Read Works
Read Works: Not Scared, Prepared
[Free Registration/Login Required] An informational text about different people and organization that help during an emergency. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Classroom: The Preamble
The preamble is the introduction to the Constitution. It outlines the general goals of the framers: to create a just government and to ensure peace, adequate national defense, and a healthy, free nation. With its first three words, "We...
Social Studies for Kids
Social Studies for Kids: The Presidential Veto
The President of the United States has extraordinary power over the shaping of federal laws. He or she can veto any law passed by Congress.
USA Today
Usa Today: Washington Politics
Resource provides the top news in U.S. Politics in brief. Content includes a focus on the president, senate, house, state governors, legislatures, and initiatives.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The Constitution as Supreme Law
Overview of the history and structure of the U.S. Constitution as the "supreme law" of the land of which state and federal laws may not conflict and can only be changed by the American people.
Yale University
Avalon Project: Amendments Proposed by Hartford Convention
This is the text of the constitutional amendments proposed by the Hartford Convention in 1814, trying to get the federal government to give control of militias to the states and recognize other New England interests.
Country Studies US
Country Studies: The Plight of the Indians
This site explains how as westward expansion grew, more and more Indians encountered settlers, ranchers and miners who sought life, land, and riches out West. Conflicts between settlers and Indians soon involved the federal government...
Digital History
Digital History: Drafting the Constitution
Those writing the Constitution had many issues to deal with in forming a document to govern the country. One thorny issue was the status of the states in regard to representation in the federal legislature. Read about the Virginia Plan...
US National Archives
The National Archives Digital Vaults
Of all documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%-3% are so important for legal or historical reasons that they are kept forever. Those valuable records are...
Digital History
Digital History: Standard Oil on Trial [Pdf]
The anti-trust case against Standard Oil, based on the Sherman Antitrust Act, pitted the federal government against the largest corporation in the United States. Read the trial preparation information including the arguments of the...
Curated OER
Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Maps Etc: Utah, 1898
A map from 1898 of Utah showing the capital at Salt Lake City, principal cities and towns, railroads, mountains, lakes, rivers, and the Great American Desert to the west of Salt Lake. "Settled 1848 at Salt Lake by Mormons from Illinois,...
Curated OER
Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Clip Art Etc: Henry Wilson
Henry Wilson (February 16, 1812 - November 22, 1875) was a Senator from Massachusetts and the eighteenth Vice President of the United States. He was a leading Republican who devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what he...