US civics

USA absolutely basics

Many researchers derive democracy from ancient Greece. How does ancient Greece compare with modern America? Ancient Greeks actually developed a proto-democracy: they happened to have kings and queens, and depended heavily at times, on military leaders and bequeathed elitism. ■More

Today, people hardly would use aged shapes of language to talk or write about the law. Congressional control hardly would show as controul. The pragmatic idea here is to have a few such updates written, and to have all the updating described. The civics are American English as today, but all phrases have been taken from internal evidence, that is, civics as they were written up originally.

■The content is also available in Polish.

The Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation. ■More

USA Constitution

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ■More

Amendments to the US Constitution

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ■More

USA flag

USA national flag has thirteen stripes of red alternating with white. The red is at the top and the bottom. In insignia, the white is on the left and right. The 13 stripes represent the 13 original states of the early Union. The blue rectangle with 50 white five-pointed stars, one for each American state, is called the union — for the country as it is today. ■More

USA anthem

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? ■More

American bald eagle

The name bald eagle correlates with Latin figurative reference for the Greek word ■leukos, white, as in literary descriptions of “barren, wintry lands”. Bald eagles do not migrate for winter, and US Alaska has the biggest population of them in the world. ■More

USA Great Seal

United States federal authorities have used the Great Seal to authenticate documents. The obverse is the national coat of arms of the United States. It shows the bald eagle holding 13 arrows in its left talon and an olive branch with 13 leaves and 13 olives in its right talon. The arrows symbolize the American preparedness for war. The eagle turns its head to the olive branch. ■More

Voluntary practice

The practice has questions and suggested answers about American civics. The answers are not comprehensive; they are more of ideas that could be of use in creative writing. ■More

We are not going to do the syntax or style of the Proclamation or Address; we include them because they belong with most important texts in US civics.

Emancipation Proclamation

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States, and each of the States, and the people thereof, in which States that relation is, or may be, suspended or disturbed. ■More

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal”. ■More

■The content is also available in Polish.