Southern Bread

Please do me a favor before you continue reading any further. Purge your mind of anything you know or have heard about the phrase “state’s rights”. I can tell you right now, without any reservation, that it’s probably bunk. Why am I so sure of that? Well, state’s rights is one of those unfortunate phrases that has been seized upon, demonized and twisted beyond all ideological recognition by the ivory tower elitists. It’s an ideological whipping boy. This is partly due to the Lincoln cultists and partly due to it’s proponents choosing the wrong issue and the wrong time to stand on it. Whatever the reason, one thing is for sure. It’s grossly misunderstood and mischaracterized. And the real nonsense of it all is that it’s such an easy thing to understand. To misconstrue the idea behind state’s rights can only happen if you intentionally want to be dishonest about it, or you really are ignorant about it. Either way, we’re about to remedy that problem.

First off, for all you people that actually paid attention in highschool history class, let me dispel one humdinger myth right out of the gate: State’s rights was not invented by John C. Calhoun to justify slavery. And that leads me to another myth that needs to be wiped away: State’s rights has nothing to do with slavery or with the South. Those two ideas are just utter nonsense, and you’ll see why in a minute. It’s true that you will not find that phrase in the Constitution or the Declaration, but what’s so odd about that? We don’t find the seperation of church and state in their either, but I think we’re all glad that the state doesn’t interfere in our church lives. Some doctrines are logical extrapolations from the intent of the founding and from the wording of our founding documents. State’s rights is one of those issues. It seems to be a logical conclusion you reach in a federated system such as ours. Especially seeing how our founding happened.

So what is it? State’s rights is simply the idea that states have a right to interperet the consitution that they themselves ratified, and that in this role, the states act as a check and balance on the power of the Federal government. The idea is so simple. That’s why I said earlier that the only way to misunderstand this doctrine is to do so willfully or by ignorance. What’s so hard to understand about the idea that if the people of a state voted to ratify the constitution that they should get just as much right to interperate it as the national government itself. And, going one step further, why would we think that the founding fathers would have shaken off centralized tyranny from a far away government, then turn around and enshrine the same thing here in America? They weren’t so naive as to think that a mere piece of paper was going to keep far away buearacrats in check.

State’s rights actually was referred to in the federalist papers and numerous other founding documents and letters. It was often called dual sovereignty, or just referred to as state sovereignty. Madison clearly spelled this out in black and white:

It was Madison, and Jefferson’s, idea that the Union had two heads. The federal government on one side and the states on the other. This followed naturally from their fundemental premise that the best way to supress man’s natural tendency toward oppression is to set up structures that would keep two elected offices in competition with each other. They envisioned constant battles taking place between the executive and legislative branches for power. These battles would keep them in check through gridlock, if nothing else. But what happens if, to use a very prescient example, both the legislative and executive branches both manage to cook up some type of collusion, or are dominated by all of the same party? Who provides the check on that? Simple answer: the States.

But we can think of a more accessible example to demonstrate the obvious nature of state sovereignty. Think about what it takes to ratify an amendment to the constitution. It takes a two-thirds vote of congress(both houses) or two-thirds of the state legislatures for proposing it, and then three-fourths of the states to ratify it. See how dominant the state’s role is in amending our Constitution? Why then, if the states are the final arbiter of the content of the constitution would they then surrender all power to interperet it? That wouldn’t make any sense and it’s not how it was first designed. The fact is, that it often falls to the states to shield it’s citizens from the long arm of the national government even if they are known to shirk that duty more often than not.

So, this is all great theory, but how does it all play out? Well, the primary weapons of the states to accomplish this task of keeping the Federal government in check are nullification, taxation and secession. These three weapons were all skillfully employed by the states early in our country’s history to battle encroachments from Washington. We’ll talk about them next time.