In his 1941 State of the Union address to Congress, excerpted below, President Franklin Roosevelt outlines his plan for how the United States will combat worldwide threats to democracy. Known as the "Four Freedoms" speech, this strong plea for…

In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent this letter to clergymen around the country. He received over 100,000 responses from priests, rabbis, and ministers serving diverse congregations that varied by geography, size, religious views, and…

Throughout U.S. history, governments at the local, state, and federal level have passed laws regulating the ownership and use of guns. This chart provides examples of such laws over time.

In this activity, students develop Common Core reading skills (eg. citing textual evidence, determining the central ideas, and determining meaning of words and phrases) through a study of the history of the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution…

This worksheet helps students understand what a preamble is and what it signifies when used in a law or constitution. It was designed to be used in as part of a close reading of the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

This worksheet provides students with detailed task instructions and a note-taking guide for selecting evidence from their documents for the activity Supporting Claims with Evidence: The Second Amendment and Gun Control Debates.

On January 6, 1865, General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order #15, which gave millions of acres of land along the Atlantic coast to emancipated slaves, in lots of not more than 40 acres per family. In March 1865, Representative Thaddeus…

Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing slavery, before the Civil War had ended. Once the war was over, white southerners passed laws (known as Black Codes) to keep freedmen from exercising their rights, and Congress…

Following the Civil War and abolition of slavery, Republicans in Congress passed reconstruction laws meant to guarantee full citizenship and suffrage to African Americans. The 14th amendment required states to guarantee the rights of all citizens,…

Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave and leader of the anti-slavery movement in the North. This excerpt is from an address he delivered to the Anniversary of the American Abolition Society held in New York, May 14, 1857.