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The 85 essays known as the Federalist Papers were originally published as letters in New York newspapers 1787-1788. This guide serves as an index to the letters in the historic newspapers and a list of holdings at the Library of Congress.

Photo(s): 7 | Color Transparencies: 3 | Measured Drawing(s): 18 | Photo Caption Page(s): 3

Almost immediately after beginning to meet in 1789, the first Congress, led by James Madison, began to consider amendments to the Constitution proposed by the state ratifying conventions.

The Constitution of the United States said little about religion. Congress adopted the First Amendment to the Constitution, which when ratified in 1791, forbade Congress to make any law

This guide is a portal to the online words of some of the leaders who served in or as diplomats for the Continental Congresses, the Constitutional Convention, and the Federal government of the United States until the close of the War of 1812.

$150 reward [cut of runaway slave], 1838 Although it was the law of the land for more than 300 years, American slavery was challenged and resisted every day, by its victims, by its survivors, and by those who found it morally unacceptable. The long campaign to abolish the trade in human beings was one of the great moral crusades in U.S. history, and its success was the result of decades of organization and agitation by African Americans and their European American allies.

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