They originally wanted to find another pathway to Asia, which is why Native Americans today are called Native Indians-Colombus thought he was in India.
If we did not have the protection of Constitutional Rights there would be regional pockets of intolerance where the prevailing majorities would pass laws that violate the rights of the minorities. There would be no balance. It is part of human nature for the powerful to take advantage, and control, of the less powerful in order to further their own desires and self interests. If that were to happen we would descend into a quagmire of hodge-podge laws and we would lose <span>the stability and intelligence of the national framework of equality we now experience. </span>
The debate is relevant today because there are more or less similar things happening nowadays. The conservatives nowadays are also starting to respond to the political and cultural liberalism that has been the norm for a while. Both now and then, the country was and is divided a lot, which results in power struggles by these two factions.
I am pretty sure it is true