States’ Rights Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The American political doctrine of states’ rights has its roots in the struggles of the American colonies with the British Crown and its agents. Rallying to the cry “no taxation without representation,” the colonies assembled at the Second Continental Congress virtually as an assembly of ambassadors from the colonies and declared themselves to be free and independent states through the Declaration of Independence. Their sovereign statehood was affected on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War (1775–1783).

After the revolution, the original thirteen states joined in a national government that was designed to be weak in order to protect them from a home-grown tyrant. The Articles of Confederation government created a national government that had no executive or judiciary except in the form of several committees of the Articles of Confederation Congress. The Congress, composed of the “states in Congress assembled,” was weak, requiring almost all decisions to be unanimous. The states were explicitly described as sovereign.

The weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation government quickly became apparent. Calls for its amendment to strengthen the national government were heeded after the excitement generated by Shays’ Rebellion (1786–1787). The Constitution that emerged from the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in September of 1787 was sent to the states to be ratified by conventions in the several states (Article VII).The small states quickly ratified the Constitution; however, it would not have been ratified in the New York Convention if the supporters (Federalists) had not agreed to make a bill of rights the first priority of the new government. The Anti-Federalists championed the retention of power by the states as rights.

The Tenth Amendment

The Bill of Rights was proposed by the new government and ratified as amendments by the states by 1791. The rights listed in the Bill of Rights are mostly personal civil liberties of the people; however, the Tenth Amendment stated that, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

The Constitution granted specific powers to the central (federal) government. These are limited in scope and purpose. Through the Tenth Amendment, the autonomous nature of the states is also recognized. However, the Supreme Court through its assumption of the power of judicial review has stated that it is merely a truism.

States’ rights became an issue in George Washington’s administration. Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists sought to strengthen the federal government. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed the creation of a federal bank, which was supported by Hamilton. Opposition was stated in terms of states’ rights.

In 1798 the John Adams administration adopted the Alien and Sedition Acts. Opposition was led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They respectively authored the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. The resolutions opposed the power of the federal government with state power, arguing that the states were closer to the people, a claim still popular from colonial opposition to British abuse of power. Therefore, the states could “interpose” themselves to shield the people from abuse by the federal government. Moreover, the states had the right to “nullify” abusive laws to protect the people or the rights of the states.

The victory of Jefferson in the election of 1800 ended the developing states’ rights conflict. However, the efforts of the federal government to prevent a conflict with Great Britain in the years prior to the War of 1812 and during the war itself were opposed by states in New England. Secession was being considered when the war ended with Andrew Jackson’s victory at the Battle of New Orleans.

Limits To The Tenth Amendment

In 1819 states’ rights doctrines fueled attempts to destroy the United States Bank in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland. Two issues presented themselves: Does the federal government have the right to create a bank (an entity not named in the expressly delegated powers of Article I) and does Maryland have the right to tax the bank. Chief Justice John Marshall’s decision was a loss for states’ rights because it affirmed the doctrine of implied powers while denying states the right to tax federal agencies. Implied powers often have been used by the federal government to accomplish its goals at the expense of the interests of individual states.

During the Jackson administration, South Carolina passed an act of nullification against federal tariffs. Jackson declared the law treasonous; however, a compromise was adopted by Congress. Among the states’ rights arguments developed were those of John C. Calhoun in his Disquisition on Government (1851). He argued that the federal system was a compact between the states. Opponents favored viewing the Constitution as an act of the American people, an historically inaccurate claim because North Carolina and Rhode Island entered the union as virtually foreign countries.

The greatest test of the doctrine of states’ rights came in 1861 with the secession of the eleven states of the Confederacy. In 1869 the Supreme Court was called on to decide the issue of the lawfulness of their secession and stated that the federal system was “an in dissolvable union composed of indestructible states.”

States’ Rights Since World War II

States’ rights arguments were popular in the southern United States during the years of slavery and racial segregation. In the election of 1948, many Southern Democrats broke away from the Democrat Party to form the States’ Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats). In the name of states’ rights, the faction tried to maintain Jim Crow laws and practices. It won thirty-nine electoral votes but did not survive politically after Harry Truman won the election.

States’ rights arguments were expressed often during the decades of the Great Depression, World War II (1939–1945), and the cold war when federal power expanded enormously. Legally and politically, these arguments were of little avail as the federal government used its power, including eminent domain, to construct the Tennessee Valley Authority’s dams, create military installations, and other actions opposed by the states and local citizens. However, the end of the cold war and the growing practice of unfunded federal mandates fueled opposition to its power.

The Supreme Court has generally decided cases so that federal power has increased, often at what is perceived to be the states’ expense. However, on many occasions, it has decided in favor of the states. The Rehnquist Court decided against the federal government and in favor of the right of South Carolina to prohibit gambling ships in its ports as an interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment. Other states’ rights cases of the Rehnquist Court included Kimel v. Florida (2000), which rejected the clear intent of Congress to abrogate state authority in matters of age discrimination. In United States v. Morrison (2000), the court again limited federal civil remedies in favor of the states.

States’ rights arguments were again being espoused during the first year of the Barack Obama administration. The doctrine is used by those opposed to the central government. Opposition historically was regional; however, by 2010, opposition was increasingly ideological. The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010 produced law suits by the attorney generals of over a dozen states to stop provisions mandating state financed Medicaid health care as a violation of the Tenth Amendment. At the same time, some states were moving to legalize the sale of marijuana, homosexual marriage, euthanasia, and other issues in opposition to federal law.

Bibliography:

Boduch, Jodie Lynn. States’ Rights. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Cengage Gale, 2006.
Ellis, Richard E. The Union at Risk: Jacksonian Democracy, States’ Rights, and the Nullification Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Killenbeck, Mark Robert. The Tenth Amendment and State Sovereignty: Constitutional History and Contemporary Issues. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
McAffee,Thomas B., Jay S. Bybee, and A. Christopher Bryant. Powers Reserved for the People and the States: A History of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2006.

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