Framers of the U.S. Constitution finessed the thorny problem of federalism by leaving important questions unanswered until a future day. Those unanswered questions eventually led to the unlawful removal of Indians in the South, and to the Civil War in 1861.
Problems with
federalism and state's rights, which ultimately lead to the Civil
War, start at this time with the Georgia legislature quarreling
with the federal government over the legal nature of Indian
sovereignty - status the southern states ignored as a block.
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This political cartoon shows how the sovereignty of
Native American tribal governments was not taken into account by
the framers of the U.S. Constitution.
Georgia's legislators sought to divest the state of property to the
west, and when the land was scooped up by land speculators who were
partners with many of the legislators, they turned the excess land
it into Alabama and Mississippi and then forced the citizens to pay
for it. Now, residents of Georgia clamored to take over
Cherokee lands inside of the state's borders.
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