123 items
Essential Questions To what extent does the Bill of Rights provide a "blanket of protection" for American citizens? Why do many Americans believe that the Bill of Rights is especially relevant today? Objectives Students will be able...
Articles of Confederation
Essential Question How could our Founding Fathers best meet the governing needs of the various factions after the Revolutionary War? Materials Articles of Confederation (PDF). Source: Transcript of the Articles of Confederation , 100...
Analyzing the Great Compromise, 1787
Essential Question How could our Founding Fathers balance the needs of the states as we created a national government? Materials The Virginia Plan, 1787 (PDF). Source: Virginia (Randolph) Plan as Amended (National Archives Microfilm...
Making a Covenant with Death: Slavery in the Constitutional Structure
Materials US Constitution , Our Documents Finkelman, Paul. Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson . New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2001. Essential Question Why did the Founders find it necessary to provide...
Washington's Farewell Address
View a copy of Washington’s Farewell Address in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here . For a resource regarding the possibility of Washington staying on for a third term click here . Click here to download this five-lesson...
Study Aid: The Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people...
Study Aid: Checks and Balances
Checks and Balances Executive Branch carries out the laws can veto laws can call special sessions of Congress controls enforcement of laws nominates judges can pardon people convicted of federal crimes commander in chief develops...
Alexander Hamilton’s "gloomy" view of the American Revolution, 1780
By October 1780, in the midst of the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton was discouraged by the apparent apathy of the American people and the ineffectuality of their elected representatives, as well as by the recent discovery of...
Our Constitution: The Bill of Rights (Grades 7–9)
View the Constitution in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here and here . For a resource on the variations between a draft and the final version of the Constitution of the United State, click here . Unit Objective These...
The Articles of Confederation, 1777
A day after appointing a committee to write the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress named another committee to write the Articles of Confederation. The members worked from June 1776 until November 1777, when...
Our Constitution: The Bill of Rights (Grades 4–6)
View the Constitution in our collection by clicking here and here . For a resource on the variations between a draft and the final version of the Constitution click here . For additional resources click here . Unit Objective This...
Our Constitution: The Bill of Rights (Grades 10–12)
View the Constitution in the Gilder Lehrman Collection by clicking here and here . For a resource on the variations between a draft and the final version of the United States Constitution click here . For additional resources click...
Ratification of the US Constitution in New York, 1788
This unique copy of the US Constitution was printed by Claxton and Babcock in Albany, New York, between February 11 and March 21, 1788. Copies of the Constitution were widely distributed following the document’s signing by the members...
Presidential Election Results, 1789–2020
Introduction The Electoral College consists of 538 electors, who are representatives typically chosen by the candidate’s political party, though some state laws differ. Each state’s number of electors is based on its congressional...
A plan for a new government, 1775
More than a decade before the Constitutional Convention in 1787—and months before the United States declared independence—John Adams wrote a plan for a new form of government for the American colonies. In it Adams described the basic...
"Contagious Liberty": Women in the Revolutionary Age
Background The American Revolution, a byproduct of events both on the North American continent and abroad, unleashed a movement that focused on egalitarianism in ways that had never been seen before. Even John Adams commented on these...
The First Inaugural Address of George Washington
Unit Objectives This lesson on the First Inaugural Address of George Washington is part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s series of Common Core–based units. These units were written to enable students to understand, summarize, and...
The Preamble to the US Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Declaration of Independence
Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical...
The Evolution of the US Constitution: The Preambles to the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution
Objective This lesson plan is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based teaching resources. These resources were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of...
Founding Fathers: Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison
Unit Objective This unit is part of Gilder Lehrman’s series of Common Core State Standards–based units. These units were developed to enable students to understand, summarize, and analyze original texts of historical significance....
Understanding President Washington through His First Inaugural and Farewell Addresses
Lesson Overview In this lesson, students will read and analyze excerpts from two of George Washington’s most important addresses. The first is the speech he gave to Congress on the day of his first inauguration in 1789; the second is...
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