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Primary sources allow teachers to continue the National Week of Conversation

Primary sources allow teachers to continue the National Week of Conversation
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Zachary Cote
By Zachary CoteApr 21, 2023
Zachary Cote
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Zachary Cote is Executive Director of Thinking Nation, a nonprofit that seeks to shift the paradigm of history education by empowering students to think historically. He tweets at @Thinking_Nation.

We are nearing the end of the National Week of Conversation. From April 17-23, civics-minded organizations are promoting #NWOC as a way to facilitate the skills and dispositions our country needs. Within our partner schools around the country we are exploring how this goal of conversation amidst differences relates to cultivating historical thinkers in the school classroom. Fortunately, it relates quite a bit.

As I have written about before on our organization’s blog, historical thinkers are empathetic listeners. When students employ historical thinking skills [the skills needed to analyze the past], their first job is to listen to the sources they encounter in order to understand the perspectives of the people they study. As the late historian, Marc Bloch, noted in his famous The Historian’s Craft, “The judge expresses it as: ‘Who is right, and who is wrong?’ The scholar is content to ask: ‘Why?’ and he accepts the fact that the answer may not be simple.”

Bloch’s words remind us that the first job of a historical thinker is to understand, not cast judgment. Of course, judgment does not always have to be avoided. It’s ok for historians to make moral claims. But that isn’t the primary goal. For historical thinkers, the goal is to understand; and in order to understand, we must listen.

I remember during one class where I was guest teaching in an 11th grade U.S. history classroom in Los Angeles. As a class, we analyzed a few primary sources that highlighted the Black experience in America during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. One of the documents was a testimony from Charles Houston (a representative of the NAACP) to the House Ways and Means Committee, where he pointed out the systemic inequality that occurred in the Social Security Act.

We looked at how this document fits within the prompt (To what extent did the New Deal improve the lives of African Americans?). Houston pointed out that since agriculture and domestic service were two industries dominated by Black Americans (and those industries were excluded from Social Security benefits), Black Americans received no support from the federal government’s program even though statistically they had the most to benefit from it. On the surface, the testimony appeared as evidence that the New Deal did not improve the lives of African Americans. But, a student raised her hand.

“Can’t this be seen as a positive example of Black progress?” she asked. Her classmates looked confused as if they were thinking “Oh no, she really isn’t paying attention.” She continued, “In this case, a Black man is testifying to Congress and they are listening. So even though he is pointing out negative aspects of the New Deal, the very fact that he is in that room shows progress toward more racial equality.” We were all impressed. In all honesty, I had not even seen that argument before.

At that moment, that student was listening to the past. She wasn’t just reading the lines of the text, she was reading between them. She was empathizing with Houston, who bravely stood before a congressional committee fighting for equality for all Americans. She identified his resilience and efforts as progress.

As seen in the classroom that day, listening to the past through the analysis of primary sources can be a powerful act of empathy for students. When we incorporate student discussions into that analysis, we only deepen empathy. Students model a listening process for their analysis of past documents as a way to set them up to listen in the contemporary conversations they engage with every day.

It is my hope that we continue the themes of #NWOC far beyond this week. Let’s support teachers around the country as they pause and look for opportunities to have students listen to the past and engage in empathetic conversations about its significance. Not only will students grow in their intellectual capacity through these conversations, such conversations are foundational for the preservation of our constitutional democracy.


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  • Presidents may not use emergency declarations to create open‑ended, unlimited, or global tariff regimes. The administration’s claim that IEEPA permitted tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope was rejected outright. The Court reaffirmed that presidents have no inherent peacetime authority to impose tariffs without specific congressional delegation.
  • Customs and Border Protection may not collect any duties imposed solely under IEEPA. Any tariff justified only by IEEPA must cease immediately. CBP cannot apply or enforce duties that lack a valid statutory basis.
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  • Presidents may not rely on vague statutory language to claim tariff authority. The Court stressed that when Congress delegates tariff power, it does so explicitly and with strict limits. Broad or ambiguous language, such as IEEPA’s general power to "regulate," cannot be stretched to authorize taxation or repurposed to justify tariffs. The decision in United States v. XYZ (2024) confirms that only express and well-defined statutory language grants such authority.

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  • Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Balance‑of‑Payments Tariffs). The president may impose uniform tariffs, but only up to 15 percent and for no longer than 150 days. Congress must take action to extend tariffs beyond the 150-day period. These caps are strictly defined. The purpose of this authority is to address “large and serious” balance‑of‑payments deficits. No investigation is mandatory. This is the authority invoked immediately after the ruling.
  • Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (National Security Tariffs). Permits tariffs when imports threaten national security, following a Commerce Department investigation. Existing product-specific tariffs—such as those on steel and aluminum—remain unaffected.
  • Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Unfair Trade Practices). Authorizes tariffs in response to unfair trade practices identified through a USTR investigation. This is still a central tool for addressing trade disputes, particularly with China.
  • Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 (Safeguard Tariffs). The U.S. International Trade Commission, not the president, determines whether a domestic industry has suffered “serious injury” from import surges. Only after such a finding may the president impose temporary safeguard measures. The Supreme Court ruling did not alter this structure.
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The Bottom Line

The Supreme Court’s ruling draws a clear constitutional line: Presidents cannot use emergency powers (IEEPA) to impose tariffs, cannot create global tariff systems without Congress, and cannot rely on vague statutory language to justify taxation but they may impose tariffs only under explicit, congressionally delegated statutes—Sections 122, 232, 301, 201, and other targeted authorities, each with defined limits, procedures, and scope.

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The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed that the annual deficit narrowed. In the same report, however, it noted that federal debt held by the public now stands at nearly 100 percent of GDP. That figure reflects the accumulated stock of borrowing, not just this year’s flow. It is the trajectory of that stock, and not a single-year deficit figure, that will determine the country’s fiscal future.

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Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt now account for roughly half of federal outlays, and their share rises automatically each year. These commitments do not pause for election cycles. They grow with demographics, health costs, and compounding interest.

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