The Value of Documents

• Authoritative - written by experts, official versions of documents

• Primary sources (check out LC American Memory Collection…. http://rs6.loc.gov/amhome.html )

• Only source

• “A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” James Madison, August 4, 1822