Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Georgia

  • The Jurisprudence of the Removal of Native Americans

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    William Wirt. By: Henry Inman.

    In the face of the removal of Native Americans, the Cherokees turned to the federal courts for help.

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  • The Failure of Colonization

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    Certificate for Life Membership in the American Colonization Society.

    The American Colonization Society, the premier organization advocating for the exportation of slavery to Africa, had a major supporter in Secretary of State Henry Clay in the late 1820s.

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  • Protecting the Native Americans

    by Charles King Bird
    Secretary of War John Calhoun. By: Charles Bird King.

    President John Quincy Adams and his administration faced a serious challenge in dealing with the Native Americans.

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  • The Beginning of Oppression

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    Tenskwatawa. By: Charles Bird King.

    For centuries prior to the War of 1812, the Native Americans were able to manipulate the British, French, Spanish, and Americans to sustain themselves. After the War of 1812, the entirety of the land east of the Mississippi River was owned by America, effectively ended the Native Americans’ strategy. Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 74.

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  • Unalterable Constitutions

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    Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By: Ferdinand Richardt.

    As the constitutions of the states were implemented and executed during the Revolutionary years, the population began holding conventions for amendment of those constitutions, believing that “Legislatures were incompetent” to do so. Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787, 306 quoting Farrand, ed., Records of the Federal Convention, II, 91-93. In fact, James Madison believed that “it would be a novel and dangerous doctrine that a Legislature could change the constitution under which it held its existence.” Id.

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  • Laboratories of Democracy

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    Governor’s Palace. Williamsburg, Virginia.

    In the months leading up to the Declaration of Independence, the states began the process of adopting their own constitutions. These constitutions, being drafted in 1776, approximately 13 years before the United States Constitution would be ratified, had to confront many of the same issues as the United States Constitution, with various approaches being taken. (more…)