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Early Republic
American Founding Era Collection
The Adams Papers Digital Edition
One of the outstanding documentary editions in American scholarship, The Adams Papers collects the correspondence and other significant papers of our nation's first great political family. At the center, of course, is John Adams. Beginning with his early diaries and three volumes selected from... More
The Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America
March 4, 1789–March 3, 1791Convening first in New York and later in Philadelphia from March 1789 to March 1791, these earliest iterations of the Senate and the House of Representatives worked with a new president to establish a government subject to the vision of a constitution less than a year in existence. Containing all... More
The Dolley Madison Digital Edition
Containing over 2,400 letters, with another thousand letters to follow in periodic updates, this XML-based archive allows users to perform simple or advanced searches by period, correspondent, or topic. The letters may also be accessed directly through a sortable list or read in chronological order... More
The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition
All 59 volumes of the celebrated print edition published through 2009, encompassing five series and the complete diaries, are now available in one XML-based publication. Users may search on full text and by date, author, and recipient. The exceptional indexing of the print volumes is combined here... More
The Papers of James Madison Digital Edition
The Papers of James Madison documents the life and work of one of the most important political and constitutional thinkers in our nation’s history. A vital project that continues to add new volumes, this publication has been consulted for decades by scholars and students for primary-source... More
The Papers of John Marshall Digital Edition
John Marshall was the longest-serving chief justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, with a tenure lasting more than three decades. He was also arguably the most influential. Under his leadership the court defined itself in ways that persist to this day.Available for the first time online, Marshall... More
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition
Crucial to our nation’s history as author of the Declaration of Independence and third president, Thomas Jefferson was also a major figure in the Enlightenment, representing for Europeans the embodiment of the early nineteenth-century American mind. Since 1950, his writings have been compiled... More
People of the Founding Era
People of the Founding Era is a powerful new online resource that provides biographical information for thousands of individuals active during a crucial period in our history. Beginning with 12,000 but eventually expanding to over 60,000 people born between 1713 and 1815, the subjects include... More
The Selected Papers of John Jay Digital Edition
The careers of few figures in American history have encompassed as much as did John Jay’s. His accomplishments span pre- and post-Revolutionary history and extend into all three branches of government. Best known as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, Jay entered public service as a... More
Antebellum, Civil War & Reconstruction
The Papers of Andrew Jackson Digital Edition
Now with links to Library of Congress manuscript facsimilesAndrew Jackson was born near the border of the colonial Carolinas and would take part in many of the early republic’s signal events, but he came to define a new era in American history and left the presidency forever changed.Orphaned... More
The Papers of Daniel Webster
Born in the final days of the American Revolution, Daniel Webster would leave his mark on the following century, of which he was one of its mightiest statesmen. His remarkable life and career illustrate like few others the central issues of that century, especially the growing rift that would... More
Washington's Government
Charting the Origins of the Federal AdministrationWashington’s Government shows how George Washington’s administration—the subject of remarkably little previous study—was both more dynamic and more uncertain than previously thought. Rather than simply following a blueprint laid out by the Constitution, Washington and his advisors constructed over... More
The Papers of James Madison
Secretary of State Series, vol. 121 June 1806-31 October 1806Volume 12 of the Secretary of State Series covers June through October 1806, during which Madison waited in vain for his diplomatic initiatives with Great Britain, Spain, and France to yield results, and received mounting evidence of Aaron Burr’s suspicious activities in the West. Tensions with... More
The Papers of Robert Treat Paine, 1787-1814
The fifth and final volume of this series encompasses Robert Treat Paine’s time as a justice on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and covers the final years of his life. Best known as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Paine spent the remainder of his public career in state... More
Revolutionary Prophecies
The Founders and America’s FutureThe America of the early republic was built on an experiment, a hopeful prophecy that would only be fulfilled if an enlightened people could find its way through its past and into a future. Americans recognized that its promises would only be fully redeemed at a future date. In Revolutionary... More
Rival Visions
How Jefferson and His Contemporaries Defined the Early American RepublicThe emergence of the early American republic as a new nation on the world stage conjured rival visions in the eyes of leading statesmen at home and attentive observers abroad. Thomas Jefferson envisioned the newly independent states as a federation of republics united by common experience, mutual... More
The Papers of George Washington
Revolutionary War Series, vol. 2828 August–27 October 1780In late August 1780, Gen. George Washington was buoyed by expectations that French reinforcements would participate in an attack on New York City and that a southern army was poised to advance through South Carolina and possibly regain Charleston. News soon reached him that a key division was... More
Against Popery
Britain, Empire, and Anti-CatholicismAlthough commonly regarded as a prejudice against Roman Catholics and their religion, anti-popery is both more complex and far more historically significant than this common conception would suggest. As the essays collected in this volume demonstrate, anti-popery is a powerful lens through which to... More

Slavery, Freedom, and Expansion in the Early American West
Most treatments of slavery, politics, and expansion in the early American republic focus narrowly on congressional debates and the inaction of elite "founding fathers" such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In Slavery, Freedom, and Expansion in the Early American West, John Craig Hammond looks... More
The Selected Papers of John Jay
1794–1798Volume 6 opens with John Jay aboard the Ohio, bound for London in May 1794, to begin what will prove to be the most controversial mission of his career: the negotiation of the treaty that now bears his name. The volume documents the series of proposals and drafts that culminated in the treaty, as... More
First and Always
A New Portrait of George WashingtonGeorge Washington may be the most famous American who ever lived, and certainly is one of the most admired. While surrounded by myths, it is no myth that the man who led Americans’ fight for independence and whose two terms in office largely defined the presidency was the most highly respected... More
Yuletide in Dixie
Slavery, Christmas, and Southern MemoryHow did enslaved African Americans in the Old South really experience Christmas? Did Christmastime provide slaves with a lengthy and jubilant respite from labor and the whip, as is generally assumed, or is the story far more complex and troubling? In this provocative, revisionist, and sometimes... More
Conceived in Crisis
The Revolutionary Creation of an American StateConceived in Crisis argues that the American Revolution was not just the product of the Imperial Crisis, brought on by Parliament’s attempt to impose a new idea of empire on the American colonies. To an equal or greater degree, it was a response to the inability of individual colonial governments... More
The Papers of George Washington
22 September 1796-3 March 1797The concluding volume of the Presidential Series begins following the publication of Washington’s Farewell Address, which was circulated widely in newspapers and drew reactions from citizens across the nation. With his approaching retirement from the presidency, Washington tended to a number of... More
The Papers of James Madison
1 May 1816-3 March 1817, with a supplement, 1809-1815The final volume of the Presidential Series covers Madison’s last ten months in office, during which he maintained a busy schedule despite taking the longest summer vacation in all his time in Washington. Foreign policy was dominated by crises with Spain and Algiers. Negotiations with Great Britain... More