General American Democracy and foreign policy - Essay Example

It is submitted that such an argument ignores the complex socio-political backdrop of the US demographic, which has been instrumental in shaping the American constitutional conventions and in turn the American concept of democracy (DeRossa, p.23). For example, if we firstly consider the historical context, it is evident that the interrelationship between the interests of various ethnonational groups and continuous conflict has been instrumental in developing the American institutional framework for democracy.

A prime example is the Civil War and the Bleeding Kansas Backdrop (Rawley 1980). For example, James Rawley’s “Race and Politics: Bleeding Kansas and the Coming of the Civil War” (1980) provides a detailed analysis of the controversies surrounding the repeal of the Missouri compromise and implementation of the Kansas/Nebraska Act 1854. Rawley raises the question as to whether the unsettled Kansas Territory, which was divided between pro-slavery proponents and abolitionists, resulted in irreconcilable factions which in turn creating conditions that only civil war could resolve.

In considering the Bleeding Kansas backdrop, Rawley argues that the majority of literature focuses on the slavery debate and institution of slavery, without a detailed consideration of race and racial prejudice. In utilising the race debate, Rawley seeks to highlight what he posits as the overriding motivation for the Civil War being the white man’s supremacy struggle as opposed to a fight for emancipation and civil liberties for African Americans. As such, Rawley posits that the central issue in Bleeding Kansas was not the institution of slavery itself but rather race and whether the country could tolerate the expansion of the African American, whether slave or free.

If we firstly consider the historical backdrop, Rawley provides an overview of the implementation of the Kansas /Nebraska Act 1854 and highlights the fact that the 1854 legislation organised the