The SHAFR Teaching Committee is busy preparing documents for use in classes on American foreign relations. Below please find examples. Check back later for more.
If you have any suggestions or ideas for documents, please contact Matt Loayza at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Early America
George Washington Considers a Proposal to Attack Canada, 1778
Documents from the Early American Republic
Alexander Hamilton on the French Revolution
Alexander Hamilton defends Jay’s Treaty, 1795
Thomas Jefferson to Phillip Mazzei on Foreign Influence in U.S. Politics, April 1796
George Washington, “Farewell Address,” 1796
Westward Expansion and Imperialism
John L. O’Sullivan and “Manifest Destiny,” 1839
Daniel Webster on Revolutions Abroad, 1850
Treaty between Japan and the United States, 1854
Alfred Thayer Mahan Advocates for a Strong Navy, 1890
Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden,” 1899
Ernest H. Crosby, “The Real ‘White Man’s Burden,’” New York Times February 15, 1899, p. 6.
Lida Calvert Obenchain, “The Philippine War” (June 1899)
Teddy Roosevelt on U.S. Expansion, 1899
The First Open Door Notes, 1899
Great Power Conflict and World War I
U.S. Senate’s Disclaimer to the Algeciras Treaty, 1906
William Taft’s State of the Union Address, 1912
Woodrow Wilson’s Appeal for American Neutrality, 1914
Woodrow Wilson’s War Message, 1917
Senator LaFollette’s Response to Wilson’s War Message, 1917
Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points, 1918
Henry Cabot Lodge’s Reservations to the Treaty of Versailles, 1919
Inter-war Period and World War II
Charles Evans Hughes Supports Naval Disarmament, 1921
Henry Stimson on the Recognition of New Governments, 1931
Joseph Grew Opposes Economic Sanctions Against Japan
FDR’s “Four Freedoms” Address, 1941
Henry Luce, “The American Century,” February, 1941
Henry Wallace, Century of the Common Man, 1942
FDR’s decision to open a second front in World War II
Excerpt from Elliott Roosevelt’s As He Saw It
The Early Cold War
Franck Committee Predicts International Arms Race
George Kennan (X), “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” July 1947
Truman’s Inaugural Address, 1949
Barrett to Acheson on Public Relations and NSC-68
Congress Backs the Eisenhower Doctrine, 1957
Dulles and Brownell on Little Rock Integration, 1957
National Security Council on the Ramifications of Sputnik, 1957
Ambassador Ellis Briggs on Sputnik, 1957
Kennedy and Rusk on the Soviet Threat, 1962
John F. Kennedy’s American University Commencement Speech, 1963
George Ball to President Johnson on Vietnam, 1965
Detente and the Later Cold War
Henry Kissinger on Salvador Allende, 1970
Conversation between Nixon and Mao, 1972
The Shanghai “Joint Communiqué” (February 27, 1972)
Ronald Reagan Denounces the Soviets, 1982