Anla201 Brochure 2024

Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès
Département d’Études du Monde Anglophone
UE ANLA201T Civilisation américaine

INTERPRETATIONS CONTEMPORAINES
DE TEXTES FONDATEURS ETASUNIENS
Recueil de documents
Responsable : Claire Anchordoqui (claire.anchordoqui@univ-tlse2.fr)
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Table des matières
Avant-propos à lire avant le premier cours ........................................................................................ 3
Méthodologie du commentaire de texte ............................................................................................... 7
Part 1 - Colonial America, Independence, and the Idea(ls) of a New Nation ................................ 12
HISTORICAL CONTEXT ............................................................................................................. 12
TEXT 1 - “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America” .................. 16
TEXT 2 - “'A Pledge to America', released by the Republican Party on September 23, 2010, at
a hardware store in Sterling, Virginia. .......................................................................................... 18
Part 2 – From Colonies to States ........................................................................................................ 20
TEXT 3 - The US Constitution ....................................................................................................... 24
TEXT 4 - Dora Mekouar. “Today’s Democracy Isn’t Exactly What Wealthy US Founding
Fathers Envisioned”. VoaNews, January 24, 2021. ...................................................................... 27
Part 3 – Race and the Original American Compromise .................................................................. 30
TEXT 5 - “Barack Obama’s Speech on Race”. The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2008. ............... 33
TEXT 6 - Therese Shanks. “Are vaccine mandates constitutional?”. The Nevada Independent,
September 21st, 2021....................................................................................................................... 36
Part 4 – Puritanism in New England ................................................................................................. 39
Text 7 - “John Winthrop Dreams of a City on a Hill, 1630”, The American Yawp ................... 40
Text 8 - Daniel T. Rodgers, “What we get wrong about ‘a city on a hill’. And why we need to
rediscover its real meaning.” The Washington Post, November 13, 2018. ................................. 43
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Avant-propos à lire avant le premier cours
Cher.es étudiant.es,
Dans ce cours de civilisation américaine de la formation LEA, vous allez être amené.es
à analyser les discours d’hommes et de femmes politiques américain.es, prononcés dans un
contexte contemporain. Vous verrez que ces discours contemporains mobilisent ce que l’on
appelle les textes et les mythes fondateurs de la nation américaine. Par exemple, dans un
discours de mars 2008, le sénateur de l’Illinois, Barack Obama, alors candidat à la présidence
des États-Unis pour le parti démocrate, rappelle l’importance de la Constitution américaine,
adoptée en 1787 et ratifiée en 1789, et la façon dont elle protège les citoyen.nes américain.es
d’une forme arbitraire du pouvoir de l’exécutif américain, par l’intervention du Congrès
américain :
J’ai enseigné le droit constitutionnel pendant dix ans, je prends la Constitution très au sérieux.
Les problèmes les plus graves auxquels nous faisons face actuellement sont liés à la façon dont
George Bush essaye d’accumuler de plus en plus de pouvoir au sein de l'exécutif sans passer
par le Congrès. Et c’est une tendance que j’ai l’intention d’inverser lorsque je deviendrai
président des États-Unis.
Sans les citer explicitement, le sénateur démocrate et candidat Obama renvoie implicitement ici
aux articles 2 et 3 de la Constitution (1787-1789) et utilise ce renvoi implicite à ce texte
fondateur pour critiquer la politique du président en poste, du parti républicain, George W. Bush
(2001-2009). Il ne s’agit pas uniquement pour l’étudiant.e de repérer cette référence implicite.
L’objet de ce cours est de demander à l’étudiant.e d’analyser la façon dont un candidat à la
présidence américaine en 2008, ici Barack Obama, mobilise un texte écrit plus de 200 ans plus
tôt (1787/1789) pour construire et légitimer, dans le contexte des élections présidentielles de
2008, sa candidature à la plus haute fonction américaine, celle du président des États-Unis.
Ce cours de civilisation américaine de première année de la Licence LEA vous invite

donc à explorer l’histoire des États-Unis à travers ses textes fondateurs et la façon dont ces
textes, pensés et écrits jusqu’au 18e siècle, sont fréquemment mobilisés, réinterprétés et adaptés
pour répondre à des problématiques contemporaines au début du 21e siècle. Il s’agit dans ce
cours, comme le titre de la brochure l’indique, d’analyser les interprétations contemporaines
des textes fondateurs étatsuniens. Cette brochure comporte donc des textes qui attireront votre
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attention sur les conséquences actuelles de choix, de pratiques et d’événements passés. Ils vous
permettront ainsi de mieux saisir l’ambition de ce cours de civilisation américaine : pouvoir
acquérir des connaissances historiques afin de parvenir à une compréhension plus fine des sujets
d’actualité relatifs aux États-Unis.
Il ne s’agit pas pour autant uniquement d’assimiler du/des contenus pour les restituer de
manière mécanique lors d’un examen sur un semestre. Il s’agit d’acquérir des connaissances
(maîtrise des faits historiques et des concepts ou notion) et de les mettre au profit des attendus
et des compétences méthodologiques et linguistiques comme vous le faites dans tous les
enseignements de toute la Licence LEA. Ce cours est inscrit dans le programme des
enseignements de civilisation en langue anglaise de la formation LEA. Il vise à vous
accompagner dans l’acquisition de connaissances qui contribueront à enrichir votre culture
d’angliciste ou de spécialiste de langue anglaise dans la formation LEA. En tant qu’étudiant.e
de la formation LEA, vous devez avoir une connaissance des enjeux institutionnels des pays
anglophones. Ce cours fait également le lien entre les enseignements de civilisation de la
Licence 1, et ceux de la Licence 2 et de la Licence 3. En d’autres termes, vous réutiliserez les
connaissances et les méthodologies de ce cours en 2e et 3e année de la Licence. Vous devez
donc apprendre à transférer un savoir et une compétence d’un cours d’une matière à l’autre (de
la grammaire à la civilisation), mais également d’un semestre à l’autre (le cours de civilisation
de la L1 et celui de la L2), voire d’un niveau à l’autre (du cours de civilisation au mémoire de
stage de la L3 LEA).
Il convient donc de ne pas envisager la première année comme une fin en soi, mais
comme une année préparatrice aux deux autres années de la Licence. Ce que vous travaillez
dans ce cours, aussi bien la thématique, que la méthodologie ou les attentes en matière
d’exigence linguistique vous serviront notamment dès le premier semestre de la Licence 2. Il
vous faut donc constamment faire le lien entre les différents cours de la formation, car ils ont
été pensés de manière complémentaire. La première année est l’occasion de consulter, si vous
ne l’avez pas déjà fait, les contenus des enseignements d’anglais de la formation LEA sur le
site de l’université.
Votre travail régulier tout au long de ce semestre doit vous permettre de mémoriser des
connaissances factuelles (dates-clés, noms de lieux, noms de personnes, concepts…), mais
votre travail ne doit pas se limiter à cela. Vous devez surtout être capable de mobiliser ces
connaissances factuelles pour identifier les enjeux des débats qui seront examinés, les
dynamiques, les points de vue défendus, en veillant à les contextualiser au regard des questions
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contemporaines. Pour vous aider dans cette tâche, les textes de cette brochure sont, pour la
plupart, suivis de questions et d’une liste de termes-clés (« identification terms ») pour vous
accompagner dans la lecture de ces textes. Il va sans dire que votre travail ne doit pas se limiter
à savoir simplement définir les termes-clés dont vous chercheriez la définition sur Internet (pour
rappel, Internet n’est pas une source, mais le moyen d’accéder à une ressource). Nous vous
rappelons ici qu’il vous faut saisir l’opportunité de la Licence 1 LEA pour développer des
pratiques et des méthodes de travail que vous pourrez réinvestir en Licence 2 et particulièrement
en L3, où vous devrez rédiger un mémoire de stage de 25 pages dans lequel vous allez mobiliser
des sources fiables et de qualité pour analyser une problématique spécifique de votre expérience
de stage. Parallèlement, il faut profiter de la 1ère année de Licence pour lire régulièrement la
presse de référence anglophone (Washington Post, LA Times, New York Times…). En plus de
vous habituer à lire un anglais journalistique de qualité, cela vous apportera un éclairage
précieux sur les différentes problématiques abordées dans le cours. Cela vous apportera
l’éclairage attendu d’un.e étudiant.e qui fait le choix de s’inscrire dans une formation destinée
à amener les étudiant.es à se projeter vers l’international et les cultures étrangères passées et
contemporaines. Cela vous permettra également de prendre le temps du semestre pour vous
approprier le langage journalistique et la structuration du discours écrit que vous retrouverez
dans le sujet d’examen.
Conformément aux modalités de contrôle de connaissances affichées, vous serez

évalués de deux façons : en cours de semestre, une évaluation d’une heure quarante-cinq qui
consistera en un commentaire de texte accompagné de questions ; et lors de la dernière séance
de cours, d’un commentaire de texte guidé. L’analyse du commentaire doit être pertinente et
organisée, ce qui suppose une étude détaillée du texte en amont correspondant au travail
préparatoire que vous aurez effectué tout au long du semestre. Une fois cette étude achevée,
vous devrez trouver le fil directeur de votre analyse (la problématique) puis un plan qui vous
permettra de présenter vos idées de manière organisée, en suivant une progression logique.
Ainsi, votre devoir devra comporter une introduction, un développement (en deux ou trois
parties), suivi d’une conclusion. Vous trouverez un rappel de la méthodologie du commentaire
au début de cette brochure, afin d’avoir une idée plus claire de l’objectif vers lequel vous devez
tendre.
Nous rappelons enfin ici que la formation LEA est une formation, entre autres, de
spécialistes de langues. Il vous faut donc veiller à la qualité́ de la langue anglaise écrite dès la
Licence 1. Il faut en effet prendre l’habitude, dès la première année de cette Licence d’enrichir
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et de complexifier le vocabulaire que vous mobilisez dans les exercices demandés. Dès la
première année de Licence, il faut prendre l’habitude de ne pas utiliser des termes trop simples
et trop vagues et imprécis, tels que « good », « bad », « great », « big », « huge », « nice », «
people », « thing », « speak about », « talk about ». Plus vous vous entraînerez dès la première
année à mobiliser un vocabulaire plus riche, plus graphique et moins subjectif, plus vous
développerez des automatismes à mobiliser un vocabulaire riche et objectif. Le contenu
pédagogique des UE d’anglais du premier semestre a été pensé, notamment dans l’UE 107, de
manière à combler vos éventuelles lacunes grammaticales. Il est attendu au semestre 2 une très
bonne maîtrise de la grammaire anglaise de base, comme indiqué sur le site de la formation
LEA. Il faut donc prendre, dès la première année, l’habitude de ne pas dissocier le fond et la
forme, en d’autres termes de penser à ce que l’on lit et à la façon dont ce que l’on lit est écrit,
de manière, à termes, à penser à ce que vous écrivez et à la façon dont vous l’écrivez.
En cas de questions, n’hésitez pas à contacter Claire ANCHORDOQUI par email à

l’adresse indiquée ci-dessous.
Toute l’équipe enseignante vous souhaite une excellente lecture et un bon semestre.
Claire ANCHORDOQUI, responsable du module de civilisation américaine, Email :

claire.anchordoqui@univ-tlse2.fr
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Méthodologie du commentaire de texte
La méthodologie proposée dans cette brochure fait office de complément à celle que
vous avez mise en place lors de vos cours d’Expression écrite et de Civilisation britannique du
premier semestre. Conservez précieusement les brochures de vos cours d’expression écrite et
de grammaire du premier semestre : elles contiennent les outils méthodologiques et
grammaticaux nécessaires à votre réussite dans la Licence LEA. La méthodologie proposée
dans cette brochure sera complétée par les conseils de votre enseignant·e tout au long du
semestre ; nous vous conseillons de mettre tout en œuvre afin de vous l’approprier au plus vite.
Le commentaire en civilisation vise à expliquer les références utilisées dans un texte

afin que quelqu’un qui n’en a aucune connaissance puisse le comprendre. L’exercice requiert
ainsi la maîtrise et l’articulation :
- de la langue anglaise : afin d’éviter toute interprétation erronée et de prêter attention

à ce qui est expliqué et comment,
- des contextes historique, politique et souvent économique du texte,
- de l’auteur et de ses idées politiques et économiques,
- des institutions étasuniennes.
Avant toute chose, nous attirons votre attention sur la nécessité de saisir toutes les
opportunités qui s’offrent à vous afin d’améliorer votre niveau de langue.
1. Travail préparatoire au brouillon
Certains étudiants ont parfois tendance à lire un texte en pensant, consciemment ou

inconsciemment, à ce à quoi la copie finale va ressembler. Certains étudiants pensent également
à tort qu’il est attendu d’eux qu’ils restituent ce qu’ils ont compris du texte ou qu’ils montrent
aux correcteurs qu’ils ont des connaissances. Si ces démarches semblent rassurantes pour
désamorcer la peur de la “copie blanche”, elles oublient le fait que les correcteurs évaluent la
façon dont les étudiants mobilisent leurs connaissances pour examiner un texte donné. Ces
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démarches oublient également le travail et les étapes préparatoires à un commentaire. Ce travail
et ces étapes sont détaillés ci-après.
a. Le paratexte
Avant toute chose, vous devez analyser le paratexte, c’est-à-dire les informations que
vous retrouverez « à côté » du texte. Le plus souvent, le paratexte vous permettra de développer
les informations suivantes :
Le titre du document guide votre compréhension du contenu du texte. Au brouillon,

analysez la forme et le contenu du titre du document afin d’anticiper au mieux le contenu.
Le contexte : afin de réaliser un commentaire de texte, il convient de se saisir de la

manière dont les contemporains pouvaient le comprendre. Il s’agit de la date de publication
du texte étudié. Les dates d’événements mentionnés dans le texte sont, le plus souvent,
expliquées plus tard dans les développements. Ainsi, le contexte à développer dans
l’introduction n’est que le contexte antérieur à la publication du texte étudié. Le futur immédiat
est à réserver pour la conclusion. L’auteur n’ayant aucun talent divinatoire, il ne pouvait pas
connaître le futur. Attention, il ne s’agit pas de dérouler tout son savoir sur toute la période qui
est vaguement en lien avec le texte, mais de mentionner uniquement et brièvement les
évènements historiques permettant d’éclairer l’intérêt du texte. Des questions fondamentales
sont à se poser : Qui était le président des États-Unis à cette date ? Quel était son parti politique
? Quels étaient les enjeux principaux de l’époque ? Quels éléments de contexte pourraient
éclairer la compréhension du sujet principal du texte ?
L’auteur qui a écrit le texte. S’il s’agit d’un auteur connu, ne déroulez pas sa biographie
mais choisissez les éléments de sa vie qui permettent d’éclairer le texte. Lorsque l’auteur est
inconnu, il reste parfois possible de déduire sa fonction, son métier ou sa position sociale grâce
au reste du paratexte. Demandez-vous quel est le point de vue de l’auteur et comment ses
expériences de vie/son travail ont pu influencer ses idées.
La source du document : Comme pour l’auteur et le contexte, prenez soin de bien

sélectionner les informations relatives à la source. Si le texte est un article tiré d’un journal
américain connu, vous devez connaître des informations telles que le parti pris politique de la
ligne éditoriale.
Le type de document (légal, gouvernemental, discours politique, article de presse,

extrait de roman, extrait de journal, pamphlet, essai, [document iconographique (caricature,
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cartoon, peinture …)]. La nature du texte implique des précautions de lecture différentes. Dans
le cas d’un discours par exemple, il conviendra de faire particulièrement attention à son but
premier ainsi qu’au public auquel l’auteur s’adresse.
b. Le texte
Après avoir anticipé les informations à partir du paratexte, lisez le texte afin d’en
extraire des informations globales et détaillées. Le texte confirme-t-il le sujet principal et les
problèmes que vous aviez anticipés à partir du paratexte ?
Le sujet principal est à différencier de l’idée principale du texte. Alors que le sujet
demeure vague, l’idée est le point de vue de l’auteur sur la question. Cette idée doit être
explicitée, dans votre introduction, sous la forme d’une phrase affirmative faisant référence à
l’auteur. Lors de votre lecture du texte, pensez à noter les idées principales de chaque
paragraphe ainsi qu’à sélectionner des citations qui vous paraissent importantes. Les idées
principales peuvent parfois se retrouver dans plusieurs paragraphes. Le cas échéant, il faudra
vous demander pourquoi l’auteur a fait le choix de la répétition.
c. Écrire un brouillon d’introduction
Le commentaire de texte se compose de trois éléments distincts : l’introduction, le

développement et la conclusion. L’introduction est le plus important ; elle montre
immédiatement si votre analyse se tient. Pour rappel, votre introduction doit inclure:
Une phrase d’accroche : il s’agit généralement d’une phrase qui permet d’ancrer
d’emblée votre étude dans le contexte historique général relatif au sujet du document étudié.
Attention toutefois aux phrases toutes faites ou trop générales.
Des informations plus précises quant au contexte.
La présentation du texte, de son auteur et de sa source.
L’idée principale du texte.
La problématique : elle porte souvent sur le point de vue général de l’auteur du texte.
Une bonne problématique se trouve au carrefour entre contexte, source, auteur et idée
principale. Elle peut se poser sous forme de question qui inclut une mention de l’auteur et/ou
du texte et refléter votre ligne d’interprétation.
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L’annonce de plan : Chaque partie de votre devoir doit traiter un aspect de la
problématique annoncée. Attention : n’écrivez jamais à la première personne, préférez des
tournures impersonnelles et le passif.
d. Écrire un brouillon de conclusion
Avant de commencer l’écriture “au propre" de votre devoir, nous vous conseillons
d’écrire une ébauche complète de la conclusion. Cela vous permettra de ne pas oublier les
conclusions vers lesquelles vous souhaitez mener votre étude. Qui plus est, à la fin du devoir
sur table final, vous serez fatigués et pourrez passer en « pilote automatique » pour recopier
votre conclusion. La conclusion doit:
Répondre à votre problématique.
Récapituler vos arguments principaux.
Proposer une ouverture : ce n’est qu’à ce moment de votre devoir que vous ne pouvez
avoir recours au contexte postérieur à la publication du document étudié, si et seulement s’il
permet d’éclairer des problématiques soulevées dans votre étude. Attention toutefois aux bons
chronologiques.
2. La rédaction de votre devoir
Vous pouvez désormais passer à l’écriture de votre devoir. L’organisation de votre

commentaire doit être progressive : commencez du plus simple et allez vers le plus compliqué.
Chaque partie doit être divisée en paragraphes, sautez une ou deux lignes entre chaque partie.
Vos paragraphes doivent contenir des explications de citations du texte. Ces dernières se
déroulent en cinq temps :
1) Introduisez la citation
2) Réécrivez la citation et indiquez la ligne
3) WHAT: Résumez, en vos propres mots, le contenu de la citation choisie. Attention à

ne pas arrêter vos analyses à ce stade sous peine de faire de la paraphrase tout au long de votre
devoir.
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4) HOW: Interprétez les références : vous devez identifier les mots-clés ainsi que les
références dans le texte et vous les définir au brouillon afin de pouvoir les expliquer dans votre
commentaire.
5) WHY: Pourquoi l’auteur a-t-il utilisé le passage/la référence du texte que vous avez
sélectionné? Quel est l’effet produit par cette citation ?
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Part 1 - Colonial America, Independence, and the Idea(ls) of a
New Nation
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Extract from The Enduring Vision - A History of the American People (Joseph F. Kett Clifford-
E Jr Clark, Paul S Boyer, Houghton Mifflin, 2007, p.126, pp.134-135, pp.143-149).
Anglo-American Friction
During the Seven Years’ War [British Secretary of State William]
[1756– 1763], British officers regularly Pitt’s promise to reimburse the colonial
complained about colonial troops, not only assemblies for their military expenses
their inability to fight but also their angered many in Britain, who concluded
tendency to return home—even in the midst that the colonists were escaping scot-free
of campaigns—when their terms were up or from the war’s financial burden. Colonists
when they were not paid on time. For their had profited enormously from the war, as
part, colonial soldiers complained of British military contracts and spending by British
officers who, as one put it, treated their troops brought an influx of British currency
troops “but little better than slaves”. into the hands of farmers, artisans, and
merchants. Some merchants had even
Tensions between British officers
traded with the French enemy during
and colonial civilians also flared. Officers
wartime. Meanwhile, Britain’s national
complained about colonists being unwilling
debt nearly doubled during the war, from
to provide food and shelter while
£72 million to over £132 million. Whereas
AngloAmericans resented the officers’
in 1763 the total debt of all thirteen colonies
arrogant manners. One general groused that
amounted to £2 million, the interest charges
South Carolinians were “extremely pleased
alone on the British debt came to more than
to have Soldiers to protect their Plantations
£4 million a year. This debt was assumed by
but will feel no inconveniences for them.”
British landowners through a land tax and,
Quakers in the Pennsylvania assembly,
increasingly, by ordinary consumers
acting from pacifist convictions, refused to
through excise duties on such everyday
vote funds to support the war eff ort, while
items as beer, tea, salt, and bread.
assemblies in New York and Massachusetts
opposed the quartering of British troops on Colonists felt equally burdened.
their soil as an encroachment on English Those who profited during the war spent
liberties. English authorities regarded such their additional income on British imports,
actions as affronts to the crown and as the annual value of which doubled during
undermining Britain’s efforts to defend its the war. Thus, the war accelerated the
territories. AngloAmerican “consumer revolution” in
which colonists’ purchases of British goods
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fueled Britain’s economy, particularly its groups of men entered into a “social
manufacturing sector. But when peace contract,” under which they formed
returned in 1760, the wartime boom in the governments for the sole purpose of
colonies ended as abruptly as it had begun. protecting those individual rights. A
To maintain their lifestyles, many colonists government that encroached on natural
went into debt. [Many] recently prosperous rights, then, broke its contract with the
colonists suddenly found themselves people. In such cases, people could resist
overloaded with debts and, in some cases, their government, although Locke
bankrupt. As colonial indebtedness to cautioned against outright rebellion except
Britain grew, some Americans began to in the most extreme cases. To many colonial
accuse the British of deliberately plotting to readers, Locke’s concept of natural rights
“enslave” the colonies. appeared to justify opposition to arbitrary
legislation by Parliament. Colonists also
The ascension to the British throne
read European writers who emphasized
of King George III (ruled 1760–1820) at age
excessive concentrations of executive
twenty-two reinforced Anglo-American
power as tyrannical threats. Some of them
tensions. The new king was determined to
developed a set of ideas termed
have a strong influence on government
“republican,” in which they balanced
policy, but neither his experience, his
Locke’s emphasis on individual rights with
temperament, nor his philosophy suited him
an emphasis on the good of the people as a
to the formidable task of building political
whole. “Republicans” especially admired
coalitions and pursuing consistent policies.
the sense of civic duty that motivated
Until 1774, George III made frequent abrupt
citizens of the Roman republic. Like the
changes in government leadership that
early Romans, they maintained that a free
destabilized politics in Britain and
people had to avoid moral and political
exacerbated relations with the colonies. […]
corruption, and practice a disinterested
“public virtue.” An elected leader of a
republic, one author noted, would command
Ideology, Religion, and Resistance obedience “more by the virtue of the people,
The Stamp Act [1765] and the than by the terror of his power.” […]
conflicts around it revealed a chasm
between Britain and its colonies that startled
AngloAmericans. For the first time, some of Toward Independence, 1774–1776
them critically reconsidered the imperial
The calm that followed the Boston
relationship. To put their concerns into
Tea Party proved to be a calm before the
perspective, educated colonists turned to the
storm. The incident inflamed the British
works of philosophers, historians, and
government and Parliament, which now
political writers. Many more, both educated
determined once and for all to quash
and uneducated, looked to religion. By the
colonial insubordination. Colonial political
1760s, many colonists were familiar with
leaders responded with equal determination
the political writings of European
to defend self-government and liberty. The
Enlightenment thinkers, particularly John
empire and its American colonies were on a
Locke […]. Locke argued that humans
collision course, leading by spring 1775 to
originated in a “state of nature” in which
armed clashes. Yet even after blood was
each man enjoyed the “natural rights” of
shed, colonists hesitated before declaring
life, liberty, and property. Thereafter,
their independence from Britain. […] The
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“Intolerable Acts” Following the Boston housing troops. […] Along with the
Tea Party, Lord North fumed that only appointment of General Thomas Gage,
“New England fanatics” could imagine Britain’s military commander in North
themselves oppressed by inexpensive tea. A America, as governor of Massachusetts, the
member of Parliament drew wild applause “Intolerable Acts” convinced Anglo-
by declaring that the town of Boston ought Americans that Britain was plotting to
to be knocked about by the ears, and abolish traditional English liberties
destroy’d.” In vain the Americans’ throughout North America. […] Intended
supporter, Edmund Burke, pleaded for the by Parliament simply to punish
one action that could end the crisis. “Leave Massachusetts and particularly that rotten
America…to tax herself…Leave the apple in the barrel, Boston—the acts instead
Americans as they anciently stood.” The pushed most colonies to the brink of
British government, however, swiftly rebellion. Repeal of these laws became, in
asserted its authority by enacting four effect, the colonists’ nonnegotiable
“Coercive Acts” that […] became known to demand. Of the twenty-seven reasons
colonists as the “Intolerable Acts.” The first justifying the break with Britain that
of the Coercive Acts, the Boston Port Bill, Americans later cited in the Declaration of
became law on April 1, 1774. It ordered the Independence, six concerned these statutes.
navy to close Boston harbor unless the town […]
arranged to pay for the ruined tea by June 1.
Lord North’s cabinet deliberately imposed
this impossibly short deadline to ensure the Common Sense
harbor’s closing, which would lead to
serious economic distress. The second Despite the turn of events, many
Coercive Act, the Massachusetts colonists clung to hopes of reconciliation.
Government Act, revoked the […] Through 1775, many colonists clung to
Massachusetts charter and restructured the the notion that evil ministers rather than the
government. Th e colony’s upper house king were forcing unconstitutional
would no longer be elected annually by the measures on them. But with George III
assembly but instead be appointed for life having declared the colonies to be in “open
by the crown. The governor would and avowed rebellion . . . for the purpose of
independently appoint all judges and establishing an independent empire,”
sheriffs, while sheriffs would appoint Anglo-Americans had no choice but either
jurymen, who previously had been elected. to submit or to acknowledge their goal of
Finally, towns could hold no more than one national independence. Most colonists’
meeting a year without the governor’s sentimental attachment to the king, the last
permission. […] The third of the new acts, emotional barrier to their accepting
the Administration of Justice Act, which independence, finally crumbled in January
some colonists cynically called the Murder 1776 with the publication of Thomas
Act, permitted any person charged with Paine’s Common Sense. […] Paine told
murder while enforcing royal authority in Americans what they had been unable to
Massachusetts (such as the British soldiers bring themselves to say: monarchy was an
indicted for the Boston Massacre) to be tried institution rooted in superstition, dangerous
in England or in other colonies. Finally, a to liberty, and inappropriate to Americans.
new Quartering Act went beyond the earlier […] Whereas previous writers had
act of 1765 by allowing the governor to maintained that certain corrupt politicians
requisition empty private buildings for were directing an English conspiracy
14
against American liberty, Paine argued that of the phrase “pursuit of happiness” in place
such a conspiracy was rooted in the very of “property” in the Declaration’s most
institutions of monarchy and empire. famous sentence [.] Like Paine, Jefferson
Moreover, he argued, America had no elevated the colonists’ grievances from a
economic need for the British connection. dispute over English freedoms to a struggle
As he put it, “The commerce by which she of universal dimensions. In the tradition of
[America] hath enriched herself are the Locke and other Enlightenment figures,
necessaries of life, and will always have a Jefferson argued that the English
market while eating is the custom in government had violated its contract with
Europe.” In addition, he pointed out the the colonists, thereby giving them the right
events of the preceding six months had to replace it with a government of their own
made independence a reality. Finally, Paine design. And his eloquent emphasis on the
linked America’s awakening nationalism equality of all individuals and their natural
with the sense of religious mission felt by entitlement to justice, liberty, and self-
many when he proclaimed, “We have it in fulfillment expressed republicans’ deepest
our power to begin the world over again. A longing for a government that would rest on
situation, similar to the present, hath not neither legal privilege nor exploitation of
happened since the days of Noah until the majority by the few. […] Was the
now.” America, in Paine’s view, would be Declaration of Independence a statement
not only a new nation but a new kind of that expressed the sentiments of all but a
nation, a model society founded on minority of colonists? In a very narrow
republican principles and unburdened by sense it was, but by framing the Declaration
the oppressive beliefs and corrupt in universal terms, Jefferson and the
institutions of the European past. […] Continental Congress made it something
Common Sense had dissolved lingering much greater. […] For better or worse, the
allegiance to George III and Great Britain, struggle for national independence had
removing the last psychological barrier to hastened, and become intertwined with, a
American independence. quest for equality and personal
independence that, for many Americans,
transcended boundaries of class, race, or
Declaring Independence gender. In their reading, the Declaration
never claimed that perfect justice and equal
By spring 1776, Paine’s pamphlet, opportunity existed in the United States;
reinforced by the growing reality of war, rather, it challenged the Revolutionary
had stimulated dozens of local gatherings— generation and all who later inherited the
artisan guilds, town meetings, county nation to bring this ideal closer to reality.
conventions, and militia musters—to pass
resolutions favoring American
independence. […] The task of drafting a
statement to justify the colonies’ separation
from England fell to a committee of fi ve,
including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin,
and Thomas Jefferson, with Jefferson as the
principal author. Among Congress’s
revisions to Jefferson’s first draft : insertion
15
TEXT 1 - “The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United
States of America”
On July 2, 1776, after months of deliberation and while directing battle in the colonies and Canada, the
Second Continental Congress voted to declare the “united States of America” separate and independent
from Britain. On July 4, the Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration, written primarily
by Thomas Jefferson. Copies were immediately printed and distributed throughout the colonies and the
continental troops. On July 9, with the approval of the last colony, New York, the Declaration became
the “unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” On August 2, 1776, the printed
Declaration was signed by most of the congressional delegates, the final signature affixed in 1781 by
the New Hampshire delegate.
In Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve
the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers
of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
5 entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
10 Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form
of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be
15 changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind
are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
20 their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now
the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. […]
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress,
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do,
in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
25 declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection
between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as
Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract
Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States
30 may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection
16
of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our
sacred Honor.
Study Questions
Look at the paratext and answer the questions below:
1) What type of document is it?
2) Who wrote the text? In whose names?
3) When was this text approved by Congress?
4) What was the political context at the time?
5) From the document entitled “Context: From Colonial America to Independence, to
the Idea(ls) of a New Nation”, select the additional contextual elements that you believe would
be relevant to understand Text 1.
Read the text carefully and answer the questions below:

1) What is the purpose of the first paragraph?
2) What principles are outlined in the second paragraph?
3) What reasons are given for moving toward independence?
4) Where does the authority of the U.S. Congress stem from?
5) List the references to God. What do they suggest?
6) What new political status was chosen by the signatories of the Declaration? What
does this indicate?
7) What powers did the new country claim?
8) When did Britain officially recognize the United States?
Identification terms: American Revolution ; Thomas Jefferson ; Natural Rights ; Popular

Sovereignty
17
TEXT 2 - “'A Pledge to America', released by the Republican
Party on September 23, 2010, at a hardware store in Sterling,
Virginia.
America is more than a country.

America is an idea – an idea that free people can govern themselves, that government’s powers
are derived from the consent of the governed, that each of us is endowed by their Creator with
the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America is the belief that any
5 man or woman can – given economic, political, and religious liberty – advance themselves,
their families, and the common good.
America is an inspiration to those who yearn to be free and have the ability and the dignity to
determine their own destiny.
Whenever the agenda of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
10 people to institute a new governing agenda and set a different course.
These first principles were proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, enshrined in the
Constitution, and have endured through hard sacrifice and commitment by generations of
Americans.
In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent 15 of
15 the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not
consent.
An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined
to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down
longstanding laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people.
20 An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues
mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many.
Rising joblessness, crushing debt, and a polarizing political environment are fraying the bonds
among our people and blurring our sense of national purpose.
Like free peoples of the past, our citizens refuse to accommodate a government that believes it
25 can replace the will of the people with its own. The American people are speaking out,
demanding that we realign our country’s compass with its founding principles and apply those
principles to solve our common problems for the common good.
The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people
cannot be overstated.
30 With this document, we pledge to dedicate ourselves to the task of reconnecting our highest
aspirations to the permanent truths of our founding by keeping faith with the values our nation
was founded on, the principles we stand for, and the priorities of our people. This is our Pledge
to America.
18
Study Questions

2) Where is it taken from?
3) When was the document released? Find as much information as you can about the 2010
political context. Write down the sources you use to collect information on the context.
4) Who are the authors? What difference can be made between “republican” as explained
in the extract from The Enduring Vision and “Republican” as in the Republican Party?

5) What is the aim of the document?
6) What is the main idea of the text?
7) Analyze the following segment: “that each of us is endowed by their Creator with the
unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (l.2-3)
8) What American principles are particularly cherished by the authors? Explain.
19
Part 2 – From Colonies to States
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Extract from The Enduring Vision - A History of the American People (Joseph F. Kett Clifford-E Jr
Clark, Paul S Boyer, Houghton Mifflin, 2007, pp.171-172, p.177, pp.179-180).
From Colonies to States a demagogue, property owners supposedly

had the financial means and the education to
Before 1776, colonists had regarded
vote freely and responsibly. Nine of the
their popularly elected assemblies as the
thirteen states slightly reduced property
bulwark of their liberties against
requirements for voting, but none abolished
encroachments by governors wielding
such qualifications entirely. […]
executive power. Thereafter, the
legislatures retained that role even when Despite the holdover of certain
voters, rather than the British crown, chose colonialera practices, the state constitutions
governors. in other respects departed radically from the
past. Above all, they were written
In keeping with colonial practice,
documents that usually required popular
eleven states maintained bicameral (two-
ratification and could be amended only by
chamber) legislatures. Colonial legislatures
the voters. In short, Americans jettisoned
had consisted of an elected lower house (or
the British conception of a constitution as a
assembly) and an upper house (or council)
body of customary arrangements and
appointed by the governor or chosen by the
practices, insisting instead that constitutions
assembly […]. These two-part legislatures
were written compacts that defined and
mirrored [the UK’s] Parliament’s division
limited the powers of rulers. Moreover, as a
into the House of Commons and House of
final check on government power, the
Lords, symbolizing the assumption that a
Revolutionary constitutions spelled out
government should have separate
citizens’ fundamental rights. By 1784, all
representation by the upper class and the
state constitutions included explicit bills of
common people.
rights that outlined certain freedoms that lay
Despite participation by people from beyond the control of any government. […]
all classes in the struggle against Britain,
Despite their high regard for
few questioned the long-standing practice
popularly elected legislatures,
of setting property requirements for voters
Revolutionary leaders described themselves
and elected officials. In the prevailing view,
as republicans rather than democrats. These
the ownership of property, especially land,
words had different connotations in the
gave voters a direct stake in the outcome of
eighteenth century than they do today. To
elections. Whereas propertyless men might
many elites, democracy suggested mob rule
vote toplease landlords, creditors, or
or, at least, the concentration of power in the
employers, sell their votes, or be fooled by
hands of an uneducated multitude. In
20
contrast, republicanism presumed that The Articles did not provide for an
government would be entrusted to virtuous independent executive branch. Rather,
leaders elected for their superior talents and congressional committees oversaw
commitment to the public good. For most financial, diplomatic, military, and Indian
republicans, the ideal government would affairs, and resolved interstate disputes. Nor
delicately balance the interests of different was there a judicial system by which the
classes to prevent any one group from national government could compel
gaining absolute power. allegiance to its laws. The Articles did
eliminate all barriers to interstate travel and
trade, and guaranteed that all states would
Formalizing a Confederation, 1776– 1781 recognize one another’s judicial decisions.
[…] As in their revolt against

Britain and their early state constitutions,
Toward a New Constitution, 1786– 1788
Americans’ first national government
reflected widespread fears of centralized Despite the nation’s general
authority and its potential for corruption and prosperity outside New England, a growing
tyranny. It also reflected their strong minority was dissatisfied with the
attachments to their states (the former Confederation for various reasons.
colonies) and the states’ elected Bondholders, merchants, and shippers
legislatures, as opposed to the newly wanted a central government powerful
declared nation. enough to secure trading privileges for them
abroad and to strengthen America’s
In 1776, John Dickinson, who had
standing in the Atlantic economy. Land
stayed in the Continental Congress despite
speculators and western settlers sought a
having refused to sign the Declaration of
government that would pursue a more
Independence, drafted a proposal for a
activist policy against Spain, Britain, and
national constitution. Congress adopted a
Native Americans in the West, and prevent
weakened version of Dickinson’s proposal,
citizens there from defecting. Urban
called the Articles of Confederation, and
artisans hoped for a national government
sent it to the states for ratification in 1777.
that could impose uniformly high tariff s
[…]
and thereby protect them from foreign
The Articles of Confederation competition. Meanwhile, wealthy elites
explicitly reserved to each state—and not to decried state governments that refused to
the national government—"its sovereignty, clamp down on debtors and delinquent
freedom and independence.” The “United taxpayers, many of whom were organizing
States of America” was no more than “a resistance movements.
firm league of friendship” among sovereign
Impatience turned to anxiety in 1786
states, much like today’s European Union.
[...] A national convention called to
As John Adams later explained, Congress
consider amendments to the Articles instead
never thought of “consolidating this vast
proposed a radical new frame of
Continent under one national Government”
government, the Constitution. In 1788, the
but instead erected “a Confederacy of
states ratified the Constitution, setting a
States, each of which must have a separate
bold new course for America.
government.” […]
21
The Philadelphia Convention, 1787 convention’s great stumbling block: the
question of representation. The Virginia
In May 1787, fifty-five delegates
Plan would have given the four largest
from every state but Rhode Island began
states a majority in both houses. Under the
gathering at the Pennsylvania State House
New Jersey Plan, the seven smallest states,
in Philadelphia, later known as
which included just 25 percent of all
Independence Hall. Among them were
Americans, could have controlled
established figures like George Washington
Congress. By July 2, the convention had
and Benjamin Franklin, as well as talented
arrived “at a full stop,” as one delegate put
newcomers such as Alexander Hamilton
it. Finally, a “grand committee,” consisting
and James Madison. Most were wealthy and
of one delegate from each state, proposed
in their thirties or forties, and nineteen
the Great (or Connecticut) Compromise,
owned slaves. More than half had legal
whereby each state would have an equal
training. […]
vote in the upper house while representation
The first debate among the delegates in the lower house would be based on
concerned the conflicting interests of large population. Although Madison and the
and small states. James Madison of Virginia Virginians doggedly opposed this
boldly called for the establishment of a compromise, it passed on July 17. As finally
strong central government rather than a approved on September 17, 1787, the
federation of states. Madison’s Virginia Constitution of the United States […] was
Plan gave Congress virtually unrestricted an extraordinary document, and not merely
powers to legislate, levy taxes, veto state because it reconciled the conflicting
laws, and authorize military force against interests of large and small states. In
the states. As one delegate immediately contrast to the Articles of Confederation,
saw, the Virginia Plan was designed “to the Constitution provided for a vigorous
abolish the State Govern[men]ts national authority that superseded that of
altogether.” The Virginia Plan specified a the states in several significant ways. […]
bicameral legislature and fixed
To allay the concerns of more
representation in both houses of Congress
moderate delegates, the Constitution’s
proportionally to each state’s population.
framers devised two means of restraining
The voters would elect the lower house,
the power of the new central government.
which would then choose delegates to the
First, in keeping with republican political
upper chamber from nominations submitted
theory and the state constitutions, they
by the legislatures. Both houses would
established a separation of powers among
jointly name the country’s president and
the national government’s three distinct
judges. Madison’s scheme aroused
branches— executive, legislative, and
immediate opposition, however, especially
judicial; and second, they designed a system
his call for state representation according to
of checks and balances to prevent any one
population—a provision highly favorable to
branch from dominating the other two. In
his own Virginia.
the bicameral Congress, states’ equal
On June 15, William Paterson of representation in the Senate was offset by
New Jersey offered a counterproposal, the proportional representation, by population,
socalled New Jersey Plan, which in the House; and each chamber could block
recommended a single-chamber congress in measures approved by the other.
which each state had an equal vote, as under Furthermore, where the state constitutions
the Articles. The two plans exposed the had deliberately weakened the executive,
22
the Constitution gave the president the Not only did the state legislatures have a
power to veto acts of Congress; but to key role in electing the president and
prevent abuse of the veto, Congress could senators, but the Constitution could be
override the president by a two-thirds amended by the votes of three-fourths of the
majority in each house. The president could states.
conduct diplomacy, but the Senate had to
Thus, the convention departed
ratify treaties. The president appointed a
sharply from Madison’s plan to establish a
cabinet, but only with Senate approval. The
“consolidated” national government
president and any presidential appointee
entirely independent of, and superior to, the
could be removed from office by a joint
states. A key assumption behind federalism
vote of Congress, but only for “high
was that the national government would
crimes,” not for political disagreements.
limit its activities to foreign affairs, national
[…]
defense, regulating interstate commerce,
In addition to checks and balances, and coining money. Most other political
the founders devised a system of shared matters would be left to the states.
power and dual lawmaking by the national Regarding slavery in particular, each state
and state governments— “federalism”—in retained full authority.
order to place limits on central authority.
23
TEXT 3 - The US Constitution
Preamble (1787)
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
5 Constitution for the United States of America.
The Bill of Rights (1791)

[...] THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the
Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that
10 further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of
public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution. [...]
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
15 peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people
to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
20 No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner,
nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
25 probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a
presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces,
30 or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person
be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation.
35 Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an
impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and
24
cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
40 process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his
defence.
Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right
of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in
45 any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual
punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
50 The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
25
Study Questions
1) What is a Constitution? Do not copy-paste the definition you find. Rephrase it with your
own words. Write down the sources you use to find the definition.
2) When was the U.S. Constitution drafted? From the document entitled “ ‘Context: From
Colonies to States’ to the United States”, select the additional contextual elements that
you believe would be relevant to understand the US Constitution.
3) Why was it drafted?
4) Who wrote the text? In whose names?
5) What does the U.S. Bill of Rights refer to?
6) Why was it added?
7) What is the purpose of the Fifth Amendment?
8) What is the purpose of the Ninth Amendment?
9) What is the purpose of the Tenth Amendment?
Identification terms: Popular sovereignty ; Republican system of government ; Federalists v.

Antifederalists ; James Madison ; Federalism ; Bill of Rights ; George Washington
26
TEXT 4 - Dora Mekouar. “Today’s Democracy Isn’t Exactly
What Wealthy US Founding Fathers Envisioned”. VoaNews,
January 24, 2021.
America’s Founding Fathers were among the wealthiest people in the Colonies when
they drafted and signed the Constitution, and that’s pretty much who they expected to continue
to guide the young nation.
5 “It was never meant to be a sort of direct democracy, where all Americans would get
to cast a ballot on all issues,” says Andrew Wehrman, an associate professor of history at
Central Michigan University. “The vote itself, they thought, ought to be reserved for people of
wealth and education, but they certainly didn't want to restrict all those other kinds of political
participation.”
10 The founders expected the common people, the poor and uneducated, to participate
indirectly, through their local government, at town halls and meetings and through protest
actions like boycotts.
Some of the founders were particularly concerned about populism and mob rule. “These
were the kinds [of people] that thought that democracy was a dirty word. Even John Adams
15 said stuff like that. He didn't want poor people to vote, he didn't want women to vote,” Wehrman
says.
Bruce Kuklick, a professor of American history emeritus at the University of
Pennsylvania, says the framers of the Constitution had a very different idea of democracy than
Americans do today.
20 “The founders didn't want this sort of democracy at all. The Constitution is written so
that citizenship rights are very, very limited,” he says. “They worried about democracy ... It
was a bad form of government because once you let everybody participate, then you're likely
to elect a demagogue. You're likely to have people come to power who appeal to the frenzy of
the masses. That idea is long gone.”
25 Wehrman points out that the framers of the Constitution saw to it that only one part of
one branch of the federal government, the House of Representatives, is popularly elected by the
people. The Electoral College chooses the president, the commander in chief selects the
Supreme Court justices and, originally, senators were selected by state legislatures.
“It's another attempt to kind of whittle away at the direct participation of a large group
30 of people in the political process,” Kuklick says. “So there are all these other constraints that
they write into the Constitution to shore up what they think might be a leaky vessel, where too
many ignorant, poor people get the right to vote.” It was only after the 1913 ratification of the
17th Amendment to the Constitution that U.S. senators were elected by direct popular vote.
“Clearly, the Constitution was written and enacted to pull back some of the actions that
35 were taken by state legislatures. People like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton thought
that the state legislatures and voters in most states had gone too far, that too many people were
participating in politics, too many people were voting,” says Wehrman.
27
For example, New Jersey gave the right to vote to residents who could reach a certain
property ownership threshold. This included women and African Americans, who were able to
40 vote from 1776 until 1807, when the state restricted voting rights to white men.
“They (the founders) thought that there were too many voices in the state legislatures,
that states were becoming too radical, that they were beholden to the interests of the common
man, when they needed to be more reserved and more accommodating to wealthy, educated
business-interest types,” Wehrman says.
45 So what would people like Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and the other framers of
the Constitution think about America today? “I think they would all be sort of delighted that
the general framework that they created is still in action,” Wehrman says.
And they might even be open to change. After all, they did write in a process for
changing or amending the Constitution. They even availed themselves of that process with the
50 ratification in 1804 of the 12th Amendment, which established separate Electoral College votes
for president and vice president. The tweak kept political adversaries from opposing parties
from serving in the same administration as president and vice president.
Even so, Kuklick says, the Founding Fathers would be considered reactionaries by
today’s standards.
55 “[They] didn't want what came to be,” Kuklick says. “And one of the amazing
transformations of the United States in the 19th century is that we go from having this very,
very limited view of participation by the people in the government, to the one that people just
60 now completely accept as being the democratic way.”
Although democracy in action today might not be exactly what the founders envisioned,
60 money and power do continue to play a vital role in U.S. politics. And, given that the vast
majority of American presidents have been independently wealthy, the founders’ aim of
reserving a prominent place in government for the rich has essentially been realized.
28
Study Questions
3) When was the document released? Find as much information as you can about the
context.
4) Who is the author?
5) What is the source of this document?
1) What is the aim of the document?
2) What is the main idea of the text?
9) Explain the underlined passage (l.24-27). How has representation to the three branches
of government evolved?
10) Analyze the segment “America’s Founding Fathers were among the wealthiest people
in the Colonies when they drafted and signed the Constitution, and that’s pretty much
who they expected to continue to guide the young nation.” (l.1-3)
Identification terms: John Adams ; Separation of powers ; Checks and balances ; Alexander
Hamilton
29
Part 3 – Race and the Original American Compromise
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Extract from The Enduring Vision - A History of the American People (Joseph F. Kett CliffordE
Jr Clark, Paul S Boyer, Houghton Mifflin, 2007, pp.180-181).
The Philadelphia Convention, 1787 Representing states that had begun

ending slavery, northern delegates opposed
A key assumption behind federalism
giving southern states a political advantage
was that the national government would
by allowing them to count people who had
limit its activities to foreign affairs, national
no civil or political rights. As Madison—
defense, regulating interstate commerce,
himself a slave owner—observed, “it
and coining money. Most other political
seemed now to be pretty well understood
matters would be left to the states.
that the real difference of interests lay, not
Regarding slavery in particular, each state
between the large & small [states] but
retained full authority.
between the N. & South.” But aft er Georgia
The dilemma confronting the and South Carolina threatened to secede if
Philadelphia convention centered not on their demands were not met, northerners
whether slavery would be allowed but only agreed to the “three-fifths clause,” allowing
on the much narrower question of whether three-fifths of all slaves to be counted for
slaves should be counted as persons when it congressional representation and, thereby,
came to determining a state’s representation in the electoral college.
at the national level. For most legal
The Constitution also reinforced
purposes, slaves were regarded not as
slavery in other ways. Most notably, it
persons but rather as the chattel property of
forbade citizens of any state, even those that
their owners, meaning that they were on a
had abolished slavery, to prevent the return
par with other living property such as horses
of escaped slaves to another state. The
and cattle. But southern states saw their
Constitution limited slavery only to the
large numbers of slaves as a means of
extent of prohibiting Congress from
augmenting their numbers in the House of
banning the importation of slaves before
Representatives and in the electoral
1808, and by maintaining Congress’s earlier
meetings (“colleges”) that would elect the
ban on slavery in the Northwest Territory.
nation’s presidents. So strengthened, they
hoped to prevent northerners from ever
abolishing slavery.
30
De Witte, Melissa, “When Thomas Jefferson penned “all men are created equal,” he did not
mean individual equality, says Stanford scholar.” Stanford News, July 1, 2020. Accessed
December 5, 2020: https://news.stanford.edu/2020/07/01/meaning-declaration-
independencechanged-time/.
In the decades following the Declaration of Independence, Americans began reading the
affirmation that “all men are created equal” in different ways than the framers intended, says
Stanford historian Jack Rakove.1
On July 4, 1776, when the Continental Congress adopted the historic text drafted by
Thomas Jefferson, they did not intend it to mean individual equality. Rather, what they declared
was that American colonists, as a people, had the same rights to self-government as other
nations. Because they possessed this fundamental right, Rakove said, they could establish new
governments within each of the states and collectively assume their “separate and equal station”
with other nations. It was only in the decades after the American Revolutionary War that the
phrase acquired its compelling reputation as a statement of individual equality.
Here, Rakove reflects on this history and how now, in a time of heightened scrutiny of
the country’s founders and the legacy of slavery and racial injustices they perpetuated,
Americans can better understand the limitations and failings of their past governments.
With the U.S. confronting its history of systemic racism, are there any problems
that Americans are reckoning with today that can be traced back to the Declaration of
Independence and the U.S. Constitution?
I view the Declaration as a point of departure and a promise, and the Constitution as a
set of commitments that had lasting consequences – some troubling, others transformative. The
Declaration, in its remarkable concision, gives us self-evident truths that form the premises of
the right to revolution and the capacity to create new governments resting on popular consent.
The original Constitution, by contrast, involved a set of political commitments that recognized
the legal status of slavery within the states and made the federal government partially
responsible for upholding “the peculiar institution.” As my late colleague Don Fehrenbacher
argued, the Constitution was deeply implicated in establishing “a slaveholders’ republic” that
protected slavery in complex ways down to 1861.
But the Reconstruction amendments of 1865-1870 marked a second constitutional
founding that rested on other premises. Together they made a broader definition of equality part
of the constitutional order, and they gave the national government an effective basis for
challenging racial inequalities within the states. It sadly took far too long for the Second
Reconstruction of the 1960s to implement that commitment, but when it did, it was a fulfillment
of the original vision of the 1860s.
As people critically examine the country’s founding history, what might they be
surprised to learn from your research that can inform their understanding of American
history today?
1
“Rakove is the William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and professor of political
science, emeritus, in the School of Humanities and Sciences. His book, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in
the Making of the Constitution (1996), won the Pulitzer Prize in History. His new book, Beyond Belief, Beyond
Conscience: The Radical Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion will be published next month.”
31
Two things. First, the toughest question we face in thinking about the nation’s founding
pivots on whether the slaveholding South should have been part of it or not. If you think it
should have been, it is difficult to imagine how the framers of the Constitution could have
attained that end without making some set of “compromises” accepting the legal existence of
slavery. When we discuss the Constitutional Convention, we often praise the compromise
giving each state an equal vote in the Senate and condemn the Three Fifths Clause allowing the
southern states to count their slaves for purposes of political representation. But where the
quarrel between large and small states had nothing to do with the lasting interests of citizens –
you never vote on the basis of the size of the state in which you live – slavery was a real and
persisting interest that one had to accommodate for the Union to survive.
Second, the greatest tragedy of American constitutional history was not the failure of
the framers to eliminate slavery in 1787. That option was simply not available to them. The real
tragedy was the failure of Reconstruction and the ensuing emergence of Jim Crow segregation
in the late 19th century that took many decades to overturn. That was the great constitutional
opportunity that Americans failed to grasp, perhaps because four years of Civil War and a
decade of the military occupation of the South simply exhausted Northern public opinion. Even
now, if you look at issues of voter suppression, we are still wrestling with its consequences.
[…]
32
TEXT 5 - “Barack Obama’s Speech on Race”. The New York
Times, 18 Mar. 2008.
The following is the text as prepared for delivery of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race
in Philadelphia, as provided by his presidential campaign.
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty-one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a
group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable
experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across
5 an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence
at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was
stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought
the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at
10 least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our
Constitution – a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the
law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and
should be perfected over time.
15 And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or
provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of
the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were
willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through
a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the
20 promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue
the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free,
more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in
history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve
25 them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different
stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come
from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for
our children and our grandchildren. […]
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from
30 owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black
homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the
police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful
wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap
between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of
35 today’s urban and rural communities. […]
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my
faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old
33
racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more
perfect union. […]
40 This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can
always be perfected. […] [I]t is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so
many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty-one
years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection
begins.
34
Study Questions
3) When was the document released? Find as much information as you can about the
context.
4) Who is the author? Who was he at the time?
5) Where was this speech given? Why is that location important?
6) Introduce the text in a short paragraph according to the method seen in class
7) Explain the sentence lines 4-6 using appropriate historical references.
8) Explain the significant phenomena mentioned in paragraph 5. Provide relevant data
with reference to your booklet to situate the issues referred to.
9) Explain the quote "this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the
colonies"
10) What does the author refer to with the expression “some of our old racial wounds”
(l37-38)?
11) Sum up the solutions proposed by the author (paragraphs 6 to 9) relating them to the
terms featuring in the founding documents of the USA, and to the definition of the
social contract.
Identification terms: Slave trade ; Slavery in the United States ; Legalized discrimination
35
TEXT 6 - Therese Shanks. “Are vaccine mandates
constitutional?”. The Nevada Independent, September 21st, 2021.
URL: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/are-vaccine-mandates-constitutional Therese

Shanks is an attorney at Fennemore, working in the Business Litigation practice group in Reno.
She possesses extensive appellate experience and has successfully handled numerous appeals
before the Nevada Supreme Court, Nevada Court of Appeals, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
and the United States Supreme Court.
Last week, President Biden issued executive orders requiring certain federal employees
and contractors to be vaccinated. On September 14, 2021, Gov. Sisolak signed emergency
regulations that require all Department of Corrections employees and certain healthcare
workers to be vaccinated. As a lawyer with nearly ten years of experience practicing
5 constitutional law at the appellate level, I’ve been repeatedly asked the same question: Are these
mandates constitutional?
There are four types of vaccine mandates currently in play and the answers vary:
Can a state constitutionally issue a vaccine mandate? Yes.
Can a state constitutionally prohibit vaccine mandates? Yes, probably.
10 Can the federal government constitutionally require its employees to be vaccinated?
Yes, probably.
Can the federal government constitutionally require that every American citizen be
vaccinated? I do not know.
Here’s what you need to know.
15 As of 120 years ago, states can mandate vaccinations
In 1905, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Boston’s
smallpox vaccine mandate as a constitutional exercise of the state’s police power. Jacobson has
not been overruled, which means it is still law. Many state courts have relied on Jacobson to
reject challenges to mask and vaccine mandates.
20 Nevada is among those states. Recently, in Blandino v. Eighth Judicial District Court,
the Nevada Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to a mask mandate and relied on Jacobson to
find that the mandate was enforceable. While Blandino did not pertain to mandatory
vaccination, earlier Nevada cases have cited vaccine mandates with approval. For example, in
a 2003 case, Kirkpatrick v. Eighth Judicial Court, the Nevada Supreme Court indicated that
25 school vaccine mandates for children are enforceable. Even prior to Jacobson, the 1904 Nevada
Supreme Court in In re Boyce noted that compulsory vaccination of children is an enforceable
state decision.
The Supreme Court is refusing to enter the fray
36
The current U.S. Supreme Court has consistently and repeatedly stated that it is not
30 going to get involved in the vaccine or mask mandate debate. Since the first South Bay United
Pentecostal Church v. Newsom appeal in May 2020, the majority conservative block of the
Supreme Court (Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Barrett) have stated
on many occasions that the high court does not consist of “public health experts” competent to
address issues of “medical and scientific uncertainty” and that courts should generally defer to
35 the states when it comes to pandemic-related public health measures. These statements have
been consistently repeated by the Supreme Court in every pandemic related appeal since, to
wit: Calvary Chapel v. Sisolak (July 2020), Andino v. Middleton (October 2020), Democratic
National Committee v. Wisconsin State Legislature (October 2020), Roman Catholic Dioceses
v. Cuomo (November 2020), Food & Drug Administration v. American College of
40 Obstetricians and Gynecologists (January 2021); and South Bay United Pentecostal Church v.
Newsom (February 2021). Last month, Justice Barrett denied an appeal challenging the Seventh
Circuit Court of Appeals’ finding that the Indiana state university system’s vaccine and mask
mandate was constitutional.
What does this mean?
45 If the Supreme Court is not going to overrule Jacobson, as it appears is the case, that
indicates that a state can rely upon Jacobson to issue reasonable vaccine mandates. But this also
means that a state may be able to prohibit vaccine mandates. Under the Tenth Amendment, if
the Constitution does not prohibit a state from doing something, the state can do it. The Supreme
Court’s deference to the states in this matter indicates that the current court believes pandemic
50 public-health restrictions are a matter of state’s rights under the Tenth Amendment. Should
Nevada implement vaccine mandates, the Supreme Court is therefore not likely to overturn it.
What does this mean for the federal government? If the Supreme Court does not weigh
in on debate, the federal government can likely require its employees to be vaccinated.
However, whether the federal government can issue a nationwide mandate is completely
55 unclear. If this really is a question of states’ rights, the current court might step in and prevent
a nation-wide mandate. It might also choose to remain uninvolved, which is why my answer to
question four at the outset of this piece was “I don’t know.”
What is clear is that your geography, and not necessarily the Constitution, may be what
defines your rights regarding vaccine mandates
37
Study Questions
3) Why was Nevada important during the 2020 presidential elections? Explain.
4) Introduce the text in a short paragraph according to the method seen in class.
5) What is Jacobson v. Massachusetts?
6) What is In re Boyce?
7) Explain the difference between the elements you have defined in the two previous
questions.
8) What is the main issue in this text?
9) Explain the following quote: “The Supreme Court’s deference to the states in this
matter indicates that the current court believes pandemic public-health restrictions
are a matter of state’s rights under the Tenth Amendment”. (l.48-50)
10) Analyze the last two lines of the document: “What is clear is that your geography,
and not necessarily the Constitution, may be what defines your rights regarding
vaccine mandates.”(l.59-60)
Identification terms : Supreme Court ; Justices (Supreme Court) ; States’ rights ; Mandate
38
Part 4 – Puritanism in New England
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Extract from The Enduring Vision - A History of the American People (Joseph F. Kett Clifford-
E Jr Clark, Paul S Boyer, Houghton Mifflin, 2007, pp.59-60).
Separatist Puritans had established conducted according to the Book of

Plymouth in 1620 (see Chapter 2), but Common Prayer, which prescribed rituals
Plymouth was dwarfed after 1630 when a similar to Catholic practices. Bishops
massive Puritan-led “Great Migration” to dismissed Puritan ministers who refused to
New England began. By the time England’s perform these rites, and church courts fined
civil war halted the migration in 1642, about or excommunicated Puritans who protested.
twenty-one thousand settlers had arrived. In the face of such harassment, a group of
The newcomers established the colonies of wealthy Puritans successfully petitioned the
Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, New crown for a charter to colonize at
Haven (absorbed by Connecticut in 1662), Massachusetts Bay, north of Plymouth, in
and Rhode Island. New England’s leaders March 1629. Organizing as the
endeavored to build colonies based on Massachusetts Bay Company, they sent
religious and social ideals. Although four hundred colonists to Salem,
internal divisions and social-economic Massachusetts. Like Plymouth,
change undermined these ideals, Puritanism Massachusetts Bay would be a
gave New England a distinctive regional Puritandominated, self-governing colony
identity. New England offered a sharp rather than one controlled from England
contrast to the Chesapeake colonies. The by stockholders, proprietors, or the crown.
religious foundations, economies, social In 1630, eleven ships and seven hundred
structures, local communities, families, and passengers under Governor John Winthrop
living standards in the two regions differed arrived at the new capital of Boston, where
completely. Chesapeake and New England Winthrop distributed an essay (perhaps
colonists did, however, share English already delivered as a shipboard address)
nationality and a determination to expand at titled “A Model of Christian Charity.” In it,
Native Americans’ expense. he boldly declared that Massachusetts
“shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all
A City upon a Hill
people are upon us.” The settlers would
After becoming king in 1625, build a harmonious, godly community in
Charles I reversed James’s policy of which individuals would subordinate their
tolerating Puritans. Beginning a systematic personal interests to a higher purpose. The
campaign to eliminate Puritan influence result would be an example for all the world
within the Church of England, Anglican and would particularly inspire England to
authorities insisted that services be live up to its role as God’s “elect nation”.
39
Text 7 - “John Winthrop Dreams of a City on a Hill, 1630”, The
American Yawp
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” in A Library of American Literature: Early

Colonial Literature, 1607-1675, Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson,
eds. (New York: 1892), 304-307.
John Winthrop delivered the following sermon before he and his fellow settlers reached
New England. The sermon is famous largely for its use of the phrase “a city on a hill,” used to
describe the expectation that the Massachusetts Bay colony would shine like an example to the
world. But Winthrop’s sermon also reveals how he expected Massachusetts to differ from the
rest of the world. […]
Question: What rule must we observe and walk by in cause of community of peril?
Answer: The same as before, but with more enlargement towards others and less respect
towards ourselves and our own right. Hence it was that in the primitive Church they sold all,
had all things in common, neither did any man say that which he possessed was his own.
5 Likewise in their return out of the captivity, because the work was great for the restoring of the
church and the danger of enemies was common to all, Nehemiah directs the Jews to liberality
and readiness in remitting their debts to their brethren, and disposing liberally to such as wanted,
and stand not upon their own dues which they might have demanded of them. Thus did some
of our forefathers in times of persecution in England, and so did many of the faithful of other
10 churches, whereof we keep an honorable remembrance of them; and it is to be observed that
both in Scriptures and latter stories of the churches that such as have been most bountiful to the
poor saints, especially in those extraordinary times and occasions, God hath left them highly
commended to posterity…
Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for
15 this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own
articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends.
We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear
us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed
our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we
20 shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and,
dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal
intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out
in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach
of such a covenant.
25 Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow
the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end,
we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly
affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’
necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience
30 and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together,
mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and
community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit
40
in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own
people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more
35 of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We
shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of
our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding
plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we
shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely
40 with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help
from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths
of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame
the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses
upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.
45 And to shut this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the
Lord, in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30. “Beloved, there is now set before us life and death,
good and evil,” in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one
another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his ordinance and his laws,
and the articles of our Covenant with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the
50 Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it.
But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and
worship other Gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this
day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess
it.
55 Therefore let us choose life,
that we and our seed may live,
by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him,
for He is our life and our prosperity.
41
Study Questions
3) When was the document released? From the document entitled “Context: Putritanism
in New England”, select the additional contextual elements that you believe would be
relevant to understand Winthrop’s text.
4) Who was the author? How does this help you understand the type of document at stake?
5) What is the main goal of this text?
6) What do you think Winthrop is referencing when he says “shipwreck” (l.26)? Is he
referencing an actual shipwreck? Explain.
7) Why do you think Winthrop used the words “same body” (l.33) to illustrate how the
Puritans should live?
8) Explain the phrase “we shall be as a city upon a hill” (l.39-40)?
Identification terms: Puritans Massachusetts ; Bay Colony ; New England
42
Text 8 - Daniel T. Rodgers, “What we get wrong about ‘a city on a
hill’. And why we need to rediscover its real meaning.” The
Washington Post, November 13, 2018.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/13/what-we-get-wrong-about-city-
hill/?outputType=amp#aoh=16351696563649&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com
&_tf=Source%C2%A0%3A%20%251%24s
How fares America in the eyes of the world?

Not well.
In the Pew Research Center’s most recent multinational poll, almost as many
respondents (43 percent) held an unfavorable view of the United States as a favorable one (50
5 percent). Many more people think it is “bad” that American ideas and customs are spreading
into their country than “good.” American ideas about democracy are disliked more than they
are admired, not only in autocratic societies but also in the world’s other democracies. And the
negatives are growing.
These trends should make Americans uneasy. But many Americans will be upset for the
10 wrong reason: because they have imbibed a historical myth about the United States. That myth
— that America was specially chosen to be the moral leader of the world — has contributed to
an unrealistic and self-absorbed sense of themselves and the world around them.
The myth allegedly originated on the flagship of the Puritan expedition to New England
where, in words which would become a household expression centuries later, Gov. John
15 Winthrop exhorted his fellow voyagers that they would be “as a city upon a hill” in America.
The “eyes of all people” would be upon them; they would be a magnet for the world’s
imagination. Moral leadership of the globe, Winthrop is said to have announced, belonged to
Americans by their very birthright.
Although it is widely known now, the story is a fable invented centuries after the fact.
20 And it is a myth that distorts Winthrop’s words in ways that are crucial to remember when so
much of the world has doubts about the United States.
At its heart, Winthrop’s text was not a sermon about future glory. It was a radical
exhortation to love and fellow-feeling, a plea to lay aside self-interest when the social good
demanded it. He had worked out its core phrases months before he boarded the ship, in a
25 meeting of the projects’ investors where he had insisted that the normal rules of market
capitalism should not apply to a venture as sacred and precarious as this. Most important,
Winthrop’s “city on a hill” was not a site of radiance but a place of exposure, open to the sight
of critics, where any slip would make the new settlement a “story and a byword through the
world.” In Winthrop’s words of 1630, scrutiny was the condition of living in a city on a hill.
30 No one recorded hearing Winthrop’s now famous words. He sent a copy for circulation
in England, but within a generation, his “Model of Christian Charity” had been forgotten.
43
In the era of the Revolution and afterward, Americans cast off many of Winthrop’s
doubts and began to imagine their experience might, in fact, be a beacon to the world. “The
birthday of a new world is at hand,” Tom Paine wrote in February 1776, pressing the case for
35 independence 14 months after arriving in the colonies from London. By 1790, he had taken the
same words and enthusiasm to France, whose revolution, unlike the American one, was truly a
magnet for political imaginations from around the world.
But just as Paine traveled between nations and revolutions, so did aspirations for moral
leadership. The 19th-century world of imperial nationalism reverberated with claims of nations’
40 40 divinely given missions. Americans’ talk of their “manifest destiny” to expand the benefits
of civilization across the continent and seas fit into this pattern as wholly unexceptional.
While Winthrop’s “Model of Christian Charity” was on no one’s mind, “city on a hill”
was still a common phrase. To preachers, the words stood for the community of Christian
believers. For newspaper writers, it stood for anything conspicuous by its example: a well-
45 managed college on the positive side, a notorious tavern on the other. Former slaves brought
the language of the “city on a hill” to Liberia, where they knew the capacity of African-descent
people to construct a lasting republic would be under the severest scrutiny of a racist world. But
in none of these cases was Winthrop’s text mentioned.
It was only in the 1950s that some historians began to treat Winthrop’s “city on a hill”
50 speech as an important moment in American history. And not until the Cold War did any
prominent political figure apply the phrase to the United States.
Only with Ronald Reagan’s campaign for the presidency in 1980 did the claim that
Winthrop had anticipated the future leadership role of the United States become a central trope
in American speech. Reagan had picked up Winthrop’s words in 1969 to rally support for a
55 tougher stand against rebellious students at home and Communist aggression abroad. Reagan’s
White House speechwriters would hone them into a synonym for American greatness and
tagline for Reagan himself.
Reagan’s usage turned the concept of a city on a hill into a familiar part of patriotic
speech. U.S. history textbooks now invariably include the story of Winthrop’s shipboard
60 speech. Virtually all of Reagan’s successors latched onto this imagery, using the phrase “city
on a hill” as words of reassurance long after U.S. global hegemony had peaked and begun to
decline.
In the four decades since Reagan’s victory, conservatives and liberals alike have made
it a rallying point. In 2010, now-national security adviser John Bolton chastised President
65 Barack Obama for not understanding that the seeds of American exceptionalism had been sown
in Winthrop’s prescient words of 1630. Four years earlier, however, in a speech in Boston, it
was Obama himself, skirting by the other origin moments in American history — the Virginia
settlements and their tobacco and slave labor foundations, the Spanish missions, the Dutch
commercial traders — who told listeners: “It was right here, in the waters around us, that the
70 American experiment began.” It was right here, he added, that the dream of building “a city
upon a hill” took root.
But while used by writers and politicians of all persuasions, this resurrected city on a
hill was not Winthrop’s. Gone were the doubts, the fear of the world’s scrutiny if the “city”
erred, that had marked Winthrop’s actual speech. Instead, the city on a hill had become radiant,
44
75 “shining,” a hopeful vision for all of humankind. In Reagan’s speeches it was “a tall, proud
city” “teeming with people of all kinds,” a “light” and a “beacon,” a “magnet” for people “from
all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.” Like Winthrop’s call
to critical self-scrutiny, his caution against love of self were also gone. His words had been
forgotten, and then, in the act of rediscovery, had been filled with wholly new meanings. By
80 the turn of the 21st century, they had become words of reassurance. They were a mythic way
of imagining that the world’s admiration for which Americans longed and the position of moral
leadership they increasingly feared was slipping away from them in a multipolar world — that
all this was theirs, thanks to their history’s original promise.
All texts and phrases change meanings over time. What makes the story of Winthrop’s
85 85 city on a hill significant is not simply what it reveals about the winding, unexpected paths
of history. Winthrop’s “eyes of all people are upon us” should remind us what the sudden rise
of the United States to world leadership in the generation after 1945 obscures: that the moral
leadership of the world does not belong to Americans by right or inheritance. It is not a gift or
a premonition of 1630. It must be earned though our actions now, in a world that, more than 90
90 ever in recent memory, is skeptical of Americans’ capacity to do so.
45
Study Questions
1) Write a full introduction.
2) Why does the author make references to Winthrop’s founding text?
3) What are the main ideas of each paragraph?
4) Select three quotes from this text and analyze them using the methodology seen in
class.
Identification terms: Pew Research Center ; American Revolution ; Thomas Paine ; Manifest
Destiny ; Liberia ; the Cold War ; Ronald Reagan ; Patriotism ; American exceptionalism
46
End-of-the-semester practice: analyze the following segments
Election Eve Address "A Vision for America"
Ronald Reagan (3 November 1980)
"[...] I have quoted John Winthrop's words more than once on the campaign trail this year—for
I believe that Americans in 1980 are every bit as committed to that vision of a shining "city on
a hill," as were those long ago settlers. ... These visitors to that city on the Potomac do not come
as white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or
Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what
for them is still…a shining city on a hill. [...]
Commencement Address at the University of Massachusetts Boston

U.S. Senator Barack Obama (2 June 2006)
"[...] It was right here, in the waters around us, where the American experiment began. As the
earliest settlers arrived on the shores of Boston and Salem and Plymouth, they dreamed of
building a City upon a Hill. And the world watched, waiting to see if this improbable idea called
America would succeed. More than half of you represent the very first member of your family
to ever attend college. In the most diverse university in all of New England, I look out at a sea
of faces that are AfricanAmerican and Hispanic-American and Asian-American and Arab-
American. I see students that have come here from over 100 different countries, believing like
those first settlers that they too could find a home in this City on a Hill - that they too could find
success in this unlikeliest of places. [...]"
47

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Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès

Département d’Études du Monde Anglophone

UE ANLA201T Civilisation américaine

Responsable : Claire Anchordoqui (claire.anchordoqui@univ-tlse2.fr)

Ce cours de civilisation américaine de première année de la Licence LEA vous invite

Conformément aux modalités de contrôle de connaissances affichées, vous serez

En cas de questions, n’hésitez pas à contacter Claire ANCHORDOQUI par email à

Claire ANCHORDOQUI, responsable du module de civilisation américaine, Email :

Le commentaire en civilisation vise à expliquer les références utilisées dans un texte

- de la langue anglaise : afin d’éviter toute interprétation erronée et de prêter attention

1. Travail préparatoire au brouillon

Certains étudiants ont parfois tendance à lire un texte en pensant, consciemment ou

Le titre du document guide votre compréhension du contenu du texte. Au brouillon,

Le contexte : afin de réaliser un commentaire de texte, il convient de se saisir de la

La source du document : Comme pour l’auteur et le contexte, prenez soin de bien

Le type de document (légal, gouvernemental, discours politique, article de presse,

c. Écrire un brouillon d’introduction

Le commentaire de texte se compose de trois éléments distincts : l’introduction, le

Des informations plus précises quant au contexte.

La présentation du texte, de son auteur et de sa source.

L’idée principale du texte.

d. Écrire un brouillon de conclusion

Répondre à votre problématique.

Récapituler vos arguments principaux.

2. La rédaction de votre devoir

Vous pouvez désormais passer à l’écriture de votre devoir. L’organisation de votre

2) Réécrivez la citation et indiquez la ligne

3) WHAT: Résumez, en vos propres mots, le contenu de la citation choisie. Attention à

In Congress, July 4, 1776

Read the text carefully and answer the questions below:

Identification terms: American Revolution ; Thomas Jefferson ; Natural Rights ; Popular

America is more than a country.

Look at the paratext and answer the questions below:

Read the text carefully and answer the questions below:

From Colonies to States a demagogue, property owners supposedly

[…] As in their revolt against

The Bill of Rights (1791)

Identification terms: Popular sovereignty ; Republican system of government ; Federalists v.

The Philadelphia Convention, 1787 Representing states that had begun

URL: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/are-vaccine-mandates-constitutional Therese

Separatist Puritans had established conducted according to the Book of

John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” in A Library of American Literature: Early

Identification terms: Puritans Massachusetts ; Bay Colony ; New England

How fares America in the eyes of the world?

Commencement Address at the University of Massachusetts Boston

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