The Reading Room

A collection

The American Founding

Four documents, read as one argument. The Declaration states the promise: that people are created equal and hold rights no government grants. The Constitution builds the machine that might keep the promise. The Bill of Rights names what the machine may never do. And the Federalist explains, in real time, what the whole design was for. They were written by different hands, in argument with one another, and they do not entirely agree. Read together, set whole and read aloud, they are the founding conversation, and it is still going on.

  • The Declaration of Independence

    Thomas Jefferson · 1776 · Philadelphia

    The document that turned a rebellion into a founding. Read past the famous second sentence and it is a legal brief: a list of grievances assembled to justify, before the...

  • The Constitution of the United States

    James Madison · 1787 · Philadelphia

    The operating document, and the thing the Declaration's promise had to be poured into to become real. Where the Declaration soars, the Constitution counts: terms of office, numbers of representatives,...

  • The Bill of Rights

    James Madison · 1791 · New York

    The first ten amendments, and they exist because a group of skeptics refused to ratify without them. The Anti-Federalists feared a central government that did not say, in writing, what...

  • The Federalist Papers

    Alexander Hamilton · 1788 · New York

    Eighty-five essays, written under a single name to persuade a divided people to adopt the Constitution. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote them in real time, against the clock of ratification,...