An educated citizenry is the key to making self-government succeed, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson said.
Articles on Thomas Jefferson
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Some teachers increasingly are shifting their approach to reading, assigning fewer books than they once did.
After the colonists declared their independence, designing a government was next. Three of the founding generation said the new government needed to account for the flaws in human nature.
Now as then, the US supported forces that wanted to change the political situation in Venezuela.
The Trump administration’s Religious Liberty Commission argues that religious freedom is under attack and blames the ‘wall of separation’ between church and state.
A partisan judiciary, arbitrary power, officials beyond the reach of the people – these are the grievances that drove a revolution.
The ‘Rededicate 250’ rally raised questions about separation of church and state. Jefferson and Madison’s many letters to each other shed light on that much-debated principle.
The founding generation in America was not of one mind. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson differed on crucial ideas, but exemplify the capacity for people to disagree and yet work for a common cause.
While religious minorities have often faced hostility, many Americans have long believed in religious liberty and a more inclusive society, writes a historian of American religion.
Debates about religion’s role in America often circle back to the country’s founding documents.
US presidents haven’t usually sought to impress their own architectural tastes – much less their names while in office – on national monuments.
The Declaration of Independence isn’t just a philosophical breakup letter. It was a strategic move to secure vital support for America after its first declaration of war.
In the early days of the United States, Philly was a hotbed of conspiracy theories as fears grew that secret societies sought to dismantle religion’s influence on society.
Donald Trump’s claim that some satire could be ‘illegal’ harks back to an age when criticising a monarch could see the offender drawn and quartered.
President George Washington warned in his 1796 Farewell Address about dangers that lay ahead for the US – warnings that seem startlingly contemporary and relevant 229 years later.
Historically, farm work in the United States has been carefully constructed to appear natural, including the racism and labor exploitation that characterizes it, a scholar writes.
Trump’s sudden dismissal of Carla Hayden, the librarian appointed by former President Barack Obama, has placed the little-known Library of Congress in the spotlight.
According to myth, the ghost of George Washington cursed anyone serving more than four years. But a nonconsecutive second term is different – as is Donald Trump.
The Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, or the CREC, has a highly patriarchal and conservative interpretation of Scripture.
For all the festivities around July 4, the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, actually depicts a wounded, fearful society, teetering on the brink of disaster. Sound familiar?
Top contributors
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Professor of American History, Università di Torino
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Director of the Center for Religion, Law & Democracy, Willamette University
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Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at Austin
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Professor of History, McGill University
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Associate Professor of Intellectual Heritage, Temple University
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Senior Lecturer in History, University of Waikato
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Professor of History, Kennesaw State University
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Political History Curator, Smithsonian Institution
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Associate Professor of Political Science, Clarkson University
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Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin
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Professor of Management and Wine Business, Sonoma State University
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Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Indiana University
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Derek H. Alderman is a Friend of The Conversation.
Chancellor's Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee
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Assistant Professor of Political Science, Gettysburg College
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Professor of History, University of South Carolina