BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Archives -- Rotunda

DC -- Natl Archives -- Rotunda:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. ROTUND_100129_034.JPG: Deposition of members of the Massachusetts militia regarding hostilities at Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775 Men of the Massachusetts militia provide this account of their conflict with British troops at Lexington on April 19, 1775,. They state that while dispersing, they were fired upon. Eight of them were killed. Militia at Concord, however, forced the British to retreat to Boston with significant casualties. Peaceful protest had given way to armed conflict. By August, King George III proclaimed that the colonies were in rebellion and that those involved were guilty of treason. From Protest to Revolution: "When the last dutiful & humble petition from Congress received no other Answer than declaring us Rebels, and out of the King's protection, I from that Moment look'd forward to a Revolution & Independence, as the only means of Salvation; and will risque the last Penny of my Fortune, & the last Drop of my Blood upon the Issue." -- George Mason, October 2, 1778 In 1761, fifteen years before the United States of America burst onto the world stage with the Declaration of Independence, the American colonists were loyal British subjects who celebrated the coronation of their new king, George III. The colonies that stretched from present-day Maine to Georgia were distinctly English in character although they had been settled by Scots, Welsh, Irish, Dutch, Swedes, Finns, Africans, French, Germans, and Swiss, as well as English. As English men and women, the American colonists were heirs to the thirteenth-century English document, Magna Carta, which established the principles that no one is above the law (not even the King), and that no one can take away certain rights. So in 1763, when the King began to assert his authority over the colonies to make them share the cost of the Seven Years' War. England had just fought and won, the English colonists protested by invoking their rights as free men and loyal subjects. It was only after a decade of repeated efforts on the part of the colonists to defend their rights that they resorted to armed conflict and, eventually, to the unthinkable -- separation from the motherland.
2. ROTUND_100129_048.JPG: Instructions to the delegates from Virginia to move for independence, May 15, 1776 In May 1776, Virginians convened to address the colonies' relationship with England. Meeting without royal approval, they protested that their petitions to King and Parliament had resulted only in increased "oppression." Further, the King had issued a declaration that the "United Colonies" were "in rebellion," and their property subject to confiscation. The convention instructed its delegates to the Continental Congress to press for independence from Great Britain. Less than two months later, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence. Courage of the Founders -- The Perilous Road to Independence: "Perhaps our Congress will be Exalted on a high Gallows." -- Abraham Clark, signed of the Declaration of Independence, August 6, 1776 The sole governing authority presiding over the tumultuous events of the American Revolution between 1774 and 1789 was a body known as Congress. With no power to regulate commerce or lay taxes, and with little ability to enforce any of its decisions, this group, representing the thirteen colonies, declared independence, conducted a war that defeated one of the greatest military powers of its day, and invented a new political entity that became a sovereign independent nation. Its members pondered everything from the rightness of independence to the number of flints needed by the armies -- sometimes with the enemy not far from their doorstep. Asserting their rights, they found themselves labeled as traitors. The fifty-four men who composed the First Continental Congress represented different interests, religions, and regions; they held conflicting opinions as to how best restore their rights. Most did not know each other; some did not like each other. With no history of successful cooperation, they struggled to overcome their differences and, without any way of knowing if the future held success or nooses for them all, they started down a long and perilous road toward independence.
3. ROTUND_100129_061.JPG: Declaration of Independence, facsimile This facsimile suggests what the original parchment looked like when it was presented to Congress for the delegates to sign on August 2, 1776. John Hancock, the President of Congress, was the first to sign; his signature is larger than any other on the page and directly centered below the text. The signatures of the other delegates are arranged from left to right, according to the geographic locations of their states, beginning with New Hampshire, the northernmost, on the right and ending with Georgia, the southernmost, on the left. Eventually, fifty-six delegates signed, although not all of them were present on August 2; some who were present for the vote July 4 never signed. The Spirit of the Revolution -- The Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." -- from the Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, 1776 In June 1776, as Thomas Jefferson composed a draft of the Declaration of Independence from a second floor parlor of a bricklayer's house in Philadelphia, the largest invasion force in British military history was headed for New York Harbor. By the time the last of the fifty-six signers had affixed their names to the final, edited document months later, an invading force of British soldiers had landed at Staten Island, the British had taken New York City, and the American patriots had committed themselves to a long and bloody struggle for liberty and independence. The Declaration announced to the world the separation of the thirteen colonies from Great Britain and the establishment of the United States of America. It explained the causes of this radical move with a long list of charges against the King. In justifying the Revolution, it asserted a universal truth about human rights in words that have inspired downtrodden people through the ages and throughout the world to rise up against their oppressors. Jefferson was not aiming at originality, the Declaration articulates the highest ideals of the Revolution, beliefs in liberty, equality, and the right of self-determination. Americans embraced a view of the world in which a person's position was determined, not by birth, rank, or title, but by talent, ability, and enterprise. It was a widely held view, circulated in newspapers, pamphlets, sermons, and schoolbooks; but it was Thomas Jefferson, the 33-year-old planter from Virginia, who put the immortal words to it. On July 4, 1776, Congress completed its editing of the document that reduced the text by 25 percent ("mutilations" is what Jefferson called it) and formally adopted the Declaration; on July 19, Congress ordered that a formal copy of the Declaration be prepared for members to sign; and on August 2, the final parchment -- the one presently displayed in the nearby case -- was presented to Congress and the signing began.
4. ROTUND_100129_078.JPG: Draft of the Articles of Confederation, selected pages: The Articles of Confederation emerged in the context of many Americans' distrust of central authority. Indeed, in this draft, Article I was agreed to only after words were added to the effect that each state would "retain its sovereignty and independence," unless specifically relinquished. Article XIV, for example, allowed states to continue to mint their own coins. In granting any powers to a central authority, however, this document marked a crucial step toward nationhood. The First Constitution -- The Articles of Confederation: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand." -- Thomas Paine, February 14, 1776 Throwing off the British monarchy on July 4, 1776, left the United States with no central government. It had to design and install a new government -- and quickly. As early as May 1776, Congress advised each of the colonies to draw up plans for state governments; by 1780, all thirteen states had adopted written constitutions. In June 1776, the Continental Congress began to work on a plan for a central government. It took five years for it to be approved, first by members of Congress, and then by the states. The first attempts at a constitution for the United States was called the Articles of Confederation. The first constitution was composed by a body that directed most of its attention to fighting and winning the War for Independence. It came into being at a time when Americans had a deep-seated fear of a central authority and long-standing loyalty to the state in which they lived and often called their "country." Ultimately, the Articles of Confederates proved unwieldy and inadequate to resolve the issues that faced the United States in its earliest years; but in granting any Federal powers to a central authority -- the Confederation Congress -- this document marked a crucial step toward nationhood. The Articles of Confederation were in force from March 1, 1781, until March 4, 1789, when the present Constitution went into effect.
5. ROTUND_100129_102.JPG: Affidavit of Richard Rhodes in support of his application for a Revolutionary War pension: Richard Rhodes, born in Africa and enslaved by Nehemiah Rhodes, submitted this affidavit in support of his successful Revolutionary War pension application. He served for five years and fought at the pivotal battle of Yorktown. Rhodes wrote that he had "entered the army for the purpose of obtaining my freedom." Rhodes died in 1823. His 82-year-old widow, Catherine, also received a pension. She died in 1841. Slavery and the American Revolution: "That liberty is a great thing we may know from our own feelings, and we may likewise judge from the conduct of the white-people in the late war ... I have hoped that God would open their eyes, when they were so much engaged for liberty, to think of the state of the poor blacks, and to pity us." -- Jupiter Hammon, "An Address to the Negroes in the State of New-York," 1787 The Revolution's ideals of liberty and equality existed side by side with the brutal realities of human slavery. By the time of the Revolution, slavery existed in all the colonies, slaved made up 20 percent of the population, and their labor had become a vital contribution to the physical and economic development of the colonies. The existence of slavery created tensions that would strain the integrity of the United States for many decades to come. Throughout the Revolution, as the states struggled to find common ground, the issue of slavery was so divisive that it threatened to shatter their fragile union. Some prominent leaders of the Revolution raised their voices to oppose slavery on moral grounds. Slaves and free Africans embraced the principles of liberty and equality embedded in the Declaration as their own best hope for freedom and better treatment. Many, fighting as soldiers in the American armies, helped to defeat the British, while earning their freedom and gaining the respect and gratitude of some whites. And clinging to their own understanding of "all men are created equal," they pushed the country closer to living out the full promise of its words.
6. ROTUND_100129_117.JPG: U.S. Constitution -- First printed draft, reported to the Constitutional Convention by the Committee of Detail: The preamble of this draft of the Constitution lists each of the thirteen states. The next draft, however, begins "We, the people of the United States," signaling one of the fundamental precepts of the Constitution: the primacy of the people as a whole rather than as individual states. Delegates made numerous annotations and corrections on these drafts. In Article XX, for example, the Constitutional Convention delegates agreed that "no religious test" would ever be required to hold a Federal office. This copy belonged to David Brearley, a delegate from New Jersey. The Constitutional Convention -- Creating the Constitution: "[The Constitution of the United States] was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many heads." -- James Madison, March 10, 1834 Eleven years after the Declaration of Independence announced the birth of the United States, the survival of the young country seemed in doubt. The War for Independence had been won, but economic depression, social unrest, interstate rivalries, and foreign intrigue appeared to be unraveling the fragile confederation. In early 1787, Congress called for a special convention of all the states to revise the Articles of Confederation. On September 17, 1878, after four months of secret meetings, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention emerged from their Philadelphia meeting room with an entirely new plan of government -- the US Constitution -- that they hoped would ensure the survival of the experiment they had launched in 1776. They proposed a stronger central government made up of three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial; each would be perpetually restrained by a sophisticated set of checks and balances. They reached compromises on the issue of slavery that left its final resolution to future generations. As for ratification, they devised a procedure that maximized the odds: the Constitution would be enacted when it was ratified by nine, not thirteen, states. The Framers knew they had not created a perfect plan, but it could be revised. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times and stands today as the longest-lasting written national constitution in the world. On September 17, 1787, two days after the final vote, the delegates signed the engrossed parchment shown in the Rotunda's centerpiece case. In drafting the Constitution, the delegates consulted the wisdom of the ages, sifting through the contemporary political tracts of their own day, as well as the histories of ancient civilizations. They understood power to be corrupting and humans to be subject to their worst instincts. The debates inside the meetingroom were heated and contentious. The delegates examined every phrase of the constitution through the prism of the conflicting interests they represented: large states and small states, states with commercially based economies versus states with slave-based agricultural economies. History, political theory, their own interests, and devotion to the American experiment, all informed their thinking as they hammered out a practical scheme of government.
7. ROTUND_100129_140.JPG: George Washington transmitting documents related to Rhode Island's ratification of the Bill of Rights. Rhode Island, the last of the thirteen original states to ratify the Constitution, issued a ratification statement on May 29, 1790, which included a statement of specific rights not to be infringed upon by the Federal Government. On June 11, 1790, Rhode Island became the ninth state to ratify the Bill of Rights, which included some of the rights specified in that ratification statement. In this letter, President Washington informed Congress of Rhode Island's ratification. The Bill of Rights -- The First Ten Amendments to the Constitution "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, for musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." -- Alexander Hamilton, 1775 Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, the right to a fair and speedy trail -- the ringing phrases that inventory some of Americans' most treasured personal freedoms -- were not initially part of the US Constitution. At the Constitutional Convention, the proposal to include a bill of rights was considered and defeated. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution as the first ten amendments on December 15, 1791. The fact that the Constitution did not include a bill of rights to specifically protect Americans' hard-won rights sparked the most heated debates during the ratification process. To the Federalists, those who favored the Constitution, a bill of rights was unnecessary because the Federal Government was limited in its powers and could not interfere with the rights of the people or the states; also, most states had bills of rights. To the Anti-Federalists, those who opposed the Constitution, the prospect of establishing a strong central government without an explicit list of rights guaranteed to the people was unthinkable. Throughout the ratification process, individuals and state ratification conventions called for the adoption of a bill of rights. The first Federal Congress took up the question of a bill of rights almost immediately. Congress proposed twelve amendments to the states. Ten of these were added to the Constitution on December 15, 1791. The Bill of Rights that is on permanent display here is the Joint Resolution passed by Congress on September 25, 1789, proposing twelve -- not ten -- amendments. The first article, concerning the ratio of constituents to each congressional representative, was never ratified by the states; the second article listed, concerning congressional pay, was ratified in 1992 as the Twenty-seventh Amendment. The fate of the proposed constitution was decided in the state ratifying conventions (nine states had to ratify for the Constitution to take effect), but it was the subject of intense debates everywhere -- in homes, taverns, coffeehouses, and newspapers. By the time New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution in June 1788, it had become clear that the people of the United States demanded a bill of rights.
8. ROTUND_100129_218.JPG: Subpoena for James Wagner, Daniel Brent, James Marshall, John Miller, Levi Lincoln and Samuel Otis In March 1801, in the final days of his administration, President John Adams appointed William Marbury and others as District of Columbia justices of the peace. However, Secretary of State John Marshall failed to deliver their commissions. When incoming Secretary of State James Madison refused to deliver these documents, Marbury and others sued to obtain them. The Supreme Court declared the law that authorized it to act on the plaintiffs' behalf to be unconstitutional. Never before had the Supreme Court exercised its authority to declare an act of Congress to be unconstitutional. The case also raised the issue of executive privilege. Included here is a subpoena issued to a group that included State Department clerks Jacob Wagner and Daniel Brent who had prepared the commissions. They initially refused to testify on the grounds that they were executive branch employees. The Court allowed Wagner and Brent to object to any questions they deemed unacceptable. The Power of the Courts -- Marbury v Madison, 1803 "The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will." -- Chief Justice John Marshall, 1821 Although most of the Framers of the Constitution anticipated that the Federal judiciary would be the weakest branch of Government, the US Supreme Court has come to wield enormous power with decisions that have reached into the lives of every citizen and resolved some of the most dramatic confrontations in US history. The word of the Supreme Court is final. Overturning its decisions often requires an amendment to the Constitution or a revision of Federal law. The power of the Supreme Court has evolved over time, through a series of milestone court cases. One of the Court's most fundamental powers is judicial review -- the power to judge the constitutionality of nay act or law of the executive or legislative branch. Some of the Framers expected the Supreme Court to take on the role of determining the constitutionality of Congress's laws, but the Constitution did not explicitly assign it to the Court. Marbury v Madison, the 1803 landmark Supreme Court case, established the power of judicial review. From the modest claim of William Marbury, who sought a low-paying, appointment as a District of Columbia Justice of the Peace, emerged a Supreme Court decision that established one of the cornerstones of the American constitutional system.
9. ROTUND_100129_251.JPG: Louisiana Purchase 6 percent Stock Certificate: When the United States agreed to purchase the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, the US national debt was nearly $81 million. Therefore, the United States financed the purchase and offered France interest-earning bonds rather than cash. These bonds (referred to as "stock certificates") were then purchased from France by two European investment houses (the British firm of Baring and Company and the Dutch firm of Hope and Company) at a discount and then re-sold. They became known as Louisiana 6 percent stocks since they would pay that level of interest after 15 years. Displayed here is one of those stock certificates made out to Dutch financiers NJ and R Van Staphorst Ketwich and Voomberg and William Borski of Amsterdam. The Westward Expansion -- The Louisiana Purchase: "Let the Land rejoice, for you have bought Louisiana for a Song." -- Gen. Horatio Gates to President Thomas Jefferson, July 18, 1803 In 1803, with one bold move, President Thomas Jefferson's administration doubled the size of the United States. France's offer of the Louisiana Territory -- 828,000 square miles of land extending west of the Mississippi River, in exchange for $15 million -- was simply too good to resist. The Treaty, dated April 30, 1803, was signed in Paris by Robert Livingston and James Monroe and ratified by Congress on October 20. Fifteen states or parts of states were carved from the vast territory, which was the single largest acquisition of land in US history. Sixteen years earlier, critics of the Constitution had argued that the original thirteen states already covered too vast a territory to be under a single government. In 1803, some European powers predicted that the huge addition of land would be the death knell of the American experiment and would cause the Union to degenerate into competing and warring factions. Jefferson, however, believed it would provide "a wide-spread field for the blessings of freedom." The Louisiana Territory added to the United States a wealth of natural resources beyond anyone's calculations. Westward expansion was a disaster for the many indigenous peoples who had no say in the sale of lands they had inhabited for generations. But the Louisiana Purchase did not weaken the Union; it strengthened it. The transaction was more than a brilliant act of diplomacy or a shrewd real estate deal. It was a vote of confidence in the future of a fledgling nation.
10. ROTUND_100129_277.JPG: President Andrew Johnson's proclamation announcing the end of the insurrection, April 2, 1866, selected pages In this proclamation, President Johnson reaffirmed the perpetuity of the Union: "it is the manifest determination of the American People that no State of its own will, has the right or power to go out of, or separate itself from, or be separated from the American Union, and that therefore each State ought to remain and constitute an integral part of the United States." He also announced the end of the insurrection in ten of the eleven states that had seceded: Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Florida. A proclamation announcing the end of the insurrection in Texas was issued four months later on August 20, 1866. A precise date for the end of the war is elusive, however. Federal troops remained in the South until 1877, for example. The Civil War -- The Union Sealed in Blood "The fiery trail through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation... In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, and meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth." -- President Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862 September 17, 1862, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, was the bloodiest single day in US history. An estimated 6,300 Union and Confederate soldiers died at Antietam, Maryland, in a savage battle that took place nearly a year and a half into the Civil War. It was one day in a war that raged from 1861-65 and cost some 623,000 lives. In a total national population of 27 million in 1860, that number would be proportionately equivalent to losing more than 5 million today. At stake in the Civil War was the survival of the United States of America as a single nation. Eleven Southern states, invoking the spirit of 1776, seceded from the Union in 1861 to form a nation they named the Confederate States of America. The Federal Government refused to allow it. Massive armies representing the Union and the Confederacy squared off in a conflict that tested the experiment in self-government as never before. At the end of the Civil War's carnage, the primary of the Federal Government over the states was indisputably upheld. Americans had been wrestling with this fundamental question of nationhood since the earliest days of the Revolution. In 1774, as the British colonists struggled to unite in the cause of American liberty, Patrick Henry rose to address the Continental Congress in one of its earliest sessions: "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." It took the Civil War to make it so.
11. ROTUND_100129_306.JPG: Letter from the Provisional Government of Georgia to Secretary of State William Seward regarding Georgia's ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, December 19, 1865: The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution states that, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." When Georgia became the twenty-seventh state to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865, it became part of the Constitution. A copy of the Georgia legislature's joint ratification resolution was sent the next day, according to Provisional Governor James Johnson. Delivery was delayed, however. In this letter, Johnson promised to forward additional certified copies. The End of Slavery in the United States -- The Thirteenth Amendment: "The more men you make free, the more freedom is strengthened, and the... greater is the security of the State." -- Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, statesman, and former slave, November 17, 1864 The four years of Civil War that ripped apart the nation from 1861-65 achieved what seventy-five years of compromise could not: it resolved once and for all the questions slavery in the United States. Military necessity and the force of human passion for liberty pushed emancipation to the top of the nation's agenda. Two major milestones marked slavery's final destruction during the war years: the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring that "all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious areas "are and henceforward shall be free." It also announced the acceptance of former slaves into the Union's armed forces. The Constitution grants extended powers to the President during times of war, and although it would not permit the President to interfere with slavery in the states under normal circumstances, it would do so during wartime. President Lincoln feared that the Emancipation Proclamation would be overturned once the war ended. A constitutional amendment would ensure that slavery could never again resurface. Congress formally proposed the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery on January 31, 1865; it was ratified on December 6, 1865.
12. ROTUND_100129_336.JPG: Immigration Act, 1965: In the early 1920s, the United States significantly expanded earlier immigration restrictions based on national origin. This "quota system" heavily favored the nations of northern and western Europe at the expense of southern and eastern Europeans. Asians were barred entirely. Displayed here is the Immigration Act of 1965. It did away with quotas based on national origin. The result was a dramatic increase in immigration from Asia and Latin America. During the signing ceremony on Liberty Island, President Lyndon Johnson said, "This bill says simply that from this day forth those wishing to immigrate to America shall be admitted on the basis of their skills and their close relationship to those already here... [F]or over four decades the immigration policy of the United States has been twisted and has been distorted by the harsh injustice of the national origins quota system... Today, with my signature, this system in abolished." United States as a Beacon of Liberty -- Immigration: "The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent & respectable Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions; whom we shall wellcome [sic] to a participation of all our rights & previleges." [sic] -- George Washington, Address to Irish Immigrants, draft handwritten by David Humphries, December 2, 1783 America's earliest settlers who came in search of religious freedom in the seventeenth century passed on a vision of America as a shining beacon of hope to the world that still shines today. Between 1820 and 2001, more than 67 million people came to the United States from every corner of the globe, lured by the promise of liberty and opportunity. The open-door policies of the early years of the republic eventually gave way in the late nineteenth century to more restrictive measures driven by concerns for the nation's economy and security. Fear of foreigners and racial prejudice have also influenced policies that excluded rather than welcomed immigrants. But the wish to honor the ideal of America as a safe haven persists. Two-thirds of the 70 million people who have left Europe since 1600 have come to America. Millions more have come from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Today, the United States pulses with the energy of a dizzying mix of cultures, races, religions, and languages. The people of the United States are joined together, not by religion, race, or genealogy, but by a shared set of beliefs about freedom. In 1989, the fortieth President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, reflected on the current state of the American Dream: "After 200 years... [America's] still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."
13. ROTUND_100129_346.JPG: Immigration Act Signing Ceremony, Liberty Island, New York, October 3, 1965
14. ROTUND_100129_370.JPG: Colorado's Ratification of Nineteenth Amendment: In 1878, Senator Aaron A. Sargent of California introduced an amendment to the Constitution that would grant women the right to vote. Drafted by Susan B. Anthony, this same amendment would be introduced on a near-yearly basis until its final passage by Congress on May 19. 1919. Included here is the Colorado legislature's resolution for the ratification of the "Anthony" amendment. It was appropriate that it would be named for Colorado's women state legislators, Representatives Dr. May T. Bigelow and Mable Ruth Baker, the State Senator Agnes Riddle. Bigelow wielded the gavel as the Colorado legislature approved the resolution on December 8, 1919. Expansion of Rights and Liberties -- The Right of Suffrage: "It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union." -- Susan B Anthony, 1873, "Is it a Crime for A US Citizen to Vote?", speech delivered following her arrest for voting in the election of 1872. When the Constitution took effect in 1789, it did not "secure the blessings of liberty" to all people. The expansion of rights and liberties has been achieved over time, as people once excluded from the protections of the Constitution asserted their rights set forth in the Declaration of Independence. These Americans have fostered movements resulting in laws, Supreme Court decisions, and constitutional amendments that have narrowed the gap between the ideal and the reality of American freedom. At the time of the first Presidential election in 1789, only 6 percent of the population -- white, male, property owners -- was eligible to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment extended the right to vote to former male slaves in 1870; American Indians gained the vote under a law passed by Congress in 1924; and women gained the vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
15. ROTUND_100129_389.JPG: United Nations Charter -- preamble and facsimile of US signatory page (American Original version) Between April 25 and June 26, 1945, delegates from fifty-one countries gathered in San Francisco to create the United Nations. Its Charter begins with a phrase reminiscent of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States: "We the Peoples of the United Nations." Although World War II would not end until the surrender of Japan on August 14, 1945, the signatories dedicated themselves to saving "succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind." Again, reaching back to the ideals that engendered the American Revolution, the Charter's authors stressed their determination "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.... and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom." On July 28, 1945, the US Senate ratified the Charter. President Truman signed the United Nations Participation Act of 1945 on December 20, 1945. Global Impact of the Charters of Freedom "The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines are all who work them." -- Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821 From the earliest days of the Republic, this nation's Founders believed that the United States had a special mission in the world. George Washington spoke of it on April 30, 1789, moments after taking the oath of office as first President of the United States. "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government , are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally stakes, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." The success of their experiment, those early Americans hoped, would hasten the spread of liberty around the globe." In the first century following the Declaration of Independence, movements in France, Belgium, Poland, Norway, Switzerland, as well as in Venezuela, Mexico, and Argentina, drew both inspiration and practical lessons from the American Revolution and its landmark documents. During the nineteenth century, the adoption of written constitutions often accompanied changes in governments in Europe and Latin America. In 1917, there were approximately a dozen democracies in the world. Today, there are more than one hundreds, and most of them have written constitutions. While the charters of many of these nations vary greatly from the US Constitution, its endurance and stability has surely lent encouragement and credibility to the cause of freedom-loving people everywhere who have labored to throw off tyrannical regimes and devise for themselves a system of self-determination and government based on the consent of the governed.
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