Obviously it was wrong when we consider the loss of life that took place in the forceful removal of the Cherokees from their home in the Southeast to what was Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma, in the Midwest. No longer the coherent nation they had been. Now the Cherokees are found in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the eastern band of Cherokees in North Carolina, and in various other communities across the United States and even Mexico. This was a people that wanted to live together, who had, as Augustine said, loved things held in common, and they were sundered apart by coercion. This split apart a unified people who had chosen to live together for centuries, organizing themselves around a sophisticated common law with a capital and recognized regions and all seven family clans represented in every town. At some level, IвЂ™m making a moral statement, a normative claim that the United States should not have forcibly removed the Cherokee Nation from its homeland in 1838 and вЂ™39. The Trail of Tears shouldnвЂ™t have happened. People at the time knew it was unconstitutional. The Trail of Tears: They Knew It Was Wrong The Trail of Tears set precedents we can only hope to avoid repeating. This is a story about how a group that had power gained at the expense of a minority unable to defend itself. They suggest that we canвЂ™t look aside and ignore the Trail of Tears as an example of something that was just part of the mid-19 th century mindset. policy, but their words speak to us today. How can the Trail of Tears provide lessons today? There were people who stood against the Trail of Tears at the time it happened. It was based, in part, on an invalid treaty.It was legally wrong on Constitutional and judicial grounds.It stripped property rights from a minority that lacked the means to defend itself and redistributed their property to people who wanted it for themselves.It was morally wrong because the arguments used to justify the move were based on falsehood.Somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of the Cherokee Nation was lost as a result of the Trail of Tears. It was morally wrong because of the loss of life.Historian Amy Sturgis explains why the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation to вЂњIndian TerritoryвЂќ (modern-day Oklahoma) was wrong on both moral and legal grounds. People at the time knew that it was wrong, that it was illegal, and that it was unconstitutional, but they did it anyway.

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