About The Exhibition

Imagination and vision played critical roles in the creative act of forming a self-governing United States of America. The collections of the Library of Congress are unquestionably the world’s best source for documenting that process. This exhibition offers a remarkable opportunity to learn in a fresh new way how the founding documents that emerged from this period were forged out of insight, invention, and creativity, as well as collaboration and much compromise.

Through the trials of war and peace the founders created a unique government—a republic across an enormous geographic region and encompassing a vast variety of cultural complexities. Although living up to the principles of humanity laid down in the Declaration of Independence has been an arduous journey, the exhibition demonstrates that the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are living instruments that are central to the evolution of the United States.

EXHIBITION THEMES

Creating the Declaration of Independence

The American Revolution ushered in an age of democratic revolutions. Unlike many later revolutions, America’s war did not lead to unbridled violence and dictatorship but to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the peaceful transfer of political power between parties in 1801.

 

Creating the Constitution

America’s search for a plan of national government was a slow, difficult process. Compromise, cooperation, and creativity were required as the Americans moved from being colonials in a patriarchal monarchy to citizen-leaders in a representative republic of federal states.

 

Creating the Bill of Rights

Amending the federal Constitution to include a bill of rights was the essential political compromise in the creation of the United States government.

 

interactives

These interactives reveal the source documents and the careful crafting of language of the words that laid the foundation of the American republic.

Experience the Interactives