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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first printed in 1884, eight years after Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It starts up where the other story finished, and the two books together are believed to be the best that Mark Twain ever wrote. There are truths that Twain tries to get people to think about through this book. One is to make us laugh at some of the crazy things that we believe without any good reason to believe them; and the other is is to make us question the way that people thought about slaves at the time of the story, in America in the 1850s. This book has been written in easy-to-understand English, in order to help people learning English as a second language....

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He jumped up shouting, and the first thing the light showed was the snake coiled up for another jump at him.

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We investigate the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the current US Constitution versus the Articles of Confederation and examine the opinions of both the public and the new American aristocracy revealing the public perception of the new US Constitution. ...

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The founding generation certainly understood that the colonists of an empire could and would be treated as tax slaves or cannon fodder. This was the history of the Old World, and they had fought a revolution to escape such a fate. But the “nationalists,” led by men like Hamilton and centered in New York and New England, also understood that life could be quite grand for those who managed and ruled over an empire. That’s why his party—the Federalists—fought so hard and long for a much more powerful, consolidated, monopolistic government and for mercantilist economic policies. It should be made clear early on that the Federalists won many of the essential debates and the expanding American Empire is a direct result of the Federalists contributions to the US Constitution. As an example, it’s said that the framers believed in a living constitution, because they made explicit provisions for amending the Constitution of 1787. Yet most countries don’t straitjacket their operations with a single rigid document that can never be changed except through an onerous, time-consuming and ill-conceived amendment process that’s almost never succe...

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In 1848, Thoreau gave lectures at the Concord Lyceum entitled "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government". This formed the basis for his essay, which was first published under the title Resistance to Civil Government in 1849 in an anthology called Æsthetic Papers....

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S. Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845). In S. Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Woman in the Nineteenth Century: And, Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition and Duties. of Woman, Arthur B. Fuller ed. (New York: Greeley and McElrath, 1845), pp. 25-30....

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The sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké were not only outspoken abolitionists, denouncing the evils of slavery, but were early advocates for women's rights. In 1848, Angelina Grimké addressed a crowd at Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia, her last public speech. While she spoke, thousands gathered to protest, and attacked the hall, throwing stones and breaking its windows. Later that night, they burned the hall to the ground....

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An Eyewitness Account of the Flour Riot in New York (February 1837). First printed in the Commercial Register (New York, New York), February 14, 1837, and then in Niles' Weekly Register (Baltimore, Maryland), 5th series, voL 1, no. 26 (February 25, 1837), pp. 433-44....

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Here are the words of the pioneer African-American activist Maria Stewart. Stewart began writing and lecturing against slavery in the early 18302, despite pressure from peers to keep silent, and became a contributor to William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. In the 1833 speech, she advances the cause of abolition, but her comments ("we have planted the vines, they have eaten the fruits of them") speak also to sexism and the degradation of women's work. (Introduction from Voices of a People's History of the United States by Zinn and Arnove)...

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This document is a part of the Jefferson Papers Project, housed at the National Archives. “To Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Banneker, 19 August 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified November 26, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-22-02-0049. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22, 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791, ed. Charles T. Cullen. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 49–54.]...

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Henry Knox Letter to George Washington (October 23, 1786). In W. W. Abbott and Dorothy Twohig, eds., The Papers of George Washington: Confederation Series, Volume 4: April1786-January 1787, vol. 4 (Charlottesville, VA University Press of Virginia, 1995). pp. 299-302....

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By Thomas Paine; Published in 1776, Common Sense challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used spoke to the common people of America and was the first work to openly ask for independence from Great Britain....

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New York Mechanics Declaration of Independence (May 29, 1776). In Peter Force, ed., American Archives: Consisting of A Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and Other Notices of Publick Affairs, the Whole Forming a Documentary History of the Origin and Progress of At North American Colonies; of the Causes and Accomplishment of the American Revolution: and of the Constitution of Government for the United States, so the Final Ratification Thereof,'6 vols. (Washington, O.C.: M, St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force [Under Authoriry of Acts of Congress). 1646). 4th scr. (A Documentary History of the English Colonies in North America from the long's Message to Parliament, of March 7, 1774, to the Declaration of Independence, by the United States), vol. 6, pp. 614-15. Misspellings are in original....

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Joseph Clarke's Letter about the Rebellion in Springfield (August 30,1774). Letter to Major Joseph Hawley. In James Russell Trumbull, History of Northampton, Massachusetts, from la Settlement in 1654, vol. 2 (Northampton, MA: Gazette Printing Company, 1902), pp. 346-48....

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George Hewes Recalls the Boston Tea Party (1834). In Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds., The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by Participants (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 4-6....

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Samuel Drowne's Testimony on the Boston Massacre (March 16, 1770). In Anonymous, (Boston: Printed by Order of the Town of Boston by Gill, 1770), pp. 54-55....

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Thomas Hutchinson Recounts the Reaction to the Stamp Act in Boston (1765). In Thomas Hutchinson, ed. Lawrence Shaw Mayo (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1936), vol. 3, pp. 86-88, 89-90. The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay...

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Letter from William Shirley to the Lords of Trade (December 1, 1747). In Charles Henry Lincoln, ed., vol. 1 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912), pp. 412-17....

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Proclamation of the New Hampshire Legislature on Mast Tree Riot (1734). In Richard Hofstadter and Michael Wallace, eds., (New A. Knopf, 1970), pp. 110-11. From vol. 4, p. 678....

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(1677). In Charles M. Andrews, ed., (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), pp. 129-36. A True Narrative of the Rise, Progresse, and Cessation of the Late Rebellion in Virginia, Most Humbly and Impartially Reported by His Majestyes Commissioners Appointed to Enquire into the Affaires of the Said Colony Narratives of the Insurrections, 1675-1690...

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Published in "Akwesasne Notes", vol I, No. 7. July 1979.

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Testimony of Rita L. Schwerner (1964). In Mississippi Black Paper: Fifty-Seven Negro and White Citizens' Testimony of Police Brutality, the Breakdown of Law and Order and the Corruption of Justice in Mississippi (New York Random House, 1965), pp. 59-60,61, 62-63....