States' rights

In American politics and Constitutional law states' rights are guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, (i.e. the tenth article of the Bill of Rights). It is usually used to defend a state law that the Federal government seeks to override, or a perceived violation of the bounds of Federal authority. "States' Rights" is actually a misnomer; only the people, in American constitutional law, hold rights. Governments hold "powers" or "authority." The principle of federal powers over those powers held by the states was laid out by John Marshall, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the seminal case of McCulloch v. Maryland, Marshall asserted, based on the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution, that the laws of the federal government were generally paramount over the laws of the separate state governments. The principle of states' rights was the fulcrum on which many of the political battles preceding the American Civil War were balanced. Slave states asserted that they had the power to maintain social institutions—particularly slavery—in whichever way their state legislatures saw fit, while Midwestern and Northeastern Free States asserted that they had the power to exclude slavery and slaves from their territories. New England states, when in the minority, threatened secession, and Midwestern leaders, like Gov. Salmon P. Chase, refused Federal officer from recapturing fugitives from slavery in Ohio. Southern planters of the Democratic Party controlled most branches of the Federal Government for 60 years, often using their disproportionate electoral power gained in the three-fifths compromise. Most notoriously, Midwesterners and others in the North were outraged when Chief Justice Taney, himself a slaveholder, preserved the rights of slaveholders to bring slaves into the Midwest and West in contradiction of state Constitutions prohibiting slavery. When the Republican Party swept the North and Lincoln was elected President, however, Southerns rebelled at the idea of being in the minority in the Federal government and opted to secede. In this irony, the political balance was tipped, and Southerners in the minority would assert State's Rights arguments through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and another century. The South's secession was the greatest test of States' Rights, and its adherents failed to effectuate their claims. The United States would become truly one nation, and the state "right of secession" was almost entirely repudiated. When Lincoln had gained power, the Republicans in the federal government and Northerners in general rallied behind the cause of the Union, to maintain their narrow electoral victory. Further, many Northerners believed that they could neither tolerate a new slave nation in control of the Mississippi River and the West, nor allow a minority of slaveholders to hold the nation hostage to political or even military threats. In many ways, Northerners and Southerners believed the political standoff to be entirely that - political, and while showing military force might help their cause, many never envisioned the bloody war to come but rather expected a stand-off and uneasy cohabitation. The rebel leaders of the proclaimed Confederate States believed that states' rights authorized them to dissolve the Union. Again, the federal government disagreed. During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, states' rights again become strongly associated with Southern racial politics, with proponents of segregation and Jim Crow laws denouncing federal interference in these state-level policies. In 1948, pro-segregationist Strom Thurmond broke with the Democratic Party and formed the States' Rights Democratic Party, also known as the "Dixiecrats". The extent of states' rights remains a hotly-debated topic to this day. The use (or non-use) of the death penalty is currently decided by individual states. Other controversial subjects entering the states' rights debate include the authority to legalize assisted suicide, the authority to legalize gay marriage, and the authority to legalize medical marijuana, the last of which is in direct contravention of current federal U.S. law. Another concern is the fact that on more than one occasion, the Federal Government has threatened to withhold highway funds from states unless state governments pass certain articles of legislation. Critics of such actions feel that when the Federal Government does this they upset the balance between the state and Federal governments. The most important intellectual offspring of the States' Rights philosophy was born in the mind of President Woodrow Wilson, himself sympathetic to Southern ideas (his Southern ancestry and love of the movie The Birth of a Nation bear out this point). His belief in 'self-determination' was a natural outgrowth of States rights ideas, just as W.E.B. DuBois's idea of a new African-American culture grew out of his thesis on Jefferson Davis. Hence, States' Rights is an important Constitutional idea with historical and cultural relevance. States' Rights, Local control, and self-determination are concepts which relate to which level of government is to be preferred. A population can be divided and subdivided down to units of one person, and the conflict of a Federal Government, State governments, and even lesser local governments is one that will continue to excite political leaders and voters as long as political power is divided. Many argue that a healthy tension between local and national power is another healthy check or balance in the totality of government in the United States, in order to diversify democratic powers and preserve minority rights, property rights, civil rights, and other rights. Category:United States history