Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library

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Logo, Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library
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Part of the Library of Congress American Memory site, this online archive draws from two Library of Congress collections on the life of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. The Abraham Lincoln Papers in the Library's Manuscript Division contain over 20,000 items, over 2000 of which are contained on this site. Items include correspondence, speeches, and reports accumulated primarily during Lincoln's presidency (1860-1865). The documents are accompanied by annotated descriptions (roughly 150 words) composed by the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. The papers are in chronological order and are keyword searchable. The second collection highlighted in this exhibit is "We'll Sing to Abe Our Song," over 200 sheet music compositions that represent the popular music of the Civil War era. These pieces are drawn from the Alfred Whital Stern Collection in the Library's Rare Book and Special Collection division. The sheet music is searchable by title, composer, and subject. The site also offers links to other Library of Congress sources on Lincoln, including a photograph gallery of 16 images of the Lincoln family and other political figures of the Civil War era; over 50 Civil War maps; and a link to lesson plans for the entire American Memory Collection, including eight Civil War lesson plans appropriate for elementary and secondary students. This site is ideal for researching Lincoln's presidency and popular culture of the Civil War era.

Mount Vernon jmccartney Wed, 10/07/2009 - 15:23
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Photo, Mt. Vernon
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Homepage for Mt. Vernon Estate and Gardens, George Washington's Virginia estate, this site offers valuable sources for researching the life and home of the first U.S. President. An exhibit contains more than 50 images of furniture, art, documents, and other Mount Vernon household objects. Each image is accompanied by a 150-word description of the artifact and its location or significance to the estate. A virtual tour of Mt. Vernon's mansion takes visitors through every room with a photograph and 350-word description of the room and its furnishings. An archaeology section describes digs at eight sites on the estate, a 500-word description of a current excavation of Washington's distillery, and a 1500-word essay on the Mt. Vernon mansion's restoration beginning in 1858. An Educational Resources section offers a fifth-grade lesson plan, complete with trivia about Washington, excerpts from his Rules on Civility, and anecdotes from his military career and presidency; a 2000-word essay on Washington's attitude toward slavery and information on his slaves' lives, including links to a facsimile copy of Washington's 1798 slave census and 18 images of paintings and artifacts depicting the everyday lives of Mt. Vernon's slaves. This site is ideal for researching Washington's life and home, and it could also be useful for those studying material culture and archaeology.

James Madison's Failed Amendments

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Medallion of James Madison
Question

James Madison proposed 12 amendments to the Constitution, but only 10 were approved. What were the two that were not?

Answer

When the Constitutional Convention sent the proposed Constitution to the states for ratification, Anti-Federalists voiced strong objections to it, especially criticizing the strength it invested in the national government and its lack of explicit protections for the rights of individuals. Politicians in several states were able to secure their states' ratification of the Constitution only with the promise that it would be almost immediately amended.

In 1789, James Madison, then an elected member from Virginia of the First Congress's House of Representatives, proposed 19 amendments meant to answer the objections already raised in the states. The Senate consolidated and trimmed these down to 12, which were approved by Congress and sent out to the states by President Washington in October, 1789.

The states ratified the last 10 of the 12 amendments. They became the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, and are now referred to as the Bill of Rights. Not enough states (10 were needed at the time) ratified the first two of Madison's original 12, however, and they did not become law.

The first of these would have established how members of the House of Representatives would be apportioned to the states. It was drafted to ensure that members of the House would continue to represent small constituencies even as the general population grew, small enough that Representatives would not be too far removed from the concerns of citizens. In addition, keeping the House of Representatives from being too small was thought to protect against its becoming a kind of oligarchy. Congress did send this amendment to the states, but the number of states that ratified it was just short of the number needed. Although the proposed amendment did not become law, Congressional apportionment is nevertheless grounded in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3) and the total number of members of the House of Representatives is set by federal statute (currently at 435).

The second of Madison's 12 amendments forbade Congress from giving itself a pay raise: Congress could vote for a raise but it would only apply from the beginning of the next Congress. This amendment also failed to gather the required number of state ratifications in the years after it was introduced. In 1982, however, Gregory Watson, a university student doing research for a government class, ran across a description of this amendment and realized that it remained "alive" because it had included no language in it about a window of time in which it had to gain the needed number of state ratifications. Watson organized a successful effort to lobby various state legislatures, seeking their ratification of the amendment. As a result, the needed number was eventually reached and this amendment, first proposed in 1789, became the 27th (and most recent) amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1992.

Bibliography

Richard E. Labunski, James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Jackson Turner Main, The Anti-federalists: critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2004)

David J. Siemers, The Antifederalists: men of great faith and forbearance (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).

John R. Vile, A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments, 4th edition (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006).

John W. Dean, "The Telling Tale of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment: A Sleeping Amendment Concerning Congressional Compensation Is Later Revived," September 27, 2002 (at FindLaw).

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Portrait etching of James Madison and detail of broadside, printed by Bennett Wheeler, Providence, R.I., 1789.

James Madison medallion, frontispiece of William Cabell Rives, History of the Life and Times of James Madison (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859).

Nixtontapes.org

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Photo, Nixon standing with Lyndon Johnson, 1971, NARA
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In February 1971 to July 1973, President Richard Nixon secretly began recording phone conversations and meetings, compiling thousands of hours of tape. Created in 2007 by a Texas A&M University history professor, this website intends to provide "the most complete digitized Nixon tape collection in existence."

At present, only a fraction of the recordings are available. Visitors may listen to MP3 versions of over 500 conversations organized by primary conversation participant; 29 conversations organized by topic themes; and more than 2,000 hours of conversations organized by the date of their release to the general public.

Though the site promises that all recordings will eventually be accompanied by full transcripts, accompanying material is spotty. Some recordings are accompanied by corresponding entries from the presidential daily diary, some by general outlines of the recording's topics, and a handful by full transcripts. The recordings vary in quality, from fully audible to inaudibly faint or noise-obscured.

The website is not searchable (the search engine on the home page searches the web at large). As it stands, it may be useful to educators as a casual introduction to the recordings for students, but locating specific content (to accompany lesson plans or complement events being taught in class) would require significant time.

Nixon Tapes

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Photo, "White House wedding. Pres. Nixon," Warren K. Leffler, June 12, 1971
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This collection offers 32 transcripts and a dozen audio excerpts, all recently declassified, of conversations between former U.S. President Richard Nixon and the former president of Mexico, Luis Echeverria Alvarez. The audio files come close to 170 hours of conversation between the two leaders. Both men were involved in secret operations at the time of the conversations (Nixon was involved in the Cambodia bombings, while Echeverria was fighting a "Dirty War" against political opponents in Mexico), although only Nixon knew the conversations were being recorded. The two presidents often mused about geopolitics and only occasionally discussed the most-frequently debated issues between the two nations (such as drugs or trade). Although the tapes are available in other archives, the focus of the site makes it useful in exploring the relationship between Nixon and Echeverria.

Nixon and Sports

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Photo, Nixon in the Crowd at a Baseball Game
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This site explores the not-so-obvious relationship between Richard Nixon's interest in sports, his politics, and his reputation as a public figure. Professional historian Nicholas Sarantakes designed the site as the electronic version of a forthcoming book. A timeline from 1969 to 1974 provides descriptions (5-20 words) on sports-related and other important events in Nixon's presidency. Watergate events, for instance, are intertwined with Nixon's interest in relocating the San Diego Padres to Washington, D.C. In 16 photographs and six cartoons, Nixon is shown as spectator and participant at sporting events. He is quoted talking about sports on 13 different occasions. The site refers visitors to two articles by Sarnatakes on the topic of Nixon and sports. The site may be interesting to cultural historians in general and useful for research in sports history and the history of the presidency in particular.

Monticello Explorer

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Photo, Monticello Photo, December 11, 2007, npslibrarian, Flickr
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President Thomas Jefferson worked on designing his estate, Monticello, throughout much of his adult life, drawing heavily on classical architecture as well as the French architecture he became acquainted with during his time in Paris in the 1780s. This website presents an interactive map of Monticello, at its height a 5,000 acre plantation—its buildings, fields, orchards, and slave quarters—providing a window into Jefferson's domestic life.

Visitors can click on one of more than 25 locations on the Plantation, and see a short explanation of that place's function, as well as a small selection of current and historical photographs and documents pertaining to that location, including some of Jefferson's original building plans. Visitors can then virtually move inside Monticello itself through a 3-D tour of Jefferson's home, accompanied by text highlighting the social function of each room.

Also offered are virtual tours of the house, highlighting domestic life at Monticello and Jefferson's relationship with farming and gardening. Each of these tours is accompanied by a useful video introducing these topics and providing other background information about Jefferson's life and work.

James Madison Papers

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Image, A Brief System of Logick, James Madison, 1763-5, James Madison Papers
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These 12,000 items (72,000 digital images) allow the visitor to explore James Madison's life, the Revolution, or the Early Republic. Materials include his father's letters, Madison's correspondence, personal notes, drafts of letters and legislation, and legal and financial documents. Material covers the period from 1723 to 1836.

Page images of correspondence can be browsed by title, name, or correspondence series or they can be searched by keyword or phrase appearing in the bibliographic records (descriptive information) of the collection. Additionally, the full text of correspondence for which transcriptions are available can also be searched by keyword or phrase. A timeline covers the period from 1751 to 1836 and is useful for placing the events of Madison's life in historical context. Three essays are available, including one on Madison's life and papers and one on Madison at the Federal Constitutional Convention.

FDR Cartoon Archive

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Portrait, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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A continuing project of high school history and science classes, this site presents thousands of political cartoons concerning the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Selected from the collection at the Hyde Park Presidential Library of Basil O'Conner—Roosevelt's New York City law partner—the materials are arranged into eight subject categories and often include brief background essays and questions designed to prompt further inquiries. Periods currently emphasized include 1932, "The Road to Pennsylvania Avenue"; 1937, "The Supreme Court"; and 1943, "The War Years."

Well-conceived and executed, the site also gives the texts of Roosevelt's inaugural addresses and a page of teacher resources and suggested projects.

Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project

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Image for Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project
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This wealth of historical materials, in a variety of formats, addresses Abraham Lincoln's years in Illinois (1831–1860) and Illinois history during the same period. The website provides more than 2,300 transcriptions of documents, including correspondence, speeches, treaties, and other official papers. In addition, there are 295 images of Lincoln, his family, friends, associates, and contemporaries, as well as Illinois towns, homes, and businesses, and 63 recordings of songs.

Materials are organized into eight thematic sections: African American Experience and American Racial Attitudes; Economic Development and Labor; Frontier Settlement; Law and Society; Native American Relations; Politics; Religion and Culture; and Women's Experience and Gender Roles. Each theme includes a background essay, relevant documents and images, video discussions by prominent historians, and narrated slide shows. "Lincoln's Biography" divides his life into eight segments with a summary and biographical text by scholars, as well as a bibliography.