Harman's Must-Read Book List (Documents)

The following is the list of documents recommended by Harman, to be published nationwide at some point in the future, for all American citizens to read. For the list of nonfiction literature, see the nonfiction list. For the list of fiction literature, such as speeches, letters, and short writings, see the fiction list.

(Draft of) Declaration of Independence

It will be found that many of the items on this list, as well as the others, cannot be fully appreciated without understanding of their historical context. It will therefore be attempted that the author or authors of this site provide resources to those contexts. For the present time, it is recommended that the reader seek out not only the Declaration of Independence as approved by Continental Congress, but its original drafted version, which had text, from single words to entire paragraphs, omitted by vote of the Congress.

Articles of Confederation

United States Constitution

Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln)

Brutus I, Brutus II ("Brutus")

Letters of an American Farmer (John Hector St. John de Crèvecœur)

The Federalist - Papers 1, 10 ("Publius" - Alexander Hamilton)

Farewell Address (George Washington)

Second Inaugural Address (Abraham Lincoln)

Letter to Henry Lee (Thomas Jefferson)

Letter to Roger C. Weightman (Thomas Jefferson)

"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" (Frederick Douglass)

Speech on the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise (Lincoln)

"Corner Stone" Speech (Alexander H. Stephens)

Progressive Party Platform of 1912

...