5 - Manifest Destiny: Indian Removal Act & Trail of Tears

•Read Loh pages 129 (From "Jackson also left his mark...") to 130 (Ending with "...never leave my memory.").
•If Andrew Jackson believed that removing Native Americans from their homelands was both necessary and humane, what does this reveal about how people in his time understood justice, progress, and the limits of compassion?
•When a government chooses to carry out a policy it believes is necessary for national growth, but that brings great suffering to others, how should history remember the leaders who made those choices?
•When President Jackson ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling in Worcester v. Georgia, was he exercising strong leadership in defense of state authority, or undermining the balance of power that keeps a republic free?
•What does Alexis de Tocqueville’s eyewitness account reveal about the human cost of the Indian Removal policy and the emotional reality behind government decisions?
•How could a nation that prided itself on liberty watch such a “solemn spectacle” and still believe it was acting justly?
•Optional/Additional Reading: Alexis de Tocqueville, letter to Madame La Comtesse de Tocqueville, December 25, 1831