CatNipped wrote:


Actually, according to our Constitution, state laws *should* supersede
Federal law in all but cases involving crossing state lines. Don't let
anybody kid you, the Civil war was about the north not getting its grubby
hands on taxes generated by cotton plantations (as all wars throughout
history, no matter the lip service paid to ideological beliefs, it is
*always* about money).

How true. I am reading an eye-opening novel "The Proud and the Free",
about the way our government dispossessed the Cherokee Nation, back in
the 1830's. The book itself is a slightly steamy romantic novel, but
the historical background is genuine, and redeems it. These were not
"savages", but people who had adopted the White Man's ways, were
educated in Eastern U.S. schools, and had become prosperous farmers and
businessmen. (Since their territory included a good chunk of the Deep
South, many had lavish plantations, and were slave-owners.)

I have always considered it a good joke on our government that, after
forcing the Indians into lands the White Man didn't want, they
discovered oil there, and couldn't evict them. However, that may simply
mean we had a slightly more moral government in office at the time.
There were equally binding treaties in place in the 1830's, but when
President Jackson and his cronies decided they wanted all that rich
farmland and those newly discovered goldmines in Georgia, it didn't stop
them forcing new treaties relocating the Cherokees from their ancestral
lands to territory West of the Mississippi, and using the U.S. Army to
enforce the eviction. (There are times I don't think much of the human
race, and clearly Americans are no better than anyone else.)