The states and lacked constitutional protection
These lines, written by poet Marion Manville Pope, are credited with inspiring James Earle Fraser’s haunting End of the Trail. Fraser’s experience growing up in Dakota Territory in the 1880s was equally motivating. As a boy, Fraser had contact with members of the Lakota tribe as well as pioneers. An old frontiersman once commented to him that American Indians were doomed to be driven ever westward and, ultimately, into the Pacific Ocean. As Fraser remembered:
"The thought so impressed me that I couldn’t forget it, in fact, it created a picture in my mind which eventually became the End of the Trail."
Taking this metaphor one step further is to liken the enduring icon of the American West to everything which made American the greatest country on earth. From freedom and liberty with a history dating back to the Magna Carta of 1066, to the era of American Exceptionalism following the implementation of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, hopefully we have reached the end of the trail as a country with failed liberal progressive ideas that have brought us to edge of the abyss.
NOTE: On September 17, 1787, the Constitution was signed. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. Beginning on December 7, five states--Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut--ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. Also in June, Virginia ratified the Constitution, followed by New York in July.