LAD #25: President Wilson's 14 Points
The Fourteen Points were listed in a speech delivered by President Woodrow Wilson of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 8, 1918. The underlying principles of Wilson's 14 points were

1. Self determination of peoples.
2. Arms reduction.
3. Non punishment.
4. Formation of the League of Nations.
5. Freedom of the Seas.
6. No secret treaties.
7. Free and open trade.

He concluded his speech with the quote, The moral climax of this the culminating and final war for human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test."

LAD #24: The Clayton Anti-Trust Act
The Clayton Anti-Trust Act of 1914 was enacted to remedy deficiencies in antitrust law created under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, the first Federal law outlawing practices harmful to consumers (monopolies and anti-competitive agreements). Passed during the Wilson administration, the legislation was introduced by Alabama Democrat Henry De Lamar Clayton. The Clayton Act prohibits: (1)price discrimination between different purchasers if such discrimination substantially lessens competition or tends to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, (2)sales on the condition that (A) the buyer or lessee not deal with the competitors of the seller or lessor("exclusive dealings"), or that the buyer also purchase another different product, but only when these acts substantially lessen competition effect may substantially lessen competition,(3) mergers and acquisitions where the effect may substantially lessen competition,(4)any person from being a director of two or more competing corporations. Section 6 of the Act exempts labor unions and agricultural organizations. Therefore, boycotts, peaceful strikes, and peaceful picketing are not regulated by this statute.

LAD #23: Keating-Owen Child Labor Act
The act starts off with an alarming statistic: "The 1900 census revealed that approximately 2 million children were working in mills, mines, fields, factories, stores, and on city streets across the United States." This census sparked a national crusade against child-labor, as it should have. The conditions for the children working were dangerous and unsanitary, but children were seen as a cheap resource for labor, and they were small, so their tiny fingers and bodies could be used for tasks that adults themselves could not do because of their size. The first child labor bill, the Keating-Owen bill of 1916, was based on Senator Albert J. Beveridge's proposal from 1906 and used the government's ability to regulate interstate commerce to regulate child labor. The act banned the sale of products from any factory, shop, or cannery that employed children under the age of 14, from any mine that employed children under the age of 16, and from any facility that had children under the age of 16 work at night or for more than 8 hours during the day.

LAD #22: Wilson's First Inaugural
Woodrow Wilson begins his first inaugural address with stating how the government had recently changed from within. The House of Representatives changed to Democratic by a decisive majority, and Senate was also about to change, as well. He speaks about how the major positions in politics were then being controlled by Democrats, and this address was going to answer questions about that. He says that we, as a country, have built a great government that has passed the test of time. He then concedes, and states how with the great wealth and excess, there is inexcusable waste. The "fine gold has been corroded." He states, "We shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal with our economic system as it is and as it may be modified, not as it might be if we had a clean sheet of paper to write upon..." At the end of his address, he calls for the patriotic people of the country to give their trust to him, and to support him because the country has been successful in the past, and there is no reason why it shouldn't be in the future. As he said, "This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication."

LAD #20: William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold Speech
The most famous speech in American political history was delivered by William Jennings Bryan on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The issue was whether to endorse the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1. (This inflationary measure would have increased the amount of money in circulation and aided cash-poor and debt-burdened farmers.) Backers of the gold standard felt that the protection against inflation was paramount, and the gold standard would prevent runaway inflation. Such an uncontrollable inflation would put a burden on creditors such as banks whose loans' interest rates would then fall under the inflation rate and garner a loss for the creditor. His powerful ending is why this speech received its powerful name:
"Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

LAD #19: The Populist Party Platform
The Populist Movement emerged from the farmersí alliances of the 1870s and 1880s. In the 1890s the Populist Party appeared to represent a viable third party ­ independent of the Democrats and Republicans. A response to the growth of industrialism, the Populists opposed the "concentrated capital" of banks and big businesses and decried the many of the effects that industrialism was having on American society. They seek to restore the government into the hands of the "poor people" and they stated that corruption was beginning to take form in the ballots, and they needed to do something about that.
"We believe that the power of government ­ in other words, of the people ­ should be expanded... to the end that oppression, injustice, and poverty shall eventually cease in the land." - They believe that if the government is restored back into the hands of the common people, the corruption and the injustice will end.
They demanded many things in the areas of finance, transportation, and land, as well as the government reviving itself and becoming what the writers of the Constitution intended it to be.

LAD #21: Dawes Act
This act authorized the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide the area into allotments for the individual Native American. SUMMARY OF SECTIONS:
Section One: it says that the head of any household will receive 160 acres and each single individual above the age of 18 and each orphan will receive 80 acres and each minor will receive 40 acres.
Section Two: each Native American will choose his or her own allotment and the family will choose for each minor child. The Native American agent will choose for orphan children.
Section Three: Native American agent to certify each allotment and provide two copies of the certification to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
Section Four: Native Americans not residing on their reservation and Native Americans without reservations will receive the equal allotment.
Section Five: Secretary of the Interior will hold the allotments in trust for 25 yrs
Section Six: upon completion of the Land Patent process, the allotment holder will become a United States citizen
Section Seven: water rights on irrigated land.
Section Eight: exempts the Five Civilized Tribes and several others from the act.
Section Nine: appropriates the funds to carry out the act.
Section Ten: Power of Eminent Domain of the Congress over the allotments.
Section Eleven: provision for the Southern Ute Native Americans.

LAD #18: President McKinley's War Message
Public indignation brought pressure upon the President for war. Unable to restrain Congress or the American people, McKinley delivered his message of neutral intervention in April 1898. Congress thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and independence of Cuba. The intention behind the nation's actions were unselfish, and honest, and had noble reasoning: peace and prosperity. The differences between Spain and the United States had nothing to do with this, and our nation was completely unselfish in this process. The forcible intervention, he stated, was only used as a neutral to stop the war. He explains the grounds for the intervention, naming four key points in his message: (1)the U.S. will fight for the people starving and injured in Cuba, (2)the U.S. will fight for a government in Cuba that will grant the people their natural rights, (3)the right to intervene may be justified by injury in trade or business, and finally, (4)he explains that the present condition of affairs in Cuba are a menace to the people, and it relationships must remain peaceful. He ends on this note: "If this measure attains a successful result, then our aspirations as a Christian, peace-loving people will be realized. If it fails, it will be only another justification for our contemplated action."

LAD #17: Andrew Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth

The essay describes the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich. The central thesis of Carnegie's essay was the danger of allowing a lot of money to be passed into the hands of persons or organizations ill-equipped mentally or emotionally to deal with them. As a result, the wealthy entrepreneur must assume the responsibility of trickling his fortune in a way that it will be put to good use, and not wasted on frivolous things. The sole existence of poverty in a such a society could be negated by wealthy philanthropic businessmen. He wanted to erase the entire possibility of doing a 360 degree turn, and ending back where the country started; it would destroy our civilization. Carnegie said, "There are but three modes in which surplus wealth can be disposed of. It can be left to the families of the decedents; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or, finally, it can be administered during their lives by its possessors." He had a distinct plan on how to manage the problems of poverty and stopping ill-equipped people from handling the money of the nation. He said it was the duty of the wealthy to set a good example to the less fortunate people of the country. As Carnegie stated in the essay, "This is not wealth, but only competence, which it should be the aim of all to acquire."

LAD #16: Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive decree by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln during that country's Civil War, which declared the freedom of all slaves in those areas of the rebellious Confederate States of America that had not already returned to Union control. It was issued in two parts: the preliminary document published on September 22, 1862; and the second, published when the decree went into effect 100 days later, January 1, 1863. It was not a law passed by Congress but a Presidential order empowered, Lincoln believed, by his position as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy". It first affected only those slaves that had already escaped to the Union side, but as the Union armies advanced, tens of thousands of slaves were liberated each day until nearly all were free by summer 1865. Some slavery continued to exist in the border states until the entire institution was finally wiped out by the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865. The legality of the Proclamation was never tested in court because legal and scholarly opinion has consistently deemed it to have been a valid use of Presidential authority. Emancipation took place without violence by masters or ex-slaves. The proclamation represented a shift in the war objectives of the North—merely reuniting the nation would no longer become the sole outcome. It represented a major step toward the ultimate abolition of slavery in the United States and the formation of a "more perfect Union."

LAD #15: Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Abraham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, at the start of his second term as President. Secessionists in the American Civil War were about to have victory, and slavery had been effectively done with. Licoln did not speak of victory, he spoke of loss, guilt, and sin. Some people see this speech as a defense of his approach to Reconstruction, in which he went to avoid strict treatment of the defeated South by reminding his listeners of how wrong both sides had been in imagining what lay before them when the war began, in all actuality, four years ago. Lincoln balanced that rejection of victory, however, with a recognition of the evil of slavery, which he described in the most concrete terms possible. The statement "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan" was later adopted by the Veterans Administration as its mission statement.

LAD #14: Dred Scott Decision

When the court met for the first time in early 1857 it favored a moderate decision that ruled in favor of Sanford. It did not consider the larger issues of black citizenship and the Missouri Compromise. President-elect James Buchanan contacted friends on the Supreme Court, and he asked if the Court had reached a decision in the case. He needed some definite information about territories to bring up in his inaugural address on March 4. By inauguration day 1857, Buchanan knew what the outcome of the Supreme Court's decision would be and took the opportunity to throw his support to the Court in his inaugural address. That support was for the idea that every territory should have popular sovereignty and answer this question of slavery themselves. Chief Justice Thaney later in March of the same year addressed not only the slave issue, but the issue of free blacks, as well. One of the privileges reserved for citizens by the Constitution was the "privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified by the Constitution." Taney's opinion stated that blacks, even free blacks, were not citizens of the United States, and that therefore Scott, as a black, did not have the privilege of being able to sue in a federal court. Taney went on to reason that the Missouri Compromise deprived slaveholding citizens of their property in the form of slaves and that therefore the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

LAD #13: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality that are so famous because of the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not only for the Union, but as "a new birth of freedom" that would bring equality to all of its citizens. Beginning with phrase, "Four score and seven years ago," Lincoln referred to the events of the American Revolution and described the ceremony at Gettysburg as an opportunity not only to dedicate the grounds of a cemetery, but also to honor the living in the struggle to make sure that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln used the word "nation" five times, but never the word "union," which refers to the North. This restored the nation significantly, not a union of individual states, was extremely important. Lincoln's text referred to the year 1776 and the American Revolutionary War, and included the famous words of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal". Lincoln did not say anything about the 1789 Constitution, which recognized slavery in the "three-fifths compromise," and he avoided using the word "slavery". He also did not announce anything about the nullification of states' rights in the antebellum period.

LAD #12: Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

Lincoln delivered this address on March 4, 1861 and he touched mainly on the slave-holding interests in the South. He went into detail with and described his views on:

1. Strongest possible federal support for the Fugitive Slave Law
2. He wanted to make it clear that the laws in the nation would be upheld in all of the states, hence his oath: "to preserve, protect, and defend the United States Constitution".
3. Unless he had to execute his need to hold, occupy, and possess the property belonging to the government, there would be no invasion of the South in any way.
4. "To form a more perfect union" was the reason that Constitution was established (much more than the Articles of Confederation). He also stated that the Constitution was just a contract, and people could not be repremanded for not following it unless there was an agreement between all of the parties involved.
5. As to the Corwin amendment that had already been approved by both houses to protect slavery in the states that it had already existed in, he had no objections to it. He simply thought that those rights were already protected through the Constitution.
6. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say what can or cannot be done regarding slavery in the nation, as well as expansion into the West.
7. Mails would still be in continuation.

LAD #11: John Calhoun's Speech

South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun prepared his last speech during the course of the great debate over the Compromise of 1850, a set of resolutions supported by Henry Clay that emphasized on the controversial slavery question. The aspects of Clay's compromise calling for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and the admission of California as a free state were not negotiable to Calhoun and his followers. In his view, the sovereignty of the states was in trouble. The emphasis was wholly on northern aggressions and against the trend for conciliation and compromise. Two "nations" now existed, torn between the question of whether slavery should be allowed or not in the union, and Calhoun stated that if the question could not be answered, the two "nations" should agree to disagree, and remove themselves from each other.

LAD #10: Polk's War Message

This message was sent to Congress five days after Mexico formally protested the joint resolution for the annexation of Texas. When news came of the clash with Mexican soldiers, President Polk announced that the United States had been attacked. "American blood on the American soil," he said in his message to Congress, asking for a declaration of war against Mexico. Congress voted for war after two days, and Polk's party was in the majority. Some members of Congress believed it was the "manifest destiny" of the United States to occupy all the land from the Atlantic states to the Pacific Ocean. Southerners saw an opportunity to create more slave states. The northerners were against the southerners, stating that it was unfair to admit such a large state to the union, and because it was in the South, it would thus create more slave states than free.

LAD #9: Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments

Female suffrage was a chief topic for discussion, and it began the feminist political movement in the nineteenth century. A group of 200 women and 40 men drafted and approved this document in New York in 1848, which is a series of resolutions calling for women's suffrage and the reform of marital and property laws that kept women in an inferior status to men. This document was intentionally modeled after the Declaration of Independence, hence the name, "Declaration of Sentiments." In the middle of the Declaration of Independence, the writers denounced the King of England, stating all of his wrongdoings and their reason for wanting independence. Modeling from that document, the writers of the Declaration of Sentiments denounced men in general, and stated what they have done wrong in the past, and why women should be granted the freedom of suffrage. Frederick Douglass attended. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two Quakers who were interested in the women suffrage movement when Lucretia Mott was denied entrance into an antislavery meeting because of her gender. This convention was made in order to spur more conventions around the country, and spread the idea of women suffrage. At a time when traditional roles were still very much in place, the Declaration caused much controversy among the people of the nation, and it lost a lot of support because of that reason.

LAD #8: Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine states three major ideas. First, it conveys that European countries cannot colonize in any of the Americas: North, Central, or South. Second, only if Americans' rights are in danger or threat will the U.S. go into, or be involved with European affairs (this enforces Washington's rule of foreign policy.) Third, the U.S. will consider any attempt at colonization a threat to its national security. The doctrine was issued by President James Monroe during his seventh annual State of the Union address to Congress. This was a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States. "It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in hope that other powers will pursue the same course." James Monroe, when saying this, meant that because of the United States' ability to keep balance and individual rights among its citizens, hopefully it will encourage other countries to do so, as well.

LAD #7: Jefferson's First Inaugural Address

Some people expected Jefferson in his inaugural to attack the Federalists because he had been quite critical of them in the past. Instead, he held out an olive branch and, in a paean to democracy, wanted to have a society in which differing ideas were encouraged. Only by allowing people full freedom to differ, Jefferson urged, could democratic society thrive. Here again, a precedent had been set. Political parties, no matter how bitter the electoral fight, would not only accept the results, but would be expected to cooperate in furthering the good of the nation. Jefferson, in his address, wanted to make sure the people understood that he wanted to keep on the road that leads to peace, liberty, and safety. He reiterates the importance of equality among the people, stating "equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political." Strongly criticized as a deist or even an atheist, Jefferson strongly stated his belief in the importance of religion in the address. He closes the speech listing the "freedom of religion" prominently among the constitutional freedoms.

LAD #6: Washington's Farewell Address

Washington sees rising sectionalism in the country. He urges Americans to unite for the good of the whole country. Two political factions that developed into political parties in the early 1790s were the Federalists, and the Jeffersonian Republicans. The Federalists, and Washington himself, backed Hamilton's plan for a central bank and other strong central economic plan based on manufacturing while the Jeffersonian Republicans opposed the strong government inherent in the Hamiltonian plan, and favored farmers as opposed to city people. Washington foresaw that this intense political polarization would be the largest issue in the new government, as these two sides attempted to further craft and guide the nation.
He uses harsh words warning to avoid entanglements with foreign powers, particularly in Europe. Both parties wanted to stay out of the wars between France and Britain. The Federalists favored stronger ties to the British, while the Republicans insisted on adhering to the treaty the U.S. had already signed with France in 1778. Washington thus was warning everyone that partisanship might drag the United States into this fray.
Also in the address, Washington's view of preserving "political prosperity" through morality and religion are stated. He called morality "a necessary spring of popular government."
This was a written address to the people of the United States after his second term as President.