Library Resources: Primary Sources: General

Includes documents that chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965.

Speeches and political ads for more than 300 women candidates that are easily accessible through the online archives. All include a transcript of the text and many also feature video.

Digital documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy and government from ancient times to the 21st century.

Digital archive of 38 volume collection of state papers from 15th-early 18th centuries. Most volumes on North America and the West Indies; also some on Asia and the Middle East. From the Public Records office of Great Britain. Display of volumes not in order.

Text of the founding document of Communism.

Current and historical constitutions of countries around the world.

Presents the text of the United States Constitution, along with explanatory annotations by Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Search or browse full text sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the early 20th century: slave narratives, other first person narratives, literature, life during the Civil War and African American churches.

Site from the Stanford University Law School Library provides links to the legal documents (PDF format) concerning the Florida, New Mexico, Texas, and Supreme Court decisions (opinions, briefs, etc.) as well as links to Web sites with related resources.

Eighty-three collections from the Library of Congress, ranging from 17th century broadsides to 9/11 documents.

FBI files on people, organizations, events, from early 20th century to 1990s (Albert Einstein, Al Capone, Eleanor Roosevelt, Marilyn Monroe, Cesar Chavez, POW/MIAs, PETA, SNCC, ESP, Roswell, much more). Released under Freedom of Information Act requests.

Official documentary record of major US foreign policy decisions, archived as digital facsimile by the University of Wisconsin. Incomplete run with years added as available. Precedes the modern version maintained and archived by the US State Department at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/index.htm

Compilation of documents important to the development of constitutional government in the U.S.

Provides public access to government information submitted by Congress and federal agencies. Includes the Congressional Record, Federal Register, congressional bills and hearings and other material generally dating back to the early 1990s. Formerly FDSys.

Database of "politically significant" audio recordings. Majority of material is from John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Kappler's Indian Affairs is an historically significant, seven volume compilation of U.S. treaties, laws and executive orders pertaining to Native American Indian tribes. The volumes cover U.S. Government treaties with Native Americans from 1778-1883 (Volume II) and U.S. laws and executive orders concerning Native Americans from 1871-1970 (Volumes I, III-VII).

Multiple-format books and other works on constitutional government, covering all time periods.

The collected works and correspondence of Marx and Engels.

Selected declassified documents of the US government on a wide range of subjects: nuclear history, Middle East, Latin America, Asia, intelligence and secrecy, September 11, etc. A valuable collection of primary sources.

On June 5, 2013, The Guardian released the first in a series of documents provided by Edward Snowden detailing the NSA's unlawful spying activities. All of the documents released since that day -- both by the media and the government -- are housed in this database.

Includes several speeches and letters of the Confederacy's president.

Page images of 13,000 documents. Search by name or subject and retrieve documents for viewing.

A portal to the texts of the state constitutions of the United States. There have been almost 150 state constitutions: they have been amended roughly 12,000 times and the text of the constitutions and their amendments comprises about 15,000 pages of text.