Government Documents

This once-top-secret document, dated 2 October 1963, is the first page of a report which is part of the "Pentagon Papers." Robert McNamara and Maxwell...

The following is the Opinion of the Naval Court of Inquiry which examined whether Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter C. Short were in d...

This Resolution, made by Richard Henry Lee and seconded by John Adams in the Second Continental Congress, brought the colonies a step closer to indepe...

The U.S. government allowed slave owners to seek-and-find runaways.  This text image depicts an example of advertisements, which owners published...

Free blacks who worked as seamen (during the years of American slavery) needed to prove they were not slaves.  To avoid capture, such men were gi...

In February of 1820, the U.S. Senate passed an amendment which would prohibit slavery in the newly purchased Louisiana territory.  An exception, ...

To resolve the issue of admitting Missouri as a "slave state," thereby ending the senatorial "balance of power" between "free and slave states," the S...

Since it became America's capital city, circa 1800, Washington City had slaves. This compendium includes laws impacting slavery in the District.

This letter, dated the 4th of April 1864, reflects President Lincoln's personal view of slavery.

Now contained in the U.S. National Archives, this facsimile document relates (via the Soviet Union) information on how China viewed America's involvem...

Image of a U.S. State Department memo detailing the Korean Ambassador's words of appreciation for American help in Korea. Click on the image for a be...

People who were opposed to Prohibition, and the Volstead Act which would enforce it, challenged the law in the federal courts. This article is one wh...