Political Documents 101

Discussion in recent posts has reminded us how important it can be to have access to copies of documents central to the functioning of our own and other countries. To help each other get access to those things we are posting this article with links to some of those documents. As commenters make suggestions and post additional links those will be promoted to the original post.

The United States of America:
• Constitution of the United States
• The Federalist Papers
• The Anti-Federalist Papers
• Declaration of Independence
• The Bill of Rights (The First Ten Amendments to the Constitution)
• Constitutional Amendments Eleven to Twenty-Seven
• US Supreme Court Decisions [From The Legal Information Institute of Cornell University Law School]
• Historic Supreme Court Decisions [From The Legal Information Institute of Cornell University Law School]
• Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention
• Confederate States of America: Papers (including the Declarations of Secession and the Constitution of the Confederate States)
• The Articles of Confederation
• The Most Important Cases, Speeches, Laws & Documents in American History (NOLO: Law for all)
• Roger Williams' The Bloody Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience from The University of Toronto via The Wayback Machine or from Google Books.
• For pre-United States America, the Flushing Remonstrance is a look into the early development of the idea of religious liberty.

Canada:
• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Consolidation of Constitution Acts, 1867 to 1982
• French version prepared under section 55 of the Constitution Act, 1982
• Judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada [this database includes all the judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1907 to the present day and some from the period between 1907 and 1867.]
• Canada Election Act
• Copyright Act (Canada)


The United Kingdom
• Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England
• Alternate site for Blackstone's commentaries.
• Magna Carta
• United Kingdom House of Lords Decision 1838-2009 (until July 2009 the House of Lords was the highest court of appeal in the United Kingdom. After 2009 the United Kingdom Supreme Court became the highest court of appeal.)
• Decisions of the United Kingdom Supreme Court
• The Official Home of the Revised Enacted UK Legislation 1267-present


Other:
• Charter of the United Nations; June 26, 1945
• Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789
• Manifesto of the Communist Party
• Constitution of Ireland
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• European Convention on Human Rights
• European Court of Human Rights: Summary of Case Law (Note: There's an error on that page: all the links to case law documents have backslashes (\) where they should have forward slashes (/). So you'll need to open the link, then edit it in the address bar to download the actual document.)
• Constitution of Australia
• Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (English translation)



Do you have any suggestions for further links? If you think of a document that should be included in the list but don't know of a good link someone else in the community may be able to find one.

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Comments

[Adrenalin Tim]

Great idea. I recommend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (which, by the way, the United States, Somalia, and South Sudan are the only UN members not to have ratified).

[Timothy (TRiG)]

European Convention on Human Rights

European Court of Human Rights: Summary of Case Law (Note: There's an error on that page: all the links to case law documents have backslashes (\) where they should have forward slashes (/). So you'll need to open the link, then edit it in the address bar to download the actual document.)

TRiG.

[The Board Administration Team]

@TRiG and Adrenalin Tim: Great suggestions. We have already added them to the OP.

[mathbard]

The rest of the amendments to the US Constitution: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendments_11-27.html

[MercuryBlue]

Somalia, South Sudan, and the US.

Dear Congress: one of these things DOES NOT BELONG.

*reads the document* Oh. Prenatal and postnatal care, and the child being able to go against the parents on religious matters, and ensuring a minimum standard of living for the child. Those would be the hangups.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Tehe. I just had a glance at Blakestone's commentaries. They've clearly been digitalised by an OCR that doesn't recognise long-s.

fpirited defign of our wife and munificent benefactor

TRiG.

[The Board Administration Team]

@TRiG: I hadn't used that site myself to read Blakestone. Tehe indeed.

I just put up an alternate site for Blackstone where in the same sentence is rendered, less amusingly, as "public-spirited design of our wise and munificent benefactor".

[sarah]

[[fpirited defign of our wife]]

Made me giggle.

[Ross]

IIRC, the right-wing explanation for why the Convention on the Rights of the Child is "It would give the UN the power to send parents to jail for spanking their children"

[MercuryBlue]

The UN has power?

(also, once the kid's old enough to understand sentences, spanking should not be the discipline method of choice. or even of last resort. and I'm not sure it should be used when the kid's younger either, but I'm not a parent, what do I know.)

[animus]

Constitution of Australia

[The Board Administration Team]

@Animus: Thanks, added.

[Bruce]

Not a founding document, but rather an indispensable document for people who need it (and might not otherwise know it exists):

From Dictatorship to Democracy

[Steve Morrison]

The English 1689 Bill of Rights

[Evan the Lurker]

List of US state constitutions.
(Fairly) complete US Code, from the Legal Information Institute of Cornell University Law School.
Some responses to the Federalist Papers from the anti-Federalist side. Yes, I know this page's hosted by the conservative Constitution Society; I still think it can be a useful source.
US Presidential inaugural addresses, from Washington through Obama.

And, Ross - that's one of their objections; others are that it'd prohibit homeschooling and stop parents from keeping their children away from people who're bad influences. Since the Code does say

1. States Parties recognize the rights of the child to freedom of association
and to freedom of peaceful assembly.
2. No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of these rights other than
those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic
society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order
(ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of
the rights and freedoms of others.

they might have half a point; it all depends on how the second clause is interpreted. I assume it hasn't had those baneful effects where it's already been ratified, fortunately.

[MercuryBlue]

*frowns at articles 28 and 29* Not seeing how that prohibits homeschooling in general. Can see how it prohibits homeschooling designed to raise a patriarchal creationist piece of religious-right cannon fodder, but not how it prohibits homeschooling in general.

[Mike Timonin]

I agree with Evan that the AntiFederalist papers need to be included - the United States is founded on respectful dissent (which seems to have been forgotten several times over the history of the US, and right now). If you want a link that isn't to the Constitution Society, here's one to the University of Tulsa: http://www.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/constitutional/antifederalist/antifed.htm

[The Board Administration Team]

@Thanks to everyone for the suggestions/links.

[Mmy]

@Everybody: Might be slow on updating things today since:

a) Wimbledon (Tennis-Men)
B) US Open (Golf-Women)

[Evan the Lurker]

@MercuryBlue - Right; their big argument about homeschooling seems to be that the Charter protects the child's right to associate with a public school even if the parents insist on homeschooling him/her. Similarly, they object to securing freedom of religion for children (which the Charter also does) because it might stop them from dragging children to church. (Does anyone know if that's ever happened in countries that've ratified it?)

And, especially if we're including the Anti-Federalist Papers in the list, it's probably also a good idea to include the Articles of Confederation, if not the Continental Association of 1774 (though, the Association is much more concerned with the embargo against Britain than organizing politically.)

[rigorist]

For pre-United States America, the Flushing Remonstrance is a look into the early development of the idea of religious liberty.

http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/flushing_remonstrance_1657.html

[chris y]

The German Grundgesetz (Basic Law) might be worth including (English translation here). Much of it is specific to Germany, but the 19 Articles on Basic Rights at the beginning are good and important.

[Plarry]

For the U.S.: Roger Williams' "The Bloody Tenant of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience" http://books.google.com/books?id=YC-Oy0hswEkC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q&f=false

See also the collection at nolo:
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/american-legal-history.html

[susan]

the Constitution of the Iroquois Nations http://www.indigenouspeople.net/iroqcon.htm

[TRiG spamflagging]

Payday loan spam above from Shessteewic.

TRiG.