THE MOST INFLUENTIAL DOCUMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY

Recently the National Archives, National History Day and U.S. News and World Report co-sponsered a national survey called "The People.s Vote". Americans had an opportunity to cast their votes for their picks of the most influential documents in American history. For whatever reason the decision was made to exclude any documents after 1965 so the results are confined in that way, not that there have been too many "influential" documents in the past 41 years.

The top 10 most influential documents as determined by the national vote are;

1) Delclaration of Independence (1776) (29,681 votes)
2) Constitution of the United States (1787) (27,070 votes)
3) Bill of Rights (1791) (26,545 votes)
4) Louisiana Purchase Treaty (1803) (13,417 votes)
5) Emancipation Proclamation (1863) (13,086 votes)
6) 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; women's right to vote (1920)
(12,282 votes)
7) 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; Abolition of slavery (1865)
(11,789 votes)
8) Gettysburg Address (1863) (9,939 votes)
9) Civil Rights Act (1964) (9,860 votes)
10) Social Security Act (1935) (8,157 votes)

Well, those are the top 10 MOST influential documents (as voted for through "The People's Vote). Are they the ones YOU would choose? Among the other 90 entries in the top 100 list are; the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1868) which essentially defined the "rules" for citizenship in the United States of America and finished 13th in the voting.. The Treaty of Paris (1783) that finished 22nd in the voting might be under rated with respect to it's influence since it was the document that "officially" ended the Revlutionary War in terms of being "recognized" by England as the sovereign nation of the United States of America.

With no disrespect to the voters, I would raise this point. How much more influential could anything be than the "Articles of Conferdation" (1777) that established the official presence of the United States of America? This document was the written foundation for all that followed in America and yet finished only 15th in the voting. I'm going to post another "radical" point of view concerning the Articles of Confederation and the premise that the very "history" of the United States isn't what most people believe it is, so watch for that.

At any rate, this was an interesting survey. If you wish to see the entire vote of the "top" 100 most influential documents, check out; www.ourdocuments.gov/index.php?flash=true& and click on "the people's vote. You could also consider documents since 1965 that you believe should be included in the top 100.

Time To Think Again