In other case the motive was rooted first in ideological assumption -- and that assumption was that WASP superiority was a given.
The issue of race and class finally came to a head as America continued its expansion westward. But the issue was political as well: What right did the Federal Government have over State Government to say whether slavery should be abolished? Who was really in power in America -- the States and local government -- or federal national government? The Civil War, of course, answered the question brutally and bloodily in 1865. But racism and classism did not end. In fact, the problems of race and class would continue even after the war for as long as American policy was determined by WASP elitism. That policy has not changed to this day.
The Republic grew up on foundations that were racist and idealistic. Jefferson wanted to erase the recent past and build a nation on the principle of Anglo-Saxon superiority. Slavery and the suppression of the "undesirable" class once something that failed to move the founding fathers -- or the fathers that came after -- in any other direction but war. And even then, the problems failed to be addressed.
Works Cited
Horsman, Reginald. Race and Manifest Destiny: the Origins of American Racial Anglo-
Saxonism. Harvard University Press, 1981.…
