This collection gathers quotations, passages and documents attributed to America's six essential founders. Topics include liberty, religion, revolution, republican government, the constitution, education, commerce, class, war and peace, and the disenfranchised (slaves, Native Americans and women). Each quotation is sourced and quoted fully enough for the reader to discern its historical and philosophical context.

In the steamy summer of 1787, as America's founding fathers fashioned their Constitution, they told the most powerful institution in their new nation what it must not do: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Few Americans understand the miracle in world history these ten words represent. For the first time in human experience, the legislative power of a nation was forbidden from legislating the conscience of man. And for over one hundred and fifty years, religion flourished, institutions of faith multiplied, and revivals transformed whole communities. Th elected representatives of the people often called for days of prayer, recognizing that religion is essential to national character. So what happened? Why is it that today a cross-shaped memorial or a religious symbol in a city seal is considered a violation of the Constitution? Why are pastors threatened if they speak out about politics and children kept from even asking about religion in the public schools? Ten Tortured Words separates historical fact from fiction, illuminating the events and personalities that shaped the writing of the Establishment Clause. In his straightforward, award-winning style, cultural historian Stephen Mansfield interprets the societal shifts that have led to the current rift between religion and politics, and takes a surprising look at what lies ahead for freedom of religion in America.

“A tour de force.... No one has ever written a book on the Declaration quite like this one.” —Gordon Wood, New York Review of Books Winner of the Zócalo Book Prize Winner of the Society of American Historians’ Francis Parkman Prize Winner of the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize (Nonfiction) Finalist for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Hurston Wright Legacy Award Shortlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Ralph Waldo Emerson Award A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice Selection Featured on the front page of the New York Times, Our Declaration is already regarded as a seminal work that reinterprets the promise of American democracy through our founding text. Combining a personal account of teaching the Declaration with a vivid evocation of the colonial world between 1774 and 1777, Allen, a political philosopher renowned for her work on justice and citizenship reveals our nation’s founding text to be an animating force that not only changed the world more than two-hundred years ago, but also still can. Challenging conventional wisdom, she boldly makes the case that the Declaration is a document as much about political equality as about individual liberty. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Our Declaration is an “uncommonly elegant, incisive, and often poetic primer on America’s cardinal text” (David M. Kennedy).

This collection gathers quotations, passages and documents attributed to America's six essential founders. Topics include liberty, religion, revolution, republican government, the constitution, education, commerce, class, war and peace, and the disenfranchised (slaves, Native Americans and women). Each quotation is sourced and quoted fully enough for the reader to discern its historical and philosophical context.

Contains alphabetically arranged entries that provide information on the Founding Fathers, their actions, and their intentions in writing the U.S. Constitution.

"Benjamin Franklin did not live to tell his own story. Now, with the publication of Benjamin Franklin: A Biography In His Own Words, his full story becomes available. Drawing upon the definitive edition of The Papers Of Benjamin Franklin, currently being published in a multivolume series for scholars by Yale University Press, Thomas Fleming and the Editors of the Newsweek Book Division have compiled a unique and fascinating book about one of the nation's true folk heroes." -- Amazon.com.

Four Branches of Government The words that describe and name our branches of government in the Constitution's Articles I, II and III are the following in order of appearance: Congress, Senate, House of Representatives, Representative, Representatives, Senators, Senator, Vice President, the President of the United States, each House, either House, neither House, two Houses, that House, the other House, both Houses, a President of the United States of America, said House, the President, one supreme Court and those are all the words. Having four branches being the President, House of Representatives, Senate, and supreme Court, each branch now has 25 percent of the power if disbursed evenly. How many branches of government can shut down government? The answer is three branches, the President (25 percent of power), the House of Representatives (25 percent of power), and the Senate (25 percent of power), this being done while the supreme Court (25 percent of power) can only watch because it has no legislative or executive powers. During the last government shutdown, who shut down the government, the legislative branch or the House of Representatives? If you answer the legislative branch, then which one? That in itself is an admittance of two branches of government that come together using their shared powers to legislate our laws. Now as you should be able to see the proper descriptive phrase too describe our government (NOT the Actual Bodies or Branches but the Powers of the branches) is executive branch, legislative branches (meaning two or more and both branches, House of Representatives and the Senate, convene to form Congress to legislate laws under the powers of the Constitution given to both branches) and judicial branch.