Constitution and Citizenship Day: Web Resources

Original copy of the 1777 Articles of Confederation with transcript and annotations. Ratified on 1781

The Constitution of the United States

The official version of the U.S. Constitution from the Government Printing Office website. Contains analysis and interpretation of the Constitution.

includes PDF copies of the Constitution in Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese

Contains 277 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Documents regarding Thomas Jefferson's drafting the Declaration of Independence.

This Web site provides links to materials digitized from the collections of the Library of Congress that supplement and enhance the study of these crucial documents.

Orginal copy of 1776 Declaration of Independence with transcript and annotations

Original copy of the 1787 United States Constitution with transcript and annotations

The Federalist Papers were a series of eighty-five essays urging the citizens of New York to ratify the new United States Constitution. Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, the essays originally appeared anonymously in New York newspapers in 1787 and 1788 under the pen name "Publius." The Federalist Papers are considered one of the most important sources for interpreting and understanding the original intent of the Constitution.

(The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy) Includes the Constitution of Confederate States of America, and other Confederate legal documents.

Includes: Journals of the Continental Congress; Eliot's The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution; and Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787

by Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute

Documentary history of the American Constitution by the Avalon Project at the Yale Law School

Document collection on Constitutional Precedents, Constitution and amendments, State Constitutions and Charters, Founding era documents.

Constitute offers access to the world’s constitutions so that users can systematically compare them across a broad set of topics

The framers of The Constitution of the United States chose population to be the basis for sharing political power, not wealth or land. This guide created by the Census Bureau includes teaching guides, activities, and historic census documents

Compilation of resources on the U.S. Constitution including judicial decisions, international constitution, and more

Correspondence and writings from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison

The papers of army officer and first U.S. president George Washington (1732-1799) held in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress constitute the largest collection of original Washington papers in the world. They consist of approximately 77,000 items accumulated by Washington between 1745 and 1799, including correspondence, diaries, and financial and military records. The collection documents Washington’s childhood education, his first career as a surveyor, his experiences as a militia colonel during the French and Indian War, his election as a Virginia delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses, his role as general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, his presidency of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, his two terms as president (1789-1797), and his retirement. Also documented is his management of Mount Vernon, his plantation home in Virginia, and the lives of his family, servants, and slaves.

Learn about the text, history, and meaning of the U.S. Constitution from leading scholars of diverse legal and philosophical perspectives.

James Madison (1751-1836) is one of 23 presidents whose papers are held in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The Madison Papers consist of approximately 12,000 items, spanning the period 1723-1859, captured in some 37,714 digital images. They document the life of the man who came to be known as the “Father of the Constitution” through correspondence, personal notes, drafts of letters and legislation, an autobiography, legal and financial documents, and his notes on the 1787 federal Constitutional Convention. The papers cover Madison’s years as a college student; as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Continental Congress, and Confederation Congress; as a delegate to the 1787 federal Constitutional Convention and the Virginia ratification convention of 1788; his terms in the House of Representatives, as secretary of state, and as president of the United States. Also documented are his retirement and the settlement of his estate; matters relating to his family, including his wife, Dolley Payne Madison; and his home, Montpelier, in Virginia.

The papers of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), diplomat, architect, scientist, and third president of the United States, held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, consist of approximately 25,000 items, making it the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Dating from the early 1760s through his death in 1826, the Thomas Jefferson Papers consist mainly of his correspondence, but they also include his drafts of the Declaration of Independence, drafts of Virginia laws; his fragmentary autobiography; the small memorandum books he used to record his spending; the pages on which for many years he daily recorded the weather; many charts, lists, tables, and drawings recording his scientific and other observations; notes; maps; recipes; ciphers; locks of hair; wool samples; and more.