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Comparison Of Andrew Jackson, John Marshall And The Trail Of Tears

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Andrew Jackson, John Marshall, and The Trail of Tears

There have been many dark times in our History as Americans. Among them is the Trail of Tears,brought upon by Andrew Jackson, which exiled the Indians from the American south and resulted in the death of thousands on the way to Oklahoma. Before this trying time there was speculation within the supreme court whether to treat the Native tribes as a sovereign foreign nation or as a dependent entity within the United States. I will discuss how these decisions came to be, the reactions to said decisions, and the aftermath of these rulings which inevitably leads to the Trail of Tears.
In June 1830, Chief John Ross went to defend Cherokee rights before the U.S. Supreme Court after the state of Georgia passed legislation that John Ross claimed to "go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society." Georgia retaliated, claiming that the Cherokee nation could not sue since they were not a foreign nation with a constitution, therefore the case should not be brought to court in the first place. This brought upon the Supreme court case Cherokee Nation v. Georgia in 1831. The conclusion of this case, decided upon by Judge John Marshall was that "the relationship of the tribes to the United States resembles that of a ‘ward to its guardian '." I disagree with this outcome. The Cherokee people had lived in Georgia before the Americans for thousands of years. They were established and organized long before the colonist set
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