Ten Most Important Documents in American History

The History News Network asked readers to identify the ten most important documents in American history, and here’s the list:

• Common Sense (1776)
• The Federalist Papers (1784-1788)
• Northwest Ordinance (1787)
• Seneca Falls “Declaration of Sentiments” (1848)
• Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
• Gettysburg Address (1863)
• Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1868)
• Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points (1918)
• George C. Marshall’s Marshall Plan speech (1947)
• Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech (1963)

You can vote for your choice here.

As HNN notes, it’s interesting to compare this list to the one compiled by voters in a survey conducted by the National Archives, U.S. News and World Report, National History Day, which asked voters for “the 100 most important documents in American history from before the American Revolution through 1965.”

That list included:

1) The Declaration of Independence
2) The U.S. Constitution
3) The Bill of Rights
4) The Louisiana Purchase Treaty
5) The Emancipation Proclamation
6) The 19th Amendment to the Constitution
7) The 13th Amendment to the Constitution
8) The Gettysburg Address
9) The Civil Rights Act
10) The Social Security Act