Adding a few early points on constitution.

us_atrocities.md

@@ -184,13 +184,45 @@
 ### Native Americans
 
 - In 2016, the US army corp of engineers approved a [Energy Transfer Partners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Transfer_Partners)' proposal to build an oil pipeline near the [Standing Rock Indian Reservation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_Rock_Indian_Reservation), sparking the [Dakota Access Pipeline Protests](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline_protests), evoking a brutal response from North Dakota police aided by the [National Guard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_of_the_United_States), private security firms, and other law enforcement agencies from surrounding states. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe believes that the pipeline would put the Missouri River, the water source for the reservation, at risk, pointing out two recent spills, [a 2010 pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalamazoo_River_oil_spill) in Michigan, which cost over billion to clean up with significant contamination remaining, and a 2015 [Bakken crude oil spill into the Yellowstone River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Yellowstone_River_oil_spill) in Montana. Police repression has included dogs attacking protesters, spraying water cannons on protesters in sub-freezing temperatures, >700 arrests of native americans and ~200 injuries, a highly militarized police force using armored personnel carriers, concussion grenades, mace, Tasers, batons, rubber bullets, and tear gas. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline_protests)</sup>
+
 - In 1975, FBI agents attacked AIM activists on the [Pine Ridge Reservation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation#The_Pine_Ridge_Shootout), in the 'Pine Ridge Shootout'.[[37\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation#cite_note-TimeShootout-37) Two FBI agents, and an AIM activist were killed. In two separate trials, the U.S. prosecuted participants in the firefight for the deaths of the agents. AIM members [Robert Robideau](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Robideau) and Dino Butler were acquitted after asserting that they had acted in self–defense. [Leonard Peltier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peltier) was extradited from Canada and tried separately because of the delay. He was convicted on two counts of first–degree murder for the deaths of the FBI agents[[38\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation#cite_note-LeonardPeltierTrial-38) and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison, after a trial which is still contentious. He remains in prison.
+
 - In 1973, 200 [Oglala Lakota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglala_Lakota) and AIM activists occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, called the [Wounded knee incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_incident). They were protesting the reservation's corrupt US-backed tribal chairman, [Dick Wilson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Wilson_(tribal_chairman)), who controlled a private militia, called [Guardians of the Oglala Nation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Oglala_Nation) (GOONs), funded by the government. FBI, US marshals, and other law enforcement cordoned off the area and attacked the activists with armored vehicles, automatic rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and gas shells, resulting in two killed and 13 wounded. [Ray Robinson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Ray_Robinson), a [civil rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights) activist who joined the protesters, disappeared during the events and is believed to have been murdered. As food supplies became short, three planes dropped 1,200 pounds of food, but as people scrambled to gather it up, a government helicopter appeared overhead and fired down on them while groundfire came from all sides. After the siege ended in a truce, 120 occupiers were arrested. Wilson stayed in office and in 1974 was re-elected amid charges of intimidation, [voter fraud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud), and other abuses. The rate of violence climbed on the reservation as conflict opened between political factions in the following three years; residents accused Wilson's private militia of much of it. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_incident)</sup>
+
 - In Nov. 1969, a group of 89 native americans occupied [Alcatraz Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Alcatraz) for 15 months, to gauge the US's commitment to the [Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Laramie_%281868%29), which stated that all abandoned federal land must be returned to native people. Eventually the government cut off all electrical power and all telephone service to the island. In June, a fire of disputed origin destroyed numerous buildings on the island.[[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Alcatraz#cite_note-occupation-7) Left without power, fresh water, and in the face of diminishing public support and sympathy, the number of occupiers began to dwindle. On June 11, 1971, a large force of government officers removed the remaining 15 people from the island.<sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Alcatraz)</sup>
+
 - From its creation in 1968, The **American Indian Movement** (**AIM**) has been a target of repression from law enforcement agencies, and surveillance as one of the FBI's COINTELPRO targets. This includes the wounded knee incident and the pine ridge shootout. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Movement)</sup>
+
 - In 1942 the federal government [took](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Takings_clause) privately held Pine Ridge Indian Reservation land owned by tribal members in order to establish the [Badlands Bombing Range](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands_Bombing_Range) of 341,725 acres, evicting 125 families. Among the families evicted was that of Pat Cuny, an [Oglala Sioux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oglala_Sioux). He fought in World War II in the [Battle of the Bulge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge) after surviving torpedoing of his transport in the [English Channel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Channel).[[24\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation#cite_note-24) [Dewey Beard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Beard), a [Miniconjou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniconjou) Sioux survivor of the Wounded Knee Massacre, who supported himself by raising horses on his 908-acre allotment received in 1907 was also evicted. The small federal payments were insufficient to enable such persons to buy new properties. In 1955 the 97-year-old Beard testified of earlier mistreatment at Congressional hearings about this project.[[25\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation#cite_note-25) He said, for "fifty years I have been kicked around. Today there is a hard winter coming. ...I might starve to death." <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation#Taking_of_Badlands_Bombing_Range)</sup>
+
 - In 1890, US soldiers killed 150-300 people(including 65 women and 24 children) at [Wounded Knee](19-26 people, including two women and eleven children.) on the [Lakota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakota_people) [Pine Ridge Indian Reservation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservation) in the U.S. state of [South Dakota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota). Twenty-five soldiers also died, and 39 were wounded (6 of the wounded later died).[[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre#cite_note-7) At least twenty soldiers were awarded the [Medal of Honor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor). The event was driven by local racism towards the practice of [Ghost Dancing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance), which whites found distasteful, and the native americans arming up in response to repeated broken treaties, stolen land, and their bison-herds being hunted to near extinction by the whites.<sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre)</sup>
+
 - In 1887, the [Dawes Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act), and [Curtis Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Act_of_1898), resulted in the loss of 90 million acres of native-alloted land, and the abolition of many native governments. During the ensuing decades, the Five Civilized Tribes lost 90 million acres of former communal lands, which were sold to non-Natives. In addition, many individuals, unfamiliar with land ownership, became the target of speculators and criminals, were stuck with allotments that were too small for profitable farming, and lost their household lands. Tribe members also suffered from the breakdown of the social structure of the tribes. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act)</sup>
+
+- Starting in 1830-50, The [Trail of Tears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears) was a series of forced removals of [Native American](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States) nations, including Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, Cherokee people and the African freedmen and slaves who lived among 
+  them, from their ancestral homelands in the [Southeastern United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_United_States) to an area west of the [Mississippi River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River) that had been designated as Native Territory. The forced relocations were carried out by various government authorities following the passage of the [Indian Removal Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act) in 1830. "Marshaled by guards, hustled by agents, harried by contractors,they were being herded on the way to an unknown and unwelcome destination like a flock of sick sheep." They went on ox wagons, on horses, on foot, then to be ferried across the MississippiRiver. The army was supposed to organize their trek, but it turned over its job to private contractors who charged the government as much as possible, gave the Indians as little as possible. The [Cherokee removal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_removal) in 1838 (the last forced removal east of the Mississippi) was brought on by the discovery of gold near [Dahlonega, Georgia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlonega,_Georgia) in 1828, resulting in the [Georgia Gold Rush](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Gold_Rush).[[6\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#cite_note-6) Approximately 2,000-6,000 of the 16,543 relocated Cherokee perished along the way.[[7\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#cite_note-7)[[8\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#cite_note-8)[[9\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#cite_note-9)[[10\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#cite_note-10)[[11\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#cite_note-books.google.com-11)
+
+  <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears)</sup>
+
+- The [Second Seminole War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Seminole_War), also known as the **Florida War**, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in [Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida) between various groups of [Native Americans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States) collectively known as [Seminoles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminole) and the [United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States), part of a series of conflicts called the [Seminole Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminole_Wars). The Second Seminole War, often referred to as *the* Seminole War, is regarded as "the longest and most costly of the [Indian conflicts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars) of the United States." ~3000 seminoles were killed, and 4000 were deported to Indian territory elsewhere. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Seminole_War)</sup>
+
+- In 1832, the [Black Hawk War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_War), was a brief [1832](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1832_in_the_United_States) conflict between the [United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) and [Native Americans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States) led by [Black Hawk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_%28Sauk_leader%29), a [Sauk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauk_people) leader, in Illinois. The war gave impetus to the US policy of [Indian removal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal), in which Native American tribes were pressured to sell their lands and move west of the Mississippi River and stay there. Over 500 Native Americans were killed in the conflict.<sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_War)</sup>
+
+- In 1832, the [Chickasaw Indians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickasaw) were forced by the US to sell their country in 1832 and move to [Indian Territory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Territory) ([Oklahoma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma)) during the era of [Indian Removal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal) in the 1830s.
+
+- In 1813, the [Creek War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creek_War), was a war between the US, lead by the then notorious indian-hunter Andrew Jackson, and the Creek nation, residing primarily in Alabama. Over 1,500 creeks were killed. The war effectively ended with the [Treaty of Fort Jackson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Jackson (August 1814)), where General Andrew Jackson insisted that the Creek confederacy cede more than 21 million acres of land from southern Georgia and central Alabama. These lands were taken from allied Creek as well as Red Sticks. In 1814, Andrew Jackson became famous for his role in the [Battle of Horseshoe Bend](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Horseshoe_Bend_(1814)), where his side killed more than 800 Creeks. Under Jackson, and the man he chose to succeed him, Martin Van Buren, 70,000 Indians
+  east of the Mississippi were forced westward. 
+
+- The [Red Sticks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sticks), a faction of [Muscogee Creek people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscogee_Creek_people) in the [American Southeast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Southeast), led a resistance movement against European-American encroachment and [assimilation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_assimilation_of_Native_Americans); tensions culminated in the outbreak of the [Creek War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creek_War) in 1813.
+
+- From 1785-96, the [Northwest Indian War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Indian_War) was a war between the US and a confederation of numerous [Native American](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States) tribes, with support from the British, for control of the [Northwest Territory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Territory). President [George Washington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington) directed the [United States Army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army) to enforce U.S. sovereignty over the territory. Over 1,000 native americans were killed in the bloody conflict. 
+
+- In the 1800s, [Indian removal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal) was a policy of the United States government whereby [Native Americans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States) were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the [Mississippi River](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River), thereafter known as [Indian Territory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Territory). That policy has been characterized by some scholars as part of a long-term genocide of Native Americans. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal)</sup>
+
+- The [Texan-Indian Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%E2%80%93Indian_wars) were a series of 19th-century conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern [Plains Indians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Indians). Its hard to approximate the number of deaths from the conflicts, but the Indian population in Texas decreased from 20,000 to 8,000 by 1875. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%E2%80%93Indian_wars)</sup>
+
+- The [Indian Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars) is a name given to the collection of over 40 conflicts and wars between native americans and US settlers. The US census bureau reports that they have cost the lives of about 19,000 white men, women and children, including those killed in individual combats, and the lives of about 30,000 Indians. The actual number of killed and wounded Indians must be very much higher than the number given... Fifty percent additional would be a safe estimate..<sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars)</sup>
+
 - From 1500-1900s, European and later US colonists and authorities displaced and [committed genocide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples#The_question_of_colonization_and_genocide_in_the_Americas) on the Native American Population. Ward Churchill characterizes the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 as a "vast genocide.. the most sustained on record. Some of the atrocities will be listed above. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples#The_question_of_colonization_and_genocide_in_the_Americas), [2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Americas)</sup>
 
 ### Black people
@@ -256,6 +288,7 @@
 - In the period following WWII, the US capitalist-controlled media, advertising, and consumer products industries propagandized and glorified the ideal of the housewife-consumer, in order to sell products, make labor space for returning soldiers, take advantage of women's unpaid labor in the home, and to help build a new workforce and potential army to combat the soviet union. This sparked an era of regression with respect to the feminist victories of the previous 50 years, and caused psychological damage and demoralization to an uncountable number of women. Women who remained in the labor force were primarily only allowed in subordinate positions such as secretaries, cleaning women, elementary school teachers, saleswomen, waitresses, and nurses. This is chronicled in the [Feminine Mystique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminine_Mystique). 
 - From the 1880s onward, many US states(27 + puerto rico in 1956) operated a system of [forced sterilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#United_States) of women, rooted in white supremacy. The principle targets were the mentally ill, native americans, and blacks. For example, in [Sunflower County Mississippi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_County,_Mississippi), 60% of black women living there were sterilized without their permission. An estimated 3,406 Indian women were sterilized.[[63\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#cite_note-Lawrence-63) California eugenicists in 1933 began sending their literature overseas to german scientists and medical workers, sparking the beginnings of Nazi Eugenics. In the end, over 65,000 individuals were sterilized in 33 states, in all likelihood without the perspectives of ethnic minorities. 148 female prisoners in two California institutions were sterilized between 2006 and 2010 in a supposedly voluntary program, but it was determined that the prisoners did not give consent to the procedures. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#United_States),[2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#cite_note-71)</sup>
 - In the 1830s, The [Lowell Mill Girls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Mill_Girls) were female workers who came to work in industrial factories in [Lowell, Massachusetts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell,_Massachusetts), during the [Industrial Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution), and who despite living in cramped boarding houses and working from 5am-7pm every day, developed a culture of defiance against the factory owners, and created reform associations, and began strikes in 1834 and 1836. <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Mill_Girls)</sup>
+- US elites in the 18th and 19th centuries pushed a narrative of *domestic purity*, or the *cult of true womanhood*, for women as a way of pacifying her with a doctrine of "separate but equal"-giving her work equally as important as the man's, but separate and different. Inside that "equality" there was the fact that the woman did not choose her mate, and once her marriage took place, her life was determined. One girl wrote in 1791: "The die is about to be cast which will probably determine the future happiness or misery of my life.... I have always anticipated the event with a degree of solemnity almost equal to that which will terminate my present existence." Marriage enchained, and children doubled the chains. One woman, writing in 1813: "The idea of soon giving birth to my third child and the consequent duties I shall he called to discharge distresses me so I feel as if I should sink."
 
 ### Latinos
 
@@ -314,6 +347,10 @@
 - Throughout the late 1800s, robber barons and wealthy industrialists like [J.P. Morgan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Morgan), [John D. Rockefeller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller), [Andrew Carnegie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie), [Philip Armour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Danforth_Armour), [Jay Gould](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Gould), and the [Mellon Family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellon_family), presided over the [Gilded Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_age), a period of massive wealth and resource accumulation into a small number of hands. The wealthy capitalists pushed state and federal legislation to serve their interests, and succeeded in enlisting the police to serve their interests, including pushing farmers and native americans off their land. [Henry George](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George) and others criticized the immense accumulation of property, pointing out that the lowest classes did not share in the gains of luxury and comfort. 
 - In the 1830s, after the accumulation of farmland by a few wealthy families, thousands of farmers forced to rent their land formed Anti-Rent associations to prevent evictions, culminating in the [Anti-Rent War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rent_War), a guerilla war between bands of sheriffs and farmers. The wealthy used sheriffs and deputies to evict thousands of returning civil war veterans unable to pay rent. The farmers had fought, been crushed by the law, their struggle diverted into voting, and the system stabilized by enlarging the class of small landowners, leaving the basic structure of rich and poor
   intact. It was a common sequence in American history.
+- From 1786-87, [Shays' Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion) was an [armed uprising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_uprising) in [Massachusetts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts) over dissatisfaction from returning veterans. The rural farming population was generally unable to meet the demands being made of them by merchants or the civil authorities, and individuals began to lose their land and other possessions when they  were unable to fulfill their debt and tax obligations. This led to strong resentments against tax collectors and the courts, where creditors obtained and enforced judgments against debtors, and where tax collectors obtained judgments authorizing property seizures. It,and similar conflicts and unrest were pacified by the passing of the 1789 [Bill of Rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights). <sup>[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion)</sup>
+- In 1787, [James Madison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison) in the [Federalist Paper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers) #10, outlined the primary role of the US constitution, arguing that representative government was needed to maintain peace in a society ridden by factional disputes. These disputes came from "the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society." The problem, he said, was how to control the factional struggles that came from inequalities in wealth. Minority factions could be controlled, he said, by the principle that decisions would be by vote of the majority. So the real problem, according to Madison, was a majority faction, and here the solution was offered by the Constitution, to have "an extensive republic," that is, a large nation ranging over thirteen states, for then "it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength,and to act in unison with each other.... The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States." Madison's argument can be seen as a sensible argument for having a government which can maintain peace and avoid continuous disorder. But is it the aim of government simply to maintain order, as a referee, between two equally matched fighters? Or is it that government has some special interest in maintaining a certain kind of order, a certain distribution of power and wealth, a distribution in which government officials are not neutral referees but participants? In that case, the disorder they might worry about is the disorder of popular rebellion against those monopolizing the society's wealth. This interpretation makes sense when one looks at the economic interests, the social backgrounds, of the makers of the Constitution. Charles Beard warned us that governments-including the government of the United States-are not neutral, that they represent the dominant economic interests, and that their constitutions are intended to serve these interests. 
+- The 1787 [US Constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution) is falsely portrayed as a document representing an ideal of social and political equality, despite every framer being a rich white propertied man. Historian [Charles Beard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_A._Beard) found that a majority of the framers were lawyers by profession, that most of them were men of wealth, in land, slaves, manufacturing, or shipping, that half of them had money loaned out at interest, and that forty of the fifty-five held government bonds, according to the records of the Treasury Department. Thus, Beard found that most of the makers of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the money lenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands; slave-owners needed federal security against slave revolts  and runaways; bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those bonds. Four groups, Beard noted, were not represented in the Constitutional Convention: slaves, indentured servants, women, men without property. And so the Constitution did not reflect the interests of those groups. He later wrote: "Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond the mere repression of physical violence, is the making of the rules which determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant classes whose rights are thus to be determined must perforce obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government."
+- The [American Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_revolution) is falsely portrayed as being a social revolution. [Edmund Morgan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Morgan_(historian)) sums up the class nature of the Revolution this way: "The fact that the lower ranks were involved in the contest should not obscure the fact that the contest itself was generally a struggle for office and power between members of an upper class: the new against the established." Looking at the situation after the Revolution, Richard Morris comments: "Everywhere one finds inequality." He finds "the people" of "We the people of the United States" (a phrase coined by the very rich governor Morris) did not mean Indians or blacks or women or white servants. In fact, there were more indentured servants than ever, and the Revolution "did nothing to end and little to ameliorate white bondage." [Carl Degler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Neumann_Degler) says (*Out of Our Past*): "No new social class came to power through the door of the American revolution. The men who engineered the revolt were largely members of the colonial ruling class." George Washington was the richest man in America. John Hancock was a prosperous Boston merchant. Benjamin Franklin was a wealthy printer. 
 
 
 ### Prisoners