Agrarian policy of the USA in the 1800s in the context of the Doctrine of States Rights (on the example of the "Yazoo Affair")

issues related to private property have always been acutely perceived in almost any society. The United States of America in the early 19th century was no exception: the United States faced a number of challenges related to the distribution of land ownership and, as a result, land scams and affairs. Based on one of such scams, a precedent that entered American historiography as the "Yazoo Affair", the goal was set to identify both the decisions of the federal authorities regarding the western lands, their logic and legal aspects, and their impact on society. Particular attention is paid to how agrarian policy influenced the formation of the doctrinal foundations of the ideology of the American South, which would later justify the secession of the southern states in 1860-1861 from both an ideological and legal point of view. The connection between the US land policy (in relation to the western territories) and the domestic political development of the country is subject to contextual analysis in accordance with the political realities of the early 19th century. XIX century, and also taking into account the tendencies in which the country as a whole was developing. This allows us to trace the dynamics of the interaction of political power and ideological constructs that will later be used by the southerners.

USA, agrarian policy, land speculation, southern conservatism, Georgia, states' rights, T. Jefferson, J. Randolph