U.S. Civic Rigor Framework (Corrected Version): A Ten‑Criterion Audit Model for Federal Election Platforms

This living paper applies the corrected U.S. Civic Rigor Framework — a ten‑criterion adaptation of the Universal Civic Rigor Checklist — to American party platforms from 1840 onward. The current release covers 1840–1864 (18 documents), spanning Democratic, Whig, Free Soil, American/Know‑Nothing, Constitutional Union, and early Republican platforms. The framework evaluates constitutional competence, fiscal scale, definitional guardrails, historical grounding, disclosure and causal honesty, committee and veto hearing, rhetorical register, legislative and administrative blueprint, federal agency provenance, and judicial review. Early findings show that only two of the earliest platforms clear the bottom grade band, with rigor rising as the sectional crisis intensifies and falling again once the Civil War begins. This project is ongoing and will expand to cover all major U.S. platforms through 2024. Full disclosure: due to the complex nature of this project, various AI models are used to help collate, verify, and structure the data. All AI prompts and hand‑off instructions have been intentionally preserved within the working papers to maintain a transparent historical log of the research process.