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📘 The documents that built America

Look at William Stone's 1823 engraving of the Declaration. This is the copy you can still read. The original parchment in the National Archives Rotunda is so faded that Hancock's signature is almost the only mark left. When conservators tur

5
lessons
~25 min
to learn
Adults
level
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What you’ll learn

  1. A paper that is not a lawShow that the Declaration is a public argument adopted on 4 July after a 2 July independence vote — and that Congress cut Jefferson's slave-trade paragraph.July 2 was the decision. July 4 was the case. The signed sheet came later, already missing a paragraph about the slave trade.
  2. A league that could not taxExplain the Articles of Confederation as the first constitution: a league of states that could requisition but not tax, in force only from 1781 to 1789.Maryland's yes in 1781 launched a friendship of sovereign states. Empty coffers and Shays's rising showed why Madison wanted it replaced.
  3. A new frame written in secretTrace how a closed Philadelphia meeting replaced the Articles through the Virginia Plan, the Great Compromise, the three-fifths count, and a twenty-year slave-trade bargain.They were sent to revise a league. They wrote a government, and they would not write the word slave.
  4. The price of nine statesShow that nine conventions could launch the Constitution, that the closest states extracted a bill of rights, and that Congress proposed twelve amendments of which ten were ratified in 1791.New Hampshire made it law. Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York made it live — by buying a second parchment.
  5. What the parchment still cannot settlePlace the three Charters in the 1952 Rotunda, then show how later amendments rewrote who counts as the people.Three sheets share a room because Truman's government put them there. The argument about who We the People includes did not end in 1791.

Questions this course answers

What did Congress actually do on July 2, 1776, and what did it do on July 4?

The National Archives history is explicit: on July 2 the Lee Resolution passed, twelve colonies to none, New York not voting. Debate on Jefferson's draft ran through July 3 into the late morning of July 4, when the Declaration was adopted. The engrossed parchment was signed later, mostly from August 2.

Match each founding text to what the National Archives says it actually does

NARA groups the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights as the Charters of Freedom, and treats the Articles as the first constitution that the 1787 text replaced.

Put these steps in the order the National Archives records

15 November 1777; 1 March 1781; 17 September 1787; 21 June 1788; 15 December 1791.

Complete the Constitution's own euphemism for enslaved people in the House count.

Article I, Section 2 says three fifths of all other Persons. The National Archives history names that phrase as a euphemism for slaves. The Fourteenth Amendment's Section 2 later replaced the fraction with the whole number of persons.

In your own words, why did the Constitution as signed in September 1787 still need a Bill of Rights before it could live?

NARA: Massachusetts 187–168 after a recommended bill of rights; Virginia 89–79; New York 30–27. Madison shepherded amendments; Congress proposed twelve on 25 September 1789; ten were ratified 15 December 1791.

Grounded in trusted sources

  • U.S. National Archives, 'America's Founding Documents.' Names the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights as the Charters of Freedom; Rotunda as their permanent home. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs
  • U.S. National Archives, 'The Declaration of Independence.' Not legally binding, unlike the other founding documents; Lincoln called it a rebuke and a stumbling-block to tyranny; 2001 conservators found the docket Original Declaration of Independence dated 4th. July 1776 on the reverse; 1823 Stone engraving. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration
  • U.S. National Archives, 'The Declaration of Independence: A History.' Lee Resolution 7 June 1776; Committee of Five 11 June; Jefferson draft with Franklin and Adams edits; Lee Resolution adopted 2 July by 12 colonies, New York not voting; Declaration adopted 4 July; Dunlap broadsides, 26 known copies; New York approval 9 July; engrossment ordered 19 July; signed 2 August; Hancock first of 56; Matlack the probable engrosser. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-history
  • Library of Congress, Creating the United States, slavery interactive. The entire paragraph on slavery and the slave trade was deleted by Congress in the Committee of the Whole on 3–4 July 1776. Jefferson's later note: struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia; Northern brethren a little tender because they had been pretty considerable carriers. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/interactives/declaration-of-independence/slavery/enlarge5-transcribe.html
  • U.S. National Archives, Milestone Documents, 'Articles of Confederation (1777).' Adopted 15 November 1777; in force 1 March 1781 when Maryland ratified until 1789; Dickinson the principal writer; league of friendship; one vote per state; no power to tax. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation
  • U.S. National Archives, 'Constitution of the United States—A History' (A More Perfect Union). May 25 dirt on the street and Washington elected; Articles' tax and commerce failures; Shays 1786 at Northampton and Springfield; Virginia Plan 29 May; New Jersey Plan 13 June and rejection; Ellsworth three-fifths 12 July then Senate equality; 20-year slave-trade bargain; Mason, Gerry, Randolph refuse; 39 sign 17 September; Dunlap and Claypoole print overnight; Massachusetts 187–168 after a promised bill of rights; New Hampshire ninth, news 2 July 1788; Virginia and New York close; Madison shepherds amendments; 12 proposed, 10 ratified 15 December 1791. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/more-perfect-union
  • U.S. National Archives, 'Constitution questions and answers,' Sol Bloom. Rhode Island absent; quorum 25 May; 39 signed, 3 refused; ratification order; New Hampshire 21 June 1788; government legally 4 March 1789, Congress organized 6 April, Washington inaugurated 30 April, Supreme Court 2 February 1790; Massachusetts 187–168, Virginia 89–79, New York 30–27. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-q-and-a
  • U.S. National Archives, 'The Bill of Rights: A Transcription.' 25 September 1789 Congress proposed 12 amendments; articles 3–12 ratified 15 December 1791 as the Bill of Rights; 1992 article 2 became the 27th Amendment; article 1 never ratified. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript

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