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Items 61-78 of 78

  • Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved

     |  Natural Rights/American Revolution

    Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved 1 James Otis (1725-1783) Otis rose to prominence in 1761, after he gave a courtroom speech opposing the Writs of Assistance—blanket warrants issued by the British for searching suspect property. He edited that speech into this essay three years later, after the passage of the Sugar Act. Its arguments contain the seed of the American Revolution—an appeal to natural rights applied against particular abuses of political power. Struck by lightning in 1783, Otis did not live beyond the Revolution. But John Adams remarked that he had never known a man "whose service for any ten years of his life were so important and essential to the cause of his country as those ...

  • A Time for Choosing

     |  New Deal and Great Society

    A Time for Choosing A Time for Choosing 1 Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) In this nationally televised speech in support of Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican Party presidential candidate, Reagan challenges the Progressive principles behind President Johnson's Great Society. The speech propelled Reagan to national prominence. October 27, 1964 I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this. I have been talking on this subject for ten years, obviously under the administration of both parties. I mention this only because it seems impossible to legitimately debate the issues of the day without being subjected to name-calling and the application of labels. Those who deplore use of the terms "pink" and "leftist" are themselves ...

  • First Inaugural Address

     |  New Deal and Great Society

    First Inaugural Address First Inaugural Address 1 Ronald Reagan Breaking with historical precedent, Reagan's first inauguration was held on the Capitol's West Front, allowing him to refer in his speech to the presidential memorials and to Arlington National Cemetery in the distance. The first post-New Deal president to challenge the principles of the New Deal, Reagan presents his opposition in terms of reviving the idea of consent of the governed. January 20, 1981 Senator Hatfield, Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. President, Vice President Bush, Vice President Mondale, Senator Baker, Speaker O'Neill, Reverend Moomaw, and My Fellow Citizens: To a few of us here today, this is a solemn and most momentous occasion; and yet, in the history of our nation ...

  • Commonwealth Club Address

     |  New Deal and Great Society

    Commonwealth Club Address Commonwealth Club Address 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) Delivered by Roosevelt to California's Commonwealth Club during his first run for the White House, this speech was penned by Adolf Berle, a noted scholar and a member of Roosevelt's "Brain Trust" who drew deeply upon earlier Progressive thought, especially that of John Dewey. September 23, 1932 ...I want to speak not of politics but of Government. I want to speak not of parties, but of universal principles. They are not political, except in that larger sense in which a great American once expressed a definition of politics, that nothing in all of human life is foreign to the science of politics. I do want to give you, however, a recollection of a long ...

  • Democratic Convention Address

     |  New Deal and Great Society

    Democratic Convention Address Democratic Convention Address 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt Having launched the New Deal, an ambitious program of political and economic re-engineering aimed at ending the Great Depression, President Roosevelt accepted his party's nomination to run for a second term. In this speech at the 1936 Democratic Convention, he defends his programs—some of which had been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court—and tags opponents as "economic royalists." June 27, 1936 Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, my friends: Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the Nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression ...

  • Annual Message to Congress

     |  New Deal and Great Society

    Annual Message to Congress Annual Message to Congress 1 Franklin D. Roosevelt As victory in the Second World War looked more and more likely, President Roosevelt turned his attention to postwar America. In this speech he proposes a "second Bill of Rights." January 11, 1944 ...It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure. This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength ...

  • Discourses Concerning Government

     |  The Apple of Gold/Frame of Silver

    Discourses Concerning Government Discourses Concerning Government 1 Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) Involved in some of the same anti-monarchical causes as John Locke, Sidney was caught up in the conspiracy to oust King Charles II. He was beheaded on December 7, 1683, a martyr to the English Whig cause. Fifteen years after his death, his Discourses Concerning Government was published. A hero to John Adams and widely read in the American colonies, Sidney famously inscribed the following in the Visitor's Book at the University of Copenhagen: "This hand, enemy to tyrants, by the sword seeks peace under liberty." This inscription later inspired the state motto of Massachusetts. 1698 Chapter One Section 17. God having given the Government of the ...

  • Cornerstone Speech

     |  Secession and Civil War

    Cornerstone Speech Cornerstone Speech 1 Alexander Stephens (1812-1883) Former Senator Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederate government, while former Georgia Congressman Alexander Stephens became vice president. Three weeks after Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, Stephens delivered this speech in Savannah, identifying the cornerstone of the Confederacy as an idea opposite to the equality principle of the American founding. March 21, 1861 At half past seven o'clock on Thursday evening, the largest audience ever assembled at the Athenaeum was in the house, waiting most impatiently for the appearance of the orator of the evening, Honorable A. H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederate States of America. The committee, with invited ...

  • Dred Scott v. Sandford

     |  Crisis of Constitutionalism

    Dred Scott v. Sandford Dred Scott v. Sandford 1 Roger Taney (1777-1864) Like Stephen Douglas, Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney believed that his response to the slavery controversy would resolve the issue. His ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford had the opposite result, throwing the country into even greater turmoil. The case was brought by a slave, Dred Scott, who was taken by his master into territory in which slavery was illegal. Asked to rule simply on whether Scott's residency in a free territory meant that he should be granted freedom, the Court ruled that Congress had no power to regulate slavery in the territories and that persons of African descent could not be citizens, rendering both the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 unconstitutional ...

  • Letter to the Hebrew Congregation

     |  Religion, Morality, and Property

    Letter to the Hebrew Congregation Letter to the Hebrew Congregation 1 George Washington (1732-1799) The Constitution of 1787 said little directly about religion, with the notable exception of a ban on religious tests as a requirement for federal office. When Washington was elected president, the Bill of Rights had not yet been adopted. Despite this, in his response to a congratulatory note sent to him by a group of Jewish Americans, President Washington characterized religious liberty not as a gift of government or a matter of toleration, but as a natural right possessed by every human being. August 18, 1790 Gentlemen: While I receive, with much satisfaction, your Address replete with expressions of esteem; I rejoice in the opportunity ...

  • Farewell Address

     |  Religion, Morality, and Property

    Farewell Address Farewell Address 1 George Washington Washington had first prepared a farewell address to be delivered in 1792, upon the conclusion of his first term as president. Having been convinced to stand for a second term, he was unanimously re-elected. When he finally issued this address in 1796, it was his last public work. After nearly forty-five years of service, he retired to Mount Vernon. September 19, 1796 Friends, and Fellow Citizens: The period for a new election of a Citizen, to Administer the Executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person, who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper ...

  • Circular Letter to the States

     |  Articles of Confederation

    Circular Letter to the States Circular Letter to the States 1 George Washington As Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, overseen by a national legislature that struggled to fund the War for Independence, General Washington was as familiar as anyone with the defects of the Articles of Confederation. In this, his last circular letter to the states, which he sent to the thirteen governors, Washington emphasizes the need for unity in the maintenance of the nation's independence. June 8, 1783 Sir: The great object for which I had the honor to hold an appointment in the Service of my Country, being accomplished, I am now preparing to resign it into the hands of Congress, and to return to that domestic retirement, which, it is well known ...

  • Letter to John Jay

     |  Articles of Confederation

    Letter to John Jay Letter to John Jay 1 George Washington Washington writes here as a private citizen to Jay, who as Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the Articles of Confederation witnessed firsthand the Articles' shortcomings, as each state pursued a different foreign policy. August 15, 1786 Dear Sir: I have to thank you very sincerely for your interesting letter of the twenty-seventh of June, as well as for the other communications you had the goodness to make at the same time. I am sorry to be assured, of what indeed I had little doubt before, that we have been guilty of violating the treaty in some instances. What a misfortune it is the British should have so well grounded a pretext for their palpable infractions? —and what a ...

  • Letter Transmitting the Constitution

     |  Rethinking Union and Government

    Letter Transmitting the Constitution Letter Transmitting the Constitution 1 George Washington As they affixed their names to the new Constitution, the Framers understood that their work had just begun. Four months of debate and compromise paled in comparison to the challenge of convincing the states to ratify. Unanimity was not necessary for the Constitution to go into effect—only nine of thirteen states were needed—but they knew that without the approval of the largest of the states, including New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, their work would be for naught. Congress sent this letter to each state to begin the ratification process. September 17, 1787 Sir: We have now the honor to submit to the consideration of the United States in ...

  • The Constitution and the Union

     |  Roots of the Slavery Crisis

    The Constitution and the Union The Constitution and the Union 1 Daniel Webster (1782-1852) Webster began representing Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate in 1813, and by the 1830s had attained a national reputation—in part as a result of his Senate debates with nullification proponent Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina. Webster spent the final decade of his life attempting to avert the growing sectional divide, never wavering in his defense of the Union. In this speech he restated his longstanding conviction that "Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility." He died two years later, in 1852, with the nation divided. March 7, 1850 Mr. President: I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American ...

  • What is Progress?

     |  Progressive Rejection of the Founding

    What is Progress What is Progress? 1 Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) After earning a Ph.D. in both history and political science at Johns Hopkins University, Wilson held various academic positions, culminating in the presidency of Princeton University. Throughout this period, he came to see the Constitution as a cumbersome instrument unfit for the government of a large and vibrant nation. This speech, delivered during his successful campaign for president in 1912 and included in a collection of speeches called The New Freedom, puts forward the idea of an evolving, or "living," constitution. 1913 In that sage and veracious chronicle, "Alice Through the Looking-Glass," it is recounted how, on a noteworthy occasion, the little heroine is seized by the Red Chess Queen ...

  • Socialism and Democracy

     |  Progressive Rejection of the Founding

    Socialism and Democracy Socialism and Democracy 1 Woodrow Wilson Wilson makes clear in this article the consequences of rejecting the idea of inherent natural rights for the idea that rights are a positive grant from government. August 22, 1887 Is it possible that in practical America we are becoming sentimentalists? To judge by much of our periodical literature, one would think so. All resolution about great affairs seems now "sicklied o'er with a pale cast of thought." Our magazine writers smile sadly at the old-time optimism of their country; are themselves full of forebodings; expend much force and enthusiasm and strong (as well as weak) English style in disclosing social evils and economic bugbears; are moved by a fine sympathy for the ...

  • The Study of Administration

     |  Progressive Rejection of the Founding

    The Study of Administration The Study of Administration 1 Woodrow Wilson Writing a year before Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission, the first independent regulatory agency, Wilson argues in this article that it is only through such agencies—separate from the political process and independent of the electorate—that government can pursue its necessary ends. November 2, 1886 I suppose that no practical science is ever studied where there is no need to know it. The very fact, therefore, that the eminently practical science of administration is finding its way into college courses in this country would prove that this country needs to know more about administration, were such proof of the fact required to make out a case. It need not be said, however ...
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Items 61-78 of 78