Foundational documents at a glance

All thirteen documents required by the course. For each document, be able to retrieve the author or source, the core argument, and the best exam use or boundary without notes. Use this table for rapid review. The instructional chapters provide the fuller argument, limits, and course connections for each document.

Document	Year	Author / source	Core argument	Best exam use / boundary
Declaration of Independence	1776	Second Continental Congress; Thomas Jefferson principal drafter	Natural rights, equality, consent of the governed, and the people’s right to alter or abolish a government that violates those principles	Use for natural rights, popular sovereignty, legitimacy, equality. Do not use it as the source of a specific federal institutional power
Articles of Confederation	1777 adopted; 1781 fully ratified	Second Continental Congress	A confederation that preserved extensive state sovereignty and left the national government dependent on states for revenue and enforcement	Use to explain why the Constitution increased national capacity: taxation, commerce, executive, judiciary, amendment process
U.S. Constitution	1787 signed; 1788 ratified; effective 1789	Constitutional Convention	Creates the federal structure, enumerated and separated powers, checks and balances, and the amendment process; the required document includes the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments	Use the specific article, clause, amendment, or institutional mechanism that supports the claim
Brutus No. 1	1787	Pseudonymous “Brutus”	Warns that a large republic and broad national powers will weaken close representation and allow federal authority to grow at the expense of states and liberty	Best contrast with Federalist Nos. 10 and 39 on scale, representation, and national/state power
Federalist No. 10	1787	James Madison	Factions cannot be removed without destroying liberty; a large representative republic can control their effects by multiplying interests and making a durable majority faction harder to form	Use for faction, pluralism, large republic, representation. Not the best evidence for checks between branches
Federalist No. 39	1788	James Madison	The Constitution is republican because authority derives from the people, and the system combines national and federal characteristics	Use for republicanism and the mixed national/federal design: population-based House, state equality in Senate, role of states
Federalist No. 51	1788	James Madison	Separated institutions need constitutional means and motives to resist encroachment; checks and federalism help keep power from concentrating	Use for separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism as a double security

Document	Year	Author / source	Core argument	Best exam use / boundary
Federalist No. 70	1788	Alexander Hamilton	A single energetic executive promotes decision, activity, secrecy, dispatch, and accountability; executive energy requires unity, duration, adequate support, and competent powers	Use for executive energy and unity. Use the Constitution itself when the evidence depends on a particular Article II power
Federalist No. 78	1788	Alexander Hamilton	An independent judiciary, protected by tenure during good behavior, can enforce constitutional limits; courts exercise judgment, not the legislature’s will	Use for judicial independence, judicial review reasoning, and insulation from electoral pressure
Emancipation Proclamation	1863	President Abraham Lincoln	Wartime executive action declared enslaved people free in areas in rebellion; it did not abolish slavery nationwide	Use for executive power during war, civil rights, and the difference between executive action and constitutional amendment
Gettysburg Address	1863	President Abraham Lincoln	Recasts the Civil War as a test of equality, popular government, and national survival, linking the nation’s future to government of, by, and for the people	Use for equality, popular sovereignty, national purpose, political rhetoric. It does not itself create an enforceable legal right
Letter from a Birmingham Jail	1963	Martin Luther King Jr.	Defends nonviolent direct action, explains why waiting can preserve injustice, distinguishes just from unjust laws, and argues that constructive tension can force negotiation	Use for civil rights, social movements, direct action, majority/minority rights, and the urgency of political participation
Core principles from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations	1776	Adam Smith	Self-interest and competition in markets can help allocate resources efficiently; the framework supports free enterprise and limited regulation while recognizing public roles such as justice, defense, and certain public works	Use for free enterprise, economic ideology, regulation, market competition. Do not reduce Smith to “government should never act”

Table B.1 Every required foundational document, retrievable by source, argument, and exam use.

Retrieval rule: for every required document, be able to produce three things without notes: (1) who wrote or issued it and roughly when, (2) the document’s central argument in one or two sentences, and (3) the strongest, most specific claim the document can support on the exam, along with its boundary.