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States Rights is a tool, not a political philosophy. If you are in opposition to some program being advanced by the Federal government, you employ the doctrine of states rights to resist it. If you are in opposition to something that your state is doing, then you call for the Federal government to override it.
Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, have found themselves on one side or the other of states rights throughout American history. Unsettomati provided the example of the southern states trying to use the Federal government to invalidate the Massachusetts and Ohio laws which attempted to eliminate any citizen obligation to cooperate with the national Fugitive Slave Act.
But then we have the more recent example of conservatives attempting to overturn various state laws which permitted same sex marriage. The conservatives were calling for a National Protection of Marriage Law. Where was the concern for states rights in that?
Fifteen years ago we were presented with the picture of the Democrats, the supposed Federalists, insisting that the disputed 2000 election be settled by the Florida Supreme Court (which had ruled in their favor) and resisting the Republicans (the supposed champions of states rights) who demanded that the issue be bumped to the Federal Supreme Court where they were confident of a majority decision based on partisan loyalties.
Where you land on states rights has always been predicated upon self interest and the convenience of the hour. As a pure issue, independent of specific concerns, no one really cares, or at least if they pretend that they care, they seem willing to abandon that care instantly if the issue is one where Federalism supports their side.
States Rights is a tool, not a political philosophy. If you are in opposition to some program being advanced by the Federal government, you employ the doctrine of states rights to resist it. If you are in opposition to something that your state is doing, then you call for the Federal government to override it.
You are 100% right
but now it has become an urban myth that "The South seceded because of States rights"
1) Each declaration makes the defense of slavery a clear objective.
2) Some states argue that slavery should be expanded.
3) Abolitionism is attacked as a method of inciting violent uprisings.
4) Mississippi and Georgia point out that slavery accounts for a huge portion of the Southern economy.
STATES' RIGHTS
1) The states argue that the Union is a compact, one that can be annulled if the states are not satisfied with what they receive in return from other states and/or from the federal government. (Not states' rights, this is called "Right to secede if they are not satisfied with the union")
2) The states argue that the North's reluctance to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (mandating that fugitive slaves be returned to the South) means that the compact is no longer satisfactory. (Opposite of states' rights, the South was mad that the Federal government wasn't forcing Northern states to comply with pro-slavery federal laws)
Amazing, but this is the first time I ever hear about this
"Personal Liberty Laws" - This were laws passed by Northern States to protect their citizens against the Federal "Fugitive Slave Act" that allowed people to kidnap black people in the North and taken to the South into slavery.
The passage of the fugitive slave law of 1850, which avoided all employment of state officers, necessitated a change in the personal liberty laws. Accordingly, new laws were passed by Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut in 1854, by Maine, Massachusetts and Michigan in 1855, by Wisconsin and Kansas in 1858, by Ohio in 1859, and by Pennsylvania in 1860. These laws generally prohibited the use of the state's jails for detaining fugitives; provided state officers, under various names, throughout the state, to act as counsel for persons alleged to be fugitives; secured to all such persons the benefits of habeas corpus and trial by jury; required the identify of the fugitive to be proved by two witnesses; forbade state judges and officers to issue writs or give any assistance to the claimant; and imposed a heavy fine and imprisonment for the crime of forcibly seizing or representing as a slave any free person with intent to reduce him to slavery. New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, California and Oregon passed no full personal liberty laws; but there were only two of these states, New Jersey and California, which gave any official sanction or assistance to the rendition of fugitive slaves, though three of them, Indiana, Illinois and Oregon, did so indirectly, by prohibiting the entrance within their borders of negroes either slave or free. In the other states named above, the action of the legislative, judiciary or executive was generally so unfriendly that the South Carolina declaration of causes for secession in 1860 included Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and New Hampshire with the ten states which had passed liberty laws, in the charge of having violated their constitutional obligation to deliver fugitive slaves.
If the South seceded in order to defend states rights, then we are left with the idea that they left the union in order to prove that they could.
Secession was a response to a genuine threat to the oversized political power that the South had been exercising since the election of Andrew Jackson. That power rested with the political unity of states interested in protecting the institution of slavery. The new GOP majority had won office on the basis of their pledge to end the expansion of slavery. If slavery ceased expanding, the balance in the Senate would be ended and the slave states reduced to a minority.
The South was quite correct in their view that the 1960 election results would be the start of their eventual marginalization. That they had the moral right to repudiate the outcome of an election in which they had voluntarily participated and to which they were lawfully bound, is what the North decided to contest.
There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding. The Fugitive Slave Law protected the rights that the southern slave states already had. They didn't give up their state rights to the federal government. In fact this made the federal government subservient to the states.
Drafting a man into war and requiring he fight and even die is turning a human into property.
Oh for god's sake!
Conscription is the oldest form of providing soldiers for the national defense and dates back as far as the 11th century BCE. Now there were nations that had slave armies but unlike drafted citizens they were held in service until death of manumission.
The Fugitive Slave Law protected the rights that the southern slave states already had. They didn't give up their state rights to the federal government. In fact this made the federal government subservient to the states.
What you don't seem to understand is that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 forced free states to enforce Federal law despite their opposition to slavery. The Act required local law enforcement magistrates and even the average citizen to aid in the capture, detention and return of "fugitive" slaves. In short, the Act ushered into enactment by the slave states, revoked the right of states to refuse to assist in enforcing laws that they found onerous obviating the rights of states to abstain from being involved in slavery.
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