History of Preservation and Conservation at the Library of Congress,” in the Library of Congress Preservation Directorate (October 2006), accessible at www.loc.gov/preservation. I also consulted the previously cited Plotnik’s “The Odyssey of the Constitution.”
Finally for this section, out of chronological order but a fitting tribute to the author who made the custody of the Declaration of Independence a core part of his professional life, I consulted Verner Clapp’s “The Declaration of Independence: A Case Study in Preservation,” in Special Libraries 62, no. 12 (December 1971): 503–508.
Miscellaneous
A small number of sources did not fit neatly into previous sections. These include the following secondary sources:
Articles, Booklets, and Unpublished Works
The State Department published an article through its Office of the Historian entitled “Buildings of the Department of State: Public Buildings West of the White House, May 1801–August, 1814,” accessed at https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/buildings/section22.
For information about Washington, D.C., in its earliest years, I consulted “The Vision of Pierre L’Enfant: A City to Inspire, A Plan to Preserve,” by Glen Worthington, a paper prepared for the Georgetown University Law Center’s Historic Preservation Seminar (Spring Term, 2005).
For general Library of Congress history, see “Jefferson’s Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress,” published at http://infousa.state.gov/government/braches/loc.html. Also see John C. L. Andreassen, “Archives in the Library of Congress,” in American Archivist 12, no. 1 (January 1949); and Jane A. Rosenberg, “Foundation for Service: The 1896 Hearings on the Library of Congress,” Journal of Library History (1974–1987) 12, no. 1 (Winter 1986).
Books
I consulted the following books for general research (alphabetical by author): William J. Bennett, Our Sacred Honor: Words of Advice from the Founders in Stories, Letters, Poems, and Speeches (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997); Dr. John B. Ellis, The Sights and Secrets of the National Capital: A Work Descriptive of Washington City and All Its Various Phases (New York: U.S. Publishing Company, 1869); Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, previously cited; Patty Reinert Mason, The National Archives Building: Temple of American History (Washington, D.C.: Foundation of the National Archives, 2009); Ainsworth R. Spofford, editor, American Almanac: A Treasury of Facts for the Year 1880 (New York: American News Company, 1880); Christopher L. Webber, Give Me Liberty: Speakers and Speeches that Have Shaped America (New York: Pegasus Books, 2014); and Gordon S. Wood, The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (New York, Penguin Press, 2008).
