3 documents american history

It is an ancient and sound principle of learning that one must begin with what is familiar. In the case of America, what is familiar turns out, surprisingly, to be an ideal starting point. From the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, there are three documents in American history with which almost all American students and teachers are already familiar: The Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

The knowledge of these three documents is serendipitous because what these documents have in common is the most important and distinctively American idea, the "proposition," as Lincoln called it—the "creed" as King called it—to which America is dedicated. Thomas Jefferson expressed this proposition as a self-evident truth in the most famous American words ever written: "All men are created equal." The political idea expressed in these words is at the heart of each of these historic documents. These documents are also historically and rhetorically linked to each other as the deservedly most well-known memorials of three great epochs in the American story: The birth and definition of American freedom in the 18th century; the great crisis of the American experiment and the "new birth of freedom" in the 19th century; and the fulfillment of the American promise of freedom a century later in the 20th century. While these documents will be the alpha and the omega of the Presidential Academy, we will have very good reasons to consider other documents, deeds, and significant issues in American history.