In the last two and a quarter centuries of American history, it’s always been fashionable for politicians and politically motivated organizations to include callbacks to well-known historical documents and quotations in their speeches and published materials. President Obama titled his speech on race in America during the 2008 campain “A More Perfect Union,” referencing the Preamble of the US constitution. Fatuous GasbagsTV/radio personalities borrow titles from Thomas Paine pamphlets for their screedsbooks. Borrowing bits of (usually incorrectly interpreted) history is the Tea Party movement’s stock in trade, or at least the source of much of their iconography.

There is a lot of good to be taken from the words of the Founders. There’s a great deal of wisdom and poetry to Jefferson’s prose in the Declaration of Independence, and in words of the “Committee of Five” (but mostly, apparently, Madison and Hamilton) in the US Constitution. They also left a lot to improve on (The three-fifths compromise, slavery in general), but over the years, our country has made great strides toward correcting these oversights. That’s their most important legacy, really: the Constitution as a “living document” that can be interpreted and amended by future generations as necessary.

However, The Declaration and the Constitution are hardly the only written records left to us by the guys who got the whole American experience started. They were pretty prolific gentlemen, and there’s a lot of good in some of the lesser known pieces.

In that spirit, this latest entry in the occasional stuff I like a lot series makes mention of a few of those other documents worth noting lying scattered about the cradle of liberty:

♦ The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom by Thomas Jefferson. This Virginia law written in 1786, was considered by Jefferson to be one of his greatest achievements (more important to him than, for example, serving as President of the United States). The act strongly supported freedom of religion, and separation of church and state, providing the model for constitutional protections of religious freedom in the United States.

♦ The Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers. These were competing series newspaper editorials written in support of (Federalist) and against (Anti-Federalist) ratification of the US Constitution. The editorials were signed by “Publius” (for the Federalists) and “Cato”, “Brutus” and others (for the Antis), but were written by all the greatest thinkers of the day, including Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Robert Yates, and George Clinton. Both sides made compelling, rational, and civil arguments for their respective factions. The Anti-Federalists’ objections to the proposed constitution led directly to the near-immediate inclusion of the “Bill of Rights” to address their concerns. These essays set the standard for public discourse in the media on the issues of the day. We’d probably be better off if today’s sensationalist talking-head media looked to and emulated the Papers’ example.

♦Article XI of the Treaty of Tripoli, written by Joel Barlow (signed by President John Adams). The next time somebody tells you that “America is a Christian Nation” in order to try and make a political point, or attempts to forment American antagonism toward Muslims, you can point themto this pretty definitive refutation of those ideas, straight from a unanimous vote of approval from the US Senate circa 1797.

…and finally:

♦“A Letter to the Royal Academy” by Benjamin Franklin, because above all, no one can deny the value of a good flatulence joke well-told.