Slavery, Native American displacement, and America's rise to power

America's Rise To Power

It is not a new notion that America rose to world domination on the backs of the less fortunate, such as Native Americans and slaves. Before the Civil War, legislation like the Dred Scott case and the Kansas-Nebraska Act mandated white's control over slaves and slavery, allowing the Southern states to continue a policy that had been banned in the North. The South grew wealthy by exporting cotton and other materials that were farmed by slave labor, and even after the war, when the slaves were freed, they continued to be subjugated by Jim Crow laws and other means to keep them "in their place" on the bottom rung of society. The Native Americans were consistently pushed from their native lands, treaties were ignored, and they were sent to reservations far from where they had lived, making it impossible to continue their way of life. The Trail of Tears is an excellent example, where the Natives were sent from the South to Oklahoma, many dieing along the way.

These policies were developed by the government, by society, and even in the courtroom. They indicated how the European settlers had little regard for minorities and their rights, and that is the foundation of the country. State's rights were an integral part of this government from the very beginning, a fact that has never wavered. State's have the right to manage their own affairs, and they always have, in an attempt to place some kind of control over government. Thomas Jefferson was a strong believer in the preservation of State's rights, and he made sure that was part of the Constitution and Washington government.