Categories: Educational Resources

Recommended Reading List

There is no substitute for immersing oneself in original, primary source material if one hopes to understand American history. However, it is also useful (and enjoyable) to read books about great American leaders and events. The following list is far from comprehensive, but it includes works that we have found to be helpful. We hope it is a valuable starting place for those interested in learning more about America’s Godly heritage.

WallBuilders has provided the following list of books to provide helpful information and sources for people who want to dig deeper and research on their own. We do not endorse every aspect of every book, but we believe that each provides a good, balanced, and reliable overview its subject. Some of these books are available as ebooks, while some may be found at libraries or can be purchased through online booksellers.

American History

  • Gary Amos, Defending the Declaration (Providence Foundation: 1996)
  • Taylor Branch, Parting The Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 (Simon & Schuster, 1988)
  • Derek H. Davis, Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent (Oxford University Press, 2000)
  • Daniel L. Dreisbach, Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers (Oxford University Press, 2016)
  • Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall, The Sacred Rights of Conscience: Selected Readings on Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations in the American Founding (Liberty Fund Press, 2009)
  • Daniel L. Dreisbach, Mark D. Hall, and Jeffry H. Morrison, The Forgotten Founders on Religion and Public Life (Notre Dame University Press, 2009)
  • Daniel L. Dreisbach, Mark D. Hall, and Jeffry H. Morrison, The Founders on God and Government (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004)
  • Dinesh D’Souza,What’s So Great About America? (Regnery Publishing, 2015)
  • John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of our Founding Fathers (Baker Academic, 1995)
  • David D. Hall, A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011)
  • Philip Hamburger, The Separation of Church and State (Harvard University Press 2004)
  • Benjamin Hart, Faith and Freedom: The Christian Roots of American Liberty (Lewis & Stanley, 1988)
  • James H. Hutson, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1998)
  • Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (HarperCollins, 1997)
  • Thomas R. Kidd, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (Basic Books, 2010)
  • Barry Loudermilk, And Then They Prayed. Moments in American History Impacted by Prayer (Campbell: CA: FastPencil, 2011)
  • Donald S. Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988)
  • Peter Marshall & David Manuel, The Light and the Glory: 1492-1793 (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1977, reprint 2009)
  • Peter Marshall & David Manuel, From Sea to Shining Sea: 1787-1837 (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1985, reprint 2009)
  • Peter Marshall & David Manuel, Sounding Forth The Trumpet: 1837-1860 (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1998, reprint 2001)
  • Stephen McDowell, America’s Providential History (Providence Foundation, 1991)
  • Stephen McDowell, Liberating the Nations (Providence Foundation, 1995)
  • William H. McGuffey, McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader (Various publishers: various editions between 1836-1901). These books covered grades 1 through 5.
  • James McPherson, Battle Cry Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford University Press, 1988)
  • Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789 (Oxford University Press, 2005)
  • Clinton Rossiter, 1787 The Grand Convention (WW Norton, 1966)
  • Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were (Zondervan, 1990)
  • Barry Alan Shain, The Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 1994)
  • Harry Stout, The New England Soul: Preaching and Religious Culture in Colonial New England 2nd (Oxford University Press, 2011)
  • Thomas G. West, Vindicating the Founders (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997, reprint 2001)

Biographies

  • Andrew Allison, The Real Thomas Jefferson (Washington, D. C.: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1983)
  • Glenn Beck, Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, as You’ve Never Seen Him (New York: Threshold Editions, 2011)
  • E. Bradford, Worthy Company: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution
(Plymouth Rock Foundation: 1982)
  • Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power (Knopf, 2003)
  • Ron Charnow, Alexander Hamilton (Penguin Press, 2004)
  • Allen Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans, 2002)
  • Mark David Hall, Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic (Oxford University Press, 2012)
  • Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney and the spirit of American Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 1996)
  • Bill Kauffman, Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin (ISI Books, 2008)
  • Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (Anchor, 2007)
  • Thomas Kidd, Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots (Basic Books, 2011)
  • Peter Lillback, with Jerry Newcombe, George Washington’s Sacred Fire (Providence Forum Press, 2006)
  • George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2004)
  • David McCullough, John Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2008)
  • Stephen McDowell, Apostle of Liberty: The World-Changing Leadership of George Washington (Cumberland Publishing, 2007)
  • Robert Middlekauff, The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728 (University of California Press, 1999)
  • Edmund Morgan, Roger Williams: The Church and the State (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1967)
  • Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (Scott, Foresman, and Company, 1958)
  • Jeffry H. Morrison, John Witherspoon and the Founding of the American Republic (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005)
  • Michal Novak and Jana Novak, Washington’s God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of Our Country (Perseus Books, 2006)
  • Charles Page Smith, James Wilson: Founding Father, 1742-1798 (1956; reprint, University of North Carolina Press, 2011)
  • Ira Stoll, Samuel Adams: A Life (Free Press, 2009)
  • Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 1991)
  • Michael Toth, Founding Federalist: The Life of Oliver Ellsworth (ISI Books, 2011)
  • Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams (Da Capo, 2012)
  • Gordon S. Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (Penguin Press, 2004)

Christianity & Worldview

  • Dinesh D’Souza, What’s So Great About Christianity? (Regnery Publishing, 2008)
  • John Eidsmoe, Columbus & Cortez, Conquerors for Christ (New Leaf Press, 1992)
  • James Garlow, Well Versed: Biblical Answers to Today’s Tough Issues (Regnery Faith, 2016)
  • Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible: A Comprehensive Resource for Understanding Modern Political Issues in Light of Scripture (Zondervan, 2010)
  • Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (Yale University Press, 1991)
  • Martin Marty, A Short History of Christianity ed. (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 1987)
  • Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Harvard University Press, 2010)
  • Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: The Renaissance (Cambridge University Press, 1978)
  • Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: The Age of Reformation (Cambridge University Press, 1978)
  • Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House, 2005)
  • John Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

 

Civic Ignorance on Display

Introduction

Many stories have already been written about CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s embarrassing historical gaff when he told a judge: “Our rights do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man.” 1 Of course, American governing documents state exactly the opposite.

But what has not been adequately covered is why Cuomo might make such a statement. I, for one, am not particularly surprised by it – and I don’t say that because of his liberal pedigree as the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, the brother of current Governor Andrew Cuomo, or because he graduated from Yale. Rather, I say that because he is 44 years old, and therefore graduated from American schools in the past three decades. After all, according to recent studies:

  • Two-thirds of Americans cannot identify the three branches of government (legislative, executive, judicial), 2 three-fourths do not know what the Judiciary Branch does, 3 and eight in ten cannot name even one of the federal government’s powers. 4
  • Seven in ten do not know that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. 5
  • Eight in ten cannot name even two of the rights listed in the Declaration, 6 and forty-four percent are unable to define the Bill of Rights. 7
  • Only 1 in 1000 can name the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment (speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition). 8

We actually pay a lot to get these abysmal results – $12,000 per year per student, or well over $140,000 in their twelve years of public education. 9

Celebrate Freedom Week

No wonder states like Arizona and North Dakota recently enacted laws requiring that students pass the nation’s 100-question immigration test in order to graduate. 10 And why not? Shouldn’t native born Americans know at least as much about America as our foreign immigrants are required to know?

Reflecting the same concern, other states have passed laws establishing annual Celebrate Freedom Week, 11 during which public school students study the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights; and those in grades 3 through 12 learn and recite the specific section of the Declaration of which Cuomo was apparently unaware:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Unless we take decisive action regarding civic education, growing numbers of Americans will make the same mistake Cuomo did – or worse yet, we may reach a time when we no longer recognize that what he said was a mistake.

Inalienable Rights Defined

Incidentally, in case there is any confusion about the intent behind the Declaration of Independence’s unambiguous language that our inalienable rights come from God, consider the words of those who created our government.

John Dickinson, a signer of the Constitution, defined an inalienable right as one “which God gave to you and which no inferior power has a right to take away.” 12 He further explained that human governments . . .

could not give the rights essential to happiness. . . . We claim them from a higher Source – from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives. 13

John Adams said that inalienable rights are . . .

antecedent to all earthly government; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe. 14

Inalienable Rights Come From God

Alexander Hamilton explained that inalienable rights . . .

are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the Divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. 15

Samuel Adams avowed that:

They are imprinted by the finger of God on the heart of man. 16

And according to Thomas Jefferson:

[C]an the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? – that they are not to be violated but with His wrath? 17

Conclusion

Understanding this, John Jay, an author of the Federalist Papers and the original Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, therefore wisely urged:

I . . . recommend a general and public return of praise and thanksgiving to Him from Whose goodness these blessings descend. The most effectual means of securing the continuance of our civil and religious liberties is always to remember with reverence and gratitude the Source from which they flow. 18

The Founding Fathers were clear about our rights coming from God, but Cuomo chose the opposite position.

 

Endnotes

1. Cheryl K. Chumley, “Chris Cuomo, CNN Host, to Roy Moore: ‘Our Rights Do Not Come from God’,” Washington Times, February 12, 2015.

2. “Only One Third of Americans Can Name Three Branches of Government,” infowars.com, March 8, 2009; Brit Hume, “Three Stooges, But Not Three Branches of Gov’t,” Fox News, August 15, 2006. See also, Lion Calandra, “Why do Americans get the Constitution so wrong?” The Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2010.

3. “Americans Failing Citizenship Test Again,” AEI, April 30, 2012.

4. “Take the Quiz: What We Don’t Know,” Newsweek, March 30, 2011.

5. “Americans Failing Citizenship Test Again,” AEI, April 30, 2012; “Take the Quiz: What We Don’t Know,” Newsweek, March 30, 2011.

6. “Americans Failing Citizenship Test Again,” AEI, April 30, 2012.

7. “Take the Quiz: What We Don’t Know,” Newsweek, March 30, 2011.

8. “Study: More know ‘The Simpsons’ than First Amendment rights,” USA Today, March 1, 2006. See also, “34% say First Amendment goes too far in protecting rights,” First Amendment Center, July 16, 2013; “State of the First Amdnment: 2013,” First Amendment Center.

9. “Fast Facts,” Institute of Education Sciences (accessed on February 16, 2015).

10. Reid Wilson, “Arizona Will Require High School Students to Pass Citizenship Test to Graduate. Can You Pass?,” The Washington Post, January 16, 2015; James MacPherson, “North Dakota May Require High School Students to Pass Citizenship Test,” Huffington Post, December 1, 2014.

11. “Celebrate Freedom Week,” Rick Green.com (accessed on February 16, 2015).

12. John Dickinson, Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania (New York: The Outlook Company, 1903), p. xlii, “Introduction.”

13. John Dickinson, The Political Writings of John Dickinson (Wilmington: Bonsal and Niles, 1801), Vol. I, pp. 111-112.

14. John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), Vol. III, p. 449, “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law.”

15. Alexander Hamilton, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, John Church Hamilton, editor (New York: John F. Trow, 1850), Vol. II, p. 80, “The Farmer Refuted.”

16. Samuel Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Henry Alonzon Cushing, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908), Vol. IV, p. 356, “to the Legislature of Massachusetts, January 17, 1794.”

17. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: John Stockdale, 1787), p. 272, “Query XVIII.”

18. William Jay, The Life of John Jay: With Selections From His Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), Vol. I, pp. 457-458, to the Committee of the Corporation of the City of New York on June 29, 1826.

Stansbury’s Elementary Catechism on the Constitution (1828)

A catechism is defined as “a set of formal questions put as a test” and can be on a variety of subjects.

An 1828 book by Arthur Stansbury presented a series of questions and answers on the U.S. Constitution. This work, Elementary Catechism on the Constitution of the United States: For the Use of Schools, is mentioned in this video by David Barton. Test your knowledge of the Constitution with this book — and below are a few questions from this catechism!

Q. Cannot all the people of a country govern themselves?

Q. Who is to determine whether any law is contrary to the Constitution or no, the people themselves?

Q. Suppose all the members of the Senate, or all the members of the House of Representatives do not attend a meeting, can those who do attend make laws without them?

Q. Who executes the laws which Congress have made, that is, who takes care that every body shall obey the laws?

Q. Can he [the answer to the above] make the law?

Q. How are the Judges of the Courts of the United States appointed?

Q. How long do they [these Judges] remain in office?

Q. Has the United States Government any power but such as is contained in the Constitution?

Stumped? See the answers below. And be sure to check out the complete book!

A.If every man was perfectly virtuous, and knew what would be best for himself and others, they might. But this is far from the case; and therefore the people of every country are and must be governed.

A. No: but certain persons whom they have appointed, [called Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States].

A. If more than one half are present, they have in most cases power to do whatever the whole number could have done. More than one half are called a Majority, less than one half are called a Minority. As many as are necessary to do business are called a Quorum.

A. The President of the United States.

A. Not at all. These two powers, of making law, and executing law, are kept by the Constitution, entirely separate; the power that makes the law cannot execute it,and the power the executes the law cannot make it. (The one of these powers is called the Legislative, and the other is called the Executive power.

A. By the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate.

A. During good behavior; that is, until they resign their office or are turned out of it for some great offence.

A. No.