States' Rights Are Irrelevant and Possibly Nonexistent

Kirk's Raider's

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in that case states' rights are just a vessel
Not really. Southern states had de jure Apartheid on their law books up to the 1960s. California effectively ended the 1937 federal Marijuana Stamp Act at least in the most populous state in the Union. An American state to a large degree can openly defy federal law . Very much the case in immigration enforcement.
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Matt McKeon

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Not really. Southern states had de jure Apartheid on their law books up to the 1960s. California effectively ended the 1937 federal Marijuana Stamp Act at least in the most populous state in the Union. An American state to a large degree can openly defy federal law . Very much the case in immigration enforcement.
Kirk's Raider's
Not really. Southern states had de jure Apartheid on their law books up to the 1960s. California effectively ended the 1937 federal Marijuana Stamp Act at least in the most populous state in the Union. An American state to a large degree can openly defy federal law . Very much the case in immigration enforcement.
Kirk's Raider's
They can certainly try. But the issue isn't federalism, but rather either drug enforcement policy or segregation in the two examples you're given. Its means and ends. I think we should focus more on ends in studying secession. And "whens" as well as "ends."
 

Kirk's Raider's

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In the case of Secession vs state efforts to negate the 1937 Marijuana Stamp Act or immigration law it's simply a question of whether or not the federal government wishes to use force to uphold the law.
For example President Lincoln was willing to use force to prevent s vs President Buchanan who was not. Of course Lincoln had no clue the ACW would be as bloody as it was.
The US Supreme Court has definitely ruled that federal drug laws absolutely trump state drug laws. So far no US President is willing to have the DEA arrest those who own and work at state sanctioned marijuana stores.
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Matt McKeon

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They can certainly try. But the issue isn't federalism, but rather either drug enforcement policy or segregation in the two examples you're given. Its means and ends. I think we should focus more on ends in studying secession. And "whens" as well as "ends."
Discussing the secession crisis of the 1850s and the winter of 1860s, what happened, why it happened, and why it happened when it did, leads to a clearer understanding of history then 1) trying to shoehorn it into a state vs. federal narrative 2) making a value judgement in moral or even feasible terms.

We know with hindsight that secession failed. We know, or should know, that slavery was horrendous. But the secessionists didn't know either of those things. Its hard to believe they didn't think that a winnable military struggle wouldn't be a consequence of secession.

Why they thought secession was the best course, in 1860, and what they thought their new nation would provide are the interesting questions, because they are historical ones.
 

Matt McKeon

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In this point view, we can abandon the fruitless go around whether secession was "constitutional" or not. The only way that is historically useful is if the players at the time allowed that to influence their decisions.
 

Kirk's Raider's

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Discussing the secession crisis of the 1850s and the winter of 1860s, what happened, why it happened, and why it happened when it did, leads to a clearer understanding of history then 1) trying to shoehorn it into a state vs. federal narrative 2) making a value judgement in moral or even feasible terms.

We know with hindsight that secession failed. We know, or should know, that slavery was horrendous. But the secessionists didn't know either of those things. Its hard to believe they didn't think that a winnable military struggle wouldn't be a consequence of secession.

Why they thought secession was the best course, in 1860, and what they thought their new nation would provide are the interesting questions, because they are historical ones.
We already know why the secessionists chose a violent path towards Secession its spelled out very clearly in the various Ordinances of Secession. We also know why they failed and that is solely because they underestimate Union resolve.
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jgoodguy

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They can certainly try. But the issue isn't federalism, but rather either drug enforcement policy or segregation in the two examples you're given. Its means and ends. I think we should focus more on ends in studying secession. And "whens" as well as "ends."
I agree. My goto reference for State's Rights is Forrest McDonald's States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 and he ignores secession and in later works segregation. If a person loves 'States Rights' then the use of 'States Rightss' to attack African Americans is an embarrassment.
 

jgoodguy

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McDonald – Federalism and States' Rights | The Philadelphia Society

The outcome of the confrontation was indecisive, but it pointed the way for the South's "return to first principles" in the winter of 1860-61: each of the eleven seceding states left the Union in the way the original thirteen states had entered it, by means of conventions elected by the people for the purpose. Disagreements based upon "returns to first principles," as the Founders well understood, could be resolved only by what John Locke called "an appeal to heaven," meaning upon the field of battle. Heaven decided against secession, and that was that.​
 

MattL

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In the context of the secession crisis and the Civil War. I'm thinking historically.

In the 1850s, the nation was convulsed over the issue of slavery vs. free labor. This conflict had many flashpoints: the enforcement of the fugitive slave law, filibustering, Bleeding Kansas, the Ostend Manifesto, the list goes on. What it was not convulsed over was federalism. Because no one convulses over federalism, ever.

There has to be a real, tangible reason for people to engage. When some states passed personal liberty laws they weren't doing it in a demonstration of state vs. federal power, they were doing it because they opposed slavery, and wanted to throw a monkey wrench into the machinery. When the slave states were appeased in the Compromise of 1850 by a draconian fugitive slave law, they didn't accept it because they wanted to demonstrate the supremacy of the federal government over the states, they did it to support slavery, and all that means.

People like feeling they are on the right side of the Constitution. Whether they are or not.
I mostly agree with you. I think both sides used the argument when it fit them and completely stomped over States Rights when it fit them too.
 

5fish

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Jesse Jackson "State Rights is about State Wrongs". He summed up the State Rights argument for the last 150 years... Secession, Slavery, Anti Civil rights and etc. have all been clothes as State Rights issue to defend bad behavior by a state or states.
 
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