Editing States' rights

{{Short description|Political powers reserved for U.S. states}}
{{Other uses}}
{{More citations needed|date=April 2020}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2023}} {{Use American English|date=November 2023}}
{{Conservatism US|principles}}
In [[United States|American]] [[politics of the United States|political discourse]], '''states' rights''' are [[political power]]s held for the [[state governments of the United States|state governments]] rather than the [[federal government of the United States|federal government]] according to the [[United States Constitution]], reflecting especially the [[enumerated powers]] of Congress and the [[Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Tenth Amendment]]. The enumerated powers that are listed in the Constitution include [[exclusive federal powers]], as well as [[concurrent powers]] that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are contrasted with the [[reserved powers]]—also called states' rights—that only the states possess.<ref>Gardbaum, Stephen. "Congress's Power to Pre-Empt the States", ''Pepperdine Law Review'', Vol. 33, p. 39 (2005).</ref><ref>Bardes, Barbara et al. ''American Government and Politics Today: The Essentials'' (Cengage Learning, 2008).</ref> Since the 1940s, the term "states' rights" has often been considered a [[loaded language|loaded term]] or [[Dog whistle (politics)|dog whistle]] because of its use in opposition to federally-mandated racial [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]]<ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E6DF1E30F935A35753C1A9639C8B63 |work=The New York Times |first=Bob |last=Herbert |title=Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant |date=October 6, 2005}}</ref> and, more recently, [[Same-sex marriage in the United States|same-sex marriage]] and [[reproductive rights]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Craver|first=Jack|date=March 31, 2013|title=New GOP line on gay marriage: It's about states' rights|work=The Capital Times|url=https://madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/jack_craver/new-gop-line-on-gay-marriage-its-about-states-rights/article_9888b6fa-99a0-11e2-a45a-0019bb2963f4.html|access-date=November 9, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |magazine=Time | title=Here's How Conservatives Are Using Civil Rights Law to Restrict Abortion | first=Abigail |last=Abrams | date=January 1, 2020 |access-date=November 9, 2021 |url=https://time.com/5753300/heartbeat-bill-civil-rights-law/}}</ref>

==Background==
The balance of federal powers and those powers held by the states as defined in the [[Supremacy Clause]] of the [[United States Constitution|U.S. Constitution]] was first addressed in the case of ''[[McCulloch v. Maryland]]'' (1819). The Court's decision by Chief Justice [[John Marshall]] asserted that the laws adopted by the federal government, when exercising its constitutional powers, are generally paramount over any conflicting laws adopted by state governments. After ''McCulloch'', the primary legal issues in this area concerned the scope of Congress' constitutional powers, and whether the states possess certain powers to the exclusion of the federal government, even if the Constitution does not explicitly limit them to the states.<ref name=Constitution/><ref name="autogenerated1">[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1696012 Orbach, Callahan & Lindemmen, "Arming States' Rights: Federalism, Private Lawmakers, and the Battering Ram Strategy", ''Arizona Law Review'' (2010)]</ref>

==The Supremacy Clause==
The [[Supremacy Clause]] of the U.S. Constitution states:
{{Blockquote|This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States ''which shall be made in pursuance thereof''; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding. (Emphasis added.)}}

In [[Federalist No. 33|''The Federalist'' Papers]], ratification proponent [[Alexander Hamilton]] explained the limitations this clause placed on the proposed federal government, describing that acts of the federal government were binding on the states and the people therein ''only if'' the act was in pursuance of constitutionally granted powers, and juxtaposing acts which exceeded those bounds as "void and of no force":
{{Blockquote|But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}}}

==Controversy to 1865==
In the period between the [[American Revolution]] and the ratification of the [[United States Constitution]], the states had united under a much weaker federal government and a much stronger state and local government, pursuant to the [[Articles of Confederation]]. The Articles gave the central government very little, if any, authority to overrule individual state actions. The Constitution subsequently strengthened the central government, authorizing it to exercise powers deemed necessary to exercise its authority, with an ambiguous boundary between the two co-existing levels of government. In the event of any conflict between state and federal law, the Constitution resolved the conflict<ref name=Constitution>{{cite web|url=https://www.usconstitution.net/const.html|title=The United States Constitution - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net|date=April 23, 2024 }}</ref> via the Supremacy Clause of [[Article Six of the United States Constitution|Article VI]] in favor of the federal government, which declares federal law the "supreme Law of the Land" and provides that "the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." However, the Supremacy Clause only applies if the federal government is acting in pursuit of its constitutionally authorized powers, as noted by the phrase "in pursuance thereof" in the actual text of the [[Supremacy Clause]] itself (see above).

===Alien and Sedition Acts===
When the Federalists passed the [[Alien and Sedition Acts]] in 1798, [[Thomas Jefferson]] and [[James Madison]] secretly wrote the [[Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions]], which provide a classic statement in support of states' rights and called on state legislatures to [[Nullification (U.S. Constitution)|nullify unconstitutional federal laws]]. (The other states, however, did not follow suit and several rejected the notion that states could nullify federal law.) According to this theory, the federal union is a voluntary association of states, and if the central government goes too far each state has the right to nullify that law. As Jefferson said in the Kentucky Resolutions:

<blockquote>Resolved, that the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: That to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party....each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.</blockquote>

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which became part of the [[Principles of '98]], along with the supporting [[Report of 1800]] by Madison, became final documents of Jefferson's [[Democratic-Republican Party]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Kevin R. C. |last=Gutzman |author-link=Kevin Gutzman |title=James Madison and the Making of America |year=2012 |pages=274–76 }}</ref> Gutzman argued that Governor [[Edmund Randolph]] designed the protest in the name of moderation.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Kevin R. C. |last=Gutzman |author-link=Kevin Gutzman |title=Edmund Randolph and Virginia Constitutionalism |journal=Review of Politics |year=2004 |volume=66 |issue=3 |pages=469–97 |doi=10.1017/S0034670500038870 |jstor=4149191 |s2cid=145724474 }}</ref> [[Kevin Gutzman|Gutzman]] argues that in 1798, Madison espoused states' rights to defeat national legislation that he maintained was a threat to republicanism. During 1831–33, the South Carolina Nullifiers quoted Madison in their defense of states' rights. But Madison feared that the growing support for this doctrine would undermine the union and argued that by ratifying the Constitution states had transferred their sovereignty to the federal government.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Kevin R. |last=Gutzman |author-link=Kevin Gutzman |title=A troublesome legacy: James Madison and "The principles of '98' |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |year=1995 |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=569–89 |doi=10.2307/3124014 |jstor=3124014 }}</ref>

The most vociferous supporters of states' rights, such as [[John Randolph of Roanoke]], were called "Old Republicans" into the 1820s and 1830s.<ref>{{cite book |first=Norman K. |last=Risjord |author-link=Norman K. Risjord |title=The Old Republicans: Southern Conservatism in the Age of Jefferson |year=1965 }}</ref>

Tate (2011) undertook a literary criticism of a major book by [[John Taylor of Caroline]], ''New Views of the Constitution of the United States.'' Tate argues it is structured as a forensic historiography modeled on the techniques of 18th-century Whig lawyers. Taylor believed that evidence from American history gave proof of state sovereignty within the union, against the arguments of nationalists such as U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Adam |last=Tate |title=A Historiography of States' Rights: John Taylor of Caroline's New Views of the Constitution |journal=Southern Studies |year=2011 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=10–28 }}</ref>

Another states' rights dispute occurred over the [[War of 1812]]. At the [[Hartford Convention]] of 1814–15, New England [[Federalist Party|Federalists]] voiced opposition to President Madison's war, and discussed [[secession]] from the Union. In the end they stopped short of calls for secession, but when their report appeared at the same time as news of the great American victory at the [[Battle of New Orleans]], the Federalists were politically ruined.<ref>[[James M. Banner Jr.|James M Banner]], ''To the Hartford Convention: the Federalists and the origins of party politics in Massachusetts, 1789–1815'' (1970)</ref>

===Nullification Crisis of 1832===
One major and continuous strain on the union, from roughly 1820 through the Civil War, was the issue of trade and [[tariff]]s. Heavily dependent upon international trade, the almost entirely [[agriculture|agricultural]] and [[export]]-oriented [[Southern United States|South]] imported most of its manufactured goods from Europe or obtained them from the North. The North, by contrast, had a growing domestic [[Industrial society|industrial economy]] that viewed foreign trade as competition. Trade barriers, especially protective tariffs, were viewed as harmful to the Southern economy, which depended on exports.

In 1828, [[United States Congress|Congress]] passed protective tariffs to benefit trade in the northern states, but that were detrimental to the South. Southerners vocally expressed their tariff opposition in documents such as the ''[[South Carolina Exposition and Protest]]'' in 1828, written in response to the "[[Tariff of Abominations]]". ''Exposition and Protest'' was the work of [[South Carolina]] [[United States Senate|senator]] and former [[vice president]] [[John C. Calhoun]], formerly an advocate of protective [[tariff]]s and [[internal improvements]] at federal expense.

[[South Carolina]]'s [[Nullification Ordinance]] declared that both the [[tariff of 1828]] and the [[tariff of 1832]] were null and void within the state borders of South Carolina. This action initiated the [[Nullification Crisis]]. Passed by a state convention on November 24, 1832, it led, on December 10, to President [[Andrew Jackson]]'s proclamation against South Carolina, which sent a naval flotilla and a threat of sending federal troops to enforce the tariffs; Jackson authorized this under color of national authority, claiming in his 1832 [https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jack01.asp Proclamation Regarding Nullification] that "our social compact in express terms declares, that the laws of the United States, its Constitution, and treaties made under it, are the supreme law of the land" and for greater caution adds, "that the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

===Civil War===
{{main article|American Civil War|Origins of the American Civil War}}
Over following decades, another central dispute over states' rights moved to the forefront. The issue of [[slavery in the United States|slavery]] polarized the union, with the Jeffersonian principles often being used by both sides—anti-slavery Northerners, and Southern slaveholders and secessionists—in debates that ultimately led to the [[American Civil War]]. Supporters of slavery often argued that one of the rights of the states was the protection of slave property wherever it went, a position endorsed by the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] in 1857 [[Dred Scott v. Sandford|Dred Scott decision]]. In contrast, opponents of slavery argued that the non-slave-states' rights were violated both by that decision and by the [[Fugitive Slave Law]] of 1850. While historians in the 21st century [[Scholarly consensus|agree]] on the centrality of the conflict over slavery,<ref>{{citation
|title=Primary Sources: Slavery as the Cause of the Civil War
|date=January 22, 2019
|first=Chris
|last=Mackowski
|journal=Emerging Civil War
|accessdate=September 15, 2021
|url=https://emergingcivilwar.com/2019/01/22/primary-sources-slavery-as-the-cause-of-the-civil-war/
|archive-date=January 20, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120013621/https://emergingcivilwar.com/2019/01/22/primary-sources-slavery-as-the-cause-of-the-civil-war/
|url-status=live
}}</ref> they disagree sharply on which aspects of this conflict (ideological, economic, political, or social) were most important.<ref>Aaron Sheehan-Dean, "A Book for Every Perspective: Current Civil War and Reconstruction Textbooks," ''Civil War History'' (2005) 51#3 pp. 317–24</ref>

====Southern arguments====
Southern states had a long tradition of using states' rights doctrine since the late eighteenth century to support slavery.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McDonald |first1=Forrest |author-link1=Forrest McDonald |title=States' Rights and the Union |date=2000 |publisher=University Press of Kansas}}</ref> A major Southern argument in the 1850s was that federal law to ban the expansion of slavery into the territories discriminated against states that allowed slavery, making them second-class states. In 1857 the Supreme Court sided with these states' rights supporters, declaring in ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'' that Congress had no authority to regulate slavery in the territories.<ref name=" John Mack Faragher 2005 p 376">[[John Mack Faragher]], [[Mari Jo Buhle]], Daniel Czitrom ''Out of Many: A History of the American people'' (2005) p. 376</ref>

[[Jefferson Davis]] used the following argument in favor of the equal rights of states:
{{Blockquote|Resolved, That the union of these States rests on the equality of rights and privileges among its members, and that it is especially the duty of the Senate, which represents the States in their sovereign capacity, to resist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to person or property, so as, in the Territories—which are the common possession of the United States—to give advantages to the citizens of one State which are not equally secured to those of every other State.<ref>Jefferson Davis' Resolutions on the Relations of States, Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, February 2, 1860, from The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 6, pp. 273–76. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 658–59.</ref>}}

Southern states argued against "states' rights" when it benefited them in the context of [[fugitive slave laws in the United States|fugitive slave laws]]. For example, Texas challenged some northern states having the right to protect fugitive slaves, with the argument that this would make the institution null once a particular slave had crossed into a [[Free state (United States)|free state]]. The question was pivotal in the case of [[Dred Scott v. Sandford]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Confederate States of America – A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union |publisher=Yale Law School |date=March 1845 |url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_texsec.asp |access-date=1 July 2015}}</ref>

====Northern arguments====
The historian [[James M. McPherson|James McPherson]]<ref>[[James M. McPherson|James McPherson]], ''This Mighty Scourge'', pp. 3–9.</ref>{{efn|Speaking of alternative explanations for secession, McPherson writes (p.7), "While one or more of these interpretations remain popular among the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other Southern heritage groups, few professional historians now subscribe to them. Of all these interpretations, the state's-rights argument is perhaps the weakest. It fails to ask the question, state's rights for what purpose? State's rights, or sovereignty, was always more a means than an end, an instrument to achieve a certain goal more than a principle.}} noted that Southerners were inconsistent on the states' rights issue, and that Northern states tried to protect the rights of their states against the South during the [[Gag rule (United States)|Gag Rule]]{{efn|The pro-slavery forces controlling the House of Representatives passed the Pinckney Resolutions, authored and introduced by [[Henry L. Pinckney]] of South Carolina, on May 26, 1836. The first stated that Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in the states, and the second that it "ought not" to interfere with [[slavery in the District of Columbia]]. The third  was known from the beginning as the "gag rule", and passed with a vote of 117 to 68. This '''gag rule''' was a series of rules that forbade the raising, consideration, or discussion of [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] in the [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives]] from 1836 to 1844.}} and fugitive slave law controversies. Contemporany political thinkers like [[Karl Marx]] also noted this inconsistency regarding the Confederacy's actions during the war:<blockquote>The attempts of the Confederacy to annex [[Missouri in the American Civil War|Missouri]] and [[Kentucky in the American Civil War|Kentucky]], for example, against the will of these states, prove the hollowness of the pretext that it is fighting for the rights of the individual states against the encroachments of the Union. On the individual states that it considers to belong to the "South" it confers, to be sure, the right to secede from the Union, but by no means the right to remain in the Union.<ref>K. Marx (1861) ''[[The Civil War in the United States]]''. In [[Marx/Engels Collected Works|''MECW'']] (ed. [[Lawrence & Wishart]], 2010) [https://www.aaap.be/Pdf/Nachschlagewerke/MECW19.pdf Volume 19, p. 48.] </ref></blockquote>The historian William H. Freehling<ref name="SouthCarolinaEccentricity">William H. Freehling, ''The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854–1861''</ref> noted that the South's argument for a state's right to secede was different from Thomas Jefferson's, in that Jefferson based such a right on the unalienable equal rights of man. The South's version of such a right was modified to be consistent with slavery, and with the South's blend of democracy and authoritarianism.<ref name="SouthCarolinaEccentricity"/> Historian [[Henry Brooks Adams]] explains that the anti-slavery North took a consistent and principled stand on states' rights against federal encroachment throughout its history, while the Southern states, whenever they saw an opportunity to expand slavery and the reach of their political influence, termed ''[[Slave Power]]'', often conveniently forgot the principle of states' rights—and fought in favor of federal centralization:

{{Blockquote|Between the Slave Power and states' rights there was no necessary connection. The Slave Power, when in control, was a centralizing influence, and all the most considerable encroachments on states' rights were its acts. The acquisition and admission of Louisiana; the Embargo; the [[War of 1812]]; the annexation of Texas "by joint resolution" [rather than treaty]; the [[Mexican–American War|war with Mexico]], declared by the mere announcement of President [[James K. Polk|Polk]]; the [[Fugitive Slave Law]]; the [[Dred Scott v. Sanford|''Dred Scott'' decision]]—all triumphs of the [[Slave Power]]—did far more than either tariffs or internal improvements, which in their origin were also southern measures, to destroy the very memory of states' rights as they existed in 1789. Whenever a question arose of extending or protecting slavery, the slaveholders became friends of centralized power, and used that dangerous weapon with a kind of frenzy. Slavery in fact required centralization in order to maintain and protect itself, but it required to control the centralized machine; it needed [[despotism|despotic]] principles of government, but it needed them exclusively for its own use. Thus, in truth, states' rights were the protection of the free states, and as a matter of fact, during the domination of the Slave Power, [[Massachusetts]] appealed to this protecting principle as often and almost as loudly as [[South Carolina]].<ref name="AdamsJohnRandolph">{{cite book|last=Adams|first=Henry|title=John Randolph|publisher=Houghton Mifflin and Co.|location=[[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]], [[Massachusetts|MA]], [[United States of America|USA]]|year=1882|edition=1st|oclc=3942444|url=https://archive.org/details/johnrandolph08adamgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/johnrandolph08adamgoog/page/n280 270]|quote=John Randolph.|access-date=2009-07-26}}</ref>}}

Sinha<ref name="SinhaCounterrevolutionOfSlavery">{{cite book|last=Sinha|first=Manisha|author-link=Manisha Sinha|title=The Counter-Revolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|location=[[Chapel Hill, North Carolina]], [[United States of America|USA]]|year=2000|isbn=978-0-8078-2571-6|oclc=44075847|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XE2ksqv5woC|access-date=2009-03-14}}</ref> and Richards<ref name="RichardsSlavePower">{{cite book|last=Richards|first=Leonard L.|title=The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination|publisher=LSU Press|location=[[Baton Rouge]], [[State of Louisiana|Louisiana]], [[United States of America|USA]]|year=2000|isbn=978-0-8071-2600-4|oclc=43641070}}</ref> both argue that the Southerners only advocated states' rights when they disagreed with a policy. Examples given are a states' right to engage in slavery or to suppress freedom of speech. They argue that it was instead the result of the increasing cognitive dissonance in the minds of Northerners and (some) Southern non-slaveowners between the ideals that the United States was founded upon and identified itself as standing for, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights, and the reality that the slave-power represented, as what they describe as an anti-democratic, counter-republican, oligarchic, despotic, authoritarian, if not totalitarian, movement for ownership of human beings as the personal chattels of the slaver. As this cognitive dissonance increased, the people of the Northern states, and the Northern states themselves, became increasingly inclined to resist the encroachments of the Slave Power upon their states' rights and encroachments of the Slave Power by and upon the federal government of the United States. The Slave Power, having failed to maintain its dominance of the federal government through democratic means, sought other means of maintaining its dominance of the federal government, by means of military aggression, by right of force and coercion, and thus, the Civil War occurred.

====''Texas v. White''====
In ''[[Texas v. White]]'', {{ussc|74|700|1869}} the Supreme Court ruled that Texas had remained a state ever since it first joined the Union, despite claims to have joined the [[Confederate States of America]]; the court further held that the [[Constitution of the United States|Constitution]] did not permit [[United States state|states]] to unilaterally [[secession|secede]] from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were "absolutely [[void (law)|null]]" under the constitution.<ref>Murray pp. 155–59.</ref>

==Since the Civil War==
A series of Supreme Court decisions developed the state action constraint on the [[Equal Protection Clause]]. The state action theory weakened the effect of the Equal Protection Clause against state governments, in that the clause was held not to apply to unequal protection of the laws caused in part by complete lack of state action in specific cases, even if state actions in other instances form an overall pattern of segregation and other discrimination. The [[separate but equal]] theory further weakened the effect of the Equal Protection Clause against state governments.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

===In case law===
With ''[[United States v. Cruikshank]]'' (1876), a case which arose out of the [[Colfax Massacre]] of Black residents contesting the results of a Reconstruction-era election, the Supreme Court held that the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] did not apply to the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] or [[Second Amendment to the United States Constitution|Second Amendment]] to state governments in respect to their own citizens, only to acts of the federal government. In ''[[McDonald v. City of Chicago]]'' (2010), the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment right of an individual to "keep and bear arms" is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore fully applicable to states and local governments.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}}

Furthermore, ''[[United States v. Harris]]'' (1883) held that the Equal Protection Clause did not apply to an 1883 prison lynching on the basis that the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to state acts, not to individual criminal actions.

In the ''[[Civil Rights Cases]]'' (1883), the Supreme Court allowed segregation by striking down the [[Civil Rights Act of 1875]], a statute that prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodation. It again held that the Equal Protection Clause applied only to acts done by states, not to those done by private individuals, and as the Civil Rights Act of 1875 applied to private establishments, the Court said, it exceeded congressional enforcement power under [[congressional power of enforcement|Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment]].

===Later progressive era and World War II===
By the beginning of the 20th century, greater cooperation began to develop between the state and federal governments and the federal government began to accumulate more power. Early in this period, a federal income tax was imposed, first during the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] as a war measure and then permanently with the [[Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Sixteenth Amendment]] in 1913. Before this, the states played a larger role in government.

States' rights were affected by the fundamental alteration of the federal government resulting from the [[Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Seventeenth Amendment]], depriving state governments of an avenue of control over the federal government via the representation of each state's legislature in the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]]. This change has been described by legal critics as the loss of a [[Checks and balances|check and balance]] on the federal government by the states.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bybee |first=Jay S. |author-link=Jay Bybee |title=Ulysses at the Mast: Democracy, Federalism, and the Sirens' Song of the Seventeenth Amendment |journal=Northwestern University Law Review |volume=91 |page=505 |location=Chicago, IL |year=1997}}</ref>

Following the [[Great Depression]], the [[New Deal]], and then [[World War II]] saw further growth in the authority and responsibilities of the federal government. The case of ''[[Wickard v. Filburn]]'' allowed the federal government to enforce the [[Agricultural Adjustment Act]], providing subsidies to farmers for limiting their crop yields, arguing agriculture affected interstate commerce and came under the jurisdiction of the [[Commerce Clause]] even when a farmer grew his crops not to be sold, but for his own private use.

After World War II, President [[Harry Truman]] supported a civil rights bill and desegregated the military. The reaction was a split in the [[Democratic Party (U.S.)|Democratic Party]] that led to the formation of the "States' Rights Democratic Party"—better known as the [[Dixiecrat]]s—led by [[Strom Thurmond]]. Thurmond ran as the States' Rights candidate for president in the [[1948 United States presidential election|1948 election]], losing to Truman.

===Civil rights movement===
During the 1950s and 1960s, the [[civil rights movement]] was confronted by the proponents in the Southern states of [[racial segregation in the United States|racial segregation]] and [[Jim Crow law]]s who denounced federal interference in these state-level laws as an assault on states' rights.

Though ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' (1954) overruled the ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' (1896) decision, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments were largely inactive in the South until the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] ({{UnitedStatesCode|42|21}})<ref name=cra64>{{cite web|url=https://finduslaw.com/civil-rights-act-1964-cra-title-vii-equal-employment-opportunities-42-us-code-chapter-21|title=Civil Rights Act of 1964 - CRA - Title VII - Equal Employment Opportunities - 42 US Code Chapter 21 - findUSlaw|website=finduslaw.com}}</ref> and the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]]. Several states passed [[Interposition]] Resolutions to declare that the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown usurped states' rights.

There was also opposition by states' rights advocates to voting rights at [[Edmund Pettus Bridge]], which was part of the [[Selma to Montgomery marches]], that resulted in the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]].

==Contemporary debates==
In 1964, the issue of fair housing in California involved the boundary between state laws and federalism. [[California Proposition 14 (1963)|California Proposition 14]] overturned the Rumsford Fair Housing Act in California and allowed discrimination in any type of housing sale or rental.<ref>Skelton, George (May 7, 2014) [https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-cap-sterling-20140508-column.html "Thank you, Donald Sterling, for reminding us how far we've come"] ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''</ref> [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and others saw this as a backlash against civil rights, while actor and future (1967) governor of [[California]] [[Ronald Reagan]] gained popularity by supporting Proposition 14.<ref>''Pillar of Fire'', Taylor Branch, p. 242</ref> The U.S. Supreme Court's ''[[Reitman v. Mulkey]]'' decision overturned Proposition 14 in 1967 in favor of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Conservative historians Thomas E. Woods Jr. and Kevin R. C. Gutzman argue that when politicians come to power they exercise all the power they can get, in the process trampling states' rights.<ref>Thomas E. Woods, Jr. and Kevin R. C. Gutzman, ''Who Killed the Constitution?: The Federal Government Vs. American Liberty from World War I to Barack Obama'' (Random House Digital, 2009) p. 201</ref> Gutzman argues that the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798 by Jefferson and Madison were not only responses to immediate threats but were legitimate responses based on the long-standing principles of states' rights and strict adherence to the Constitution.<ref>[[Kevin Gutzman|K. R. Constantine Gutzman]], "The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions Reconsidered: 'An Appeal to the Real Laws of Our Country'", ''Journal of Southern History'' (Aug 2000), Vol. 66 Issue 3, pp. 473–96</ref>

Another concern is the fact that on more than one occasion, the federal government has threatened to [[Interstate Highway System#The federal role in financing|withhold highway funds]] from states which did not pass certain articles of legislation. Any state which lost highway funding for any extended period would face financial impoverishment, infrastructure collapse or both. Although the first such action (the enactment of a national speed limit) was directly related to highways and done in the face of a fuel shortage, most subsequent actions have had little or nothing to do with highways and have not been done in the face of any compelling national crisis. An example of this would be the federally mandated [[drinking age]] of 21, upheld in ''[[South Dakota v. Dole]]''. Critics of such actions feel that the federal government is upsetting the traditional balance between itself and state governments.

More recently, the issue of states' rights has come to a head when the [[Base Realignment and Closure]] (BRAC) Commission recommended that [[United States Congress|Congress]] and the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]] implement sweeping changes to the [[United States National Guard|National Guard]] by consolidating some Guard installations and closing others. These recommendations in 2005 drew strong criticism from many states, and several states sued the federal government on the basis that Congress and the Pentagon would be violating states' rights should they force the realignment and closure of Guard bases without the prior approval of the governors from the affected states. After [[Pennsylvania]] won a federal lawsuit to block the deactivation of the [[111th Fighter Wing]] of the [[Pennsylvania Air National Guard]], defense and Congressional leaders chose to try to settle the remaining BRAC lawsuits out of court, reaching compromises with the [[plaintiff]] states.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Linder |first1=Brad |title=Penn. Governor Fights Deactivation of Guard Units |url=https://www.npr.org/2005/08/24/4813398/penn-governor-fights-deactivation-of-guard-units |website=[[NPR]] |access-date=January 9, 2024 |date=August 24, 2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Judge: Governor must OK Guard unit closure |url=http://www.ngaus.org/ngaus/files/ccLibraryFiles/Filename/000000000166/judgerulinginpa.pdf |access-date=January 9, 2024 |website=[[National Guard Association of the United States]] |agency=[[Associated Press]] |date=August 26, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718143842/http://www.ngaus.org/ngaus/files/ccLibraryFiles/Filename/000000000166/judgerulinginpa.pdf |archive-date=July 18, 2011}}</ref>{{void|Fabrickator|comment|perm dead citation: http://www.ngaus.org/index.asp?downloadid=166 "Judge Rules Favorably in Pennsylvania BRAC Suit" "26 August" (year evidently 2005)}}

Current states' rights issues include the [[death penalty]], [[assisted suicide]], [[same-sex marriage]], [[gun control]], and [[legality of cannabis by U.S. jurisdiction#By state|cannabis]], the last of which is in direct violation of federal law. In ''[[Gonzales v. Raich]]'', the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the federal government, permitting the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] (DEA) to arrest medical marijuana patients and caregivers. In ''[[Gonzales v. Oregon]]'', the Supreme Court ruled the practice of [[physician-assisted suicide]] in [[Oregon]] is legal. In ''[[Obergefell v. Hodges]]'', the Supreme Court ruled that states could not withhold recognition to same-sex marriages. In ''[[District of Columbia v. Heller]]'' (2008), the United States Supreme Court ruled that gun ownership is an individual right under the [[Second Amendment of the United States Constitution]], and the District of Columbia could not completely ban gun ownership by law-abiding private citizens. Two years later, the court ruled that the Heller decision applied to states and territories via the Second and [[Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution|14th Amendments]] in ''[[McDonald v. Chicago]]'', stating that states, territories and political divisions thereof, could not impose total bans on gun ownership by law-abiding citizens.

These concerns have led to a movement sometimes called the [[Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution#State sovereignty resolutions and nullification acts|State Sovereignty]] movement or "10th Amendment Sovereignty Movement".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Jhonston |first1=Kirk |title=States' Rights Is Rallying Cry for Lawmakers |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/17states.html |url-access=subscription |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 16, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100401032851/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/17states.html |archive-date=April 1, 2010}}</ref>

==10th Amendment==
The [[Tenth Amendment]] of the United States Constitution has been used as a prominent tool of invoking nullification, a common tactic of those that believe in the primacy of States' rights. The Tenth Amendment reads as follows: {{blockquote|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CONAN-1992/pdf/GPO-CONAN-1992-10-11.pdf|title=Tenth Amendment – Reserved Powers – Contents|publisher=United States Government Printing Office|author-link=United States Government Printing Office|website=GPO.gov}}</ref>}} Notably, the Tenth Amendment has been successfully utilized to nullify restrictive federal laws pertaining to [[gun rights]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://reason.com/2021/06/15/state-legislators-want-to-nullify-federal-gun-control/|title=State Legislators Want to Nullify Federal Gun Control|publisher=Reason|date=July 2021}}</ref> [[immigration]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/10/sanctuary-cities-illegal-immigration-confederates-nullification/|title=Are Sanctuary Cities the New Confederates?|publisher=National Review|date=October 15, 2015}}</ref> [[Cannabis (drug)|cannabis]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://cannabisnow.com/can-states-or-citizens-nullify-federal-cannabis-prohibition/|title=Can States or Citizens 'Nullify' Federal Cannabis Prohibition?|publisher=Cannabis Now|date=June 20, 2018}}</ref> and more. Additionally, organizations such as the [[Tenth Amendment Center]] seek to utilize the Tenth Amendment to achieve, "[[Liberty]] through [[decentralization]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/about/about-the-tenth-amendment/|title=About the Tenth Amendment|publisher=Tenth Amendment Center|access-date=February 11, 2022}}</ref> The Tenth Amendment center chiefly focuses on encouraging state representatives to submit bills that nullify federal laws by providing model legislation on their website that provides a rubric for state legislators to follow.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/legislation/|title=Model Legislation|publisher=Tenth Amendment Center|access-date=February 11, 2022}}</ref>

In 2009–2010 thirty-eight states introduced resolutions to reaffirm the principles of sovereignty under the Constitution and the 10th Amendment; 14 states have passed the resolutions. These non-binding resolutions, often called "[[state sovereignty resolutions]]" do not carry the force of law. Instead, they are intended to be a statement to demand that the federal government halt its practices of assuming powers and imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution.<ref name="autogenerated1"/>

==States' rights and the Rehnquist Court==
The Supreme Court's ''[[Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett|University of Alabama v. Garrett]]'' (2001)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-1240.ZS.html|title=''Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama et al. v. Garrett et al.'', U.S. Supreme Court, decided February 21, 2001}}</ref> and ''[[Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents]]'' (2000)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/98-791.ZS.html|title=''Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents'', U.S. Supreme court, decided January 11, 2000}}</ref> decisions allowed states to use a [[rational basis review]] for discrimination against the aged and disabled, arguing that these types of discrimination were rationally related to a legitimate state interest, and that no "razorlike precision" was needed." The Supreme Court's ''[[United States v. Morrison]]'' (2000)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/529/598|title=United States v. Morrison|website=LII / Legal Information Institute}}</ref> decision limited the ability of rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court. Chief Justice [[William H. Rehnquist]] explained that "States historically have been sovereign" in the area of law enforcement, which in the Court's opinion required narrow interpretations of the Commerce Clause and Fourteenth Amendment.

''Kimel'', ''Garrett'' and ''Morrison'' indicated that the Court's previous decisions in favor of enumerated powers and limits on Congressional power over the states, such as ''[[United States v. Lopez]]'' (1995), ''[[Seminole Tribe v. Florida]]'' (1996) and ''[[City of Boerne v. Flores]]'' (1997) were more than one time flukes. In the past, Congress relied on the [[Commerce Clause]] and the [[Equal Protection Clause]] for passing civil rights bills, including the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]].<ref name=cra64/>

''Lopez'' limited the Commerce Clause to things that directly affect interstate commerce, which excludes issues like gun control laws, hate crimes, and other crimes that affect commerce but are not directly related to commerce. ''Seminole'' reinforced the "sovereign immunity of states" doctrine, which makes it difficult to sue states for many things, especially civil rights violations. The ''Flores'' "congruence and proportionality" requirement prevents Congress from going too far in requiring states to comply with the Equal Protection Clause, which replaced the ratchet theory advanced in ''[[Katzenbach v. Morgan]]'' (1966). The ratchet theory held that Congress could ratchet up civil rights beyond what the Court had recognized, but that Congress could not ratchet down judicially recognized rights. An important precedent for ''Morrison'' was ''[[United States v. Harris]]'' (1883), which ruled that the Equal Protection Clause did not apply to a prison lynching because the state action doctrine applies Equal Protection only to state action, not private criminal acts. Since the ratchet principle was replaced with the "congruence and proportionality" principle by ''Flores'', it was easier to revive older precedents for preventing Congress from going beyond what Court interpretations would allow. Critics such as [[Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States|Associate Justice]] [[John Paul Stevens]] accused the Court of [[judicial activism]] (i.e., interpreting law to reach a desired conclusion).{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}

The tide against federal power in the Rehnquist court was stopped in the case of ''[[Gonzales v. Raich]]'', 545 U.S. 1 (2005), in which the court upheld the federal power to prohibit medicinal use of [[cannabis (drug)|cannabis]] even if states have permitted it. Rehnquist himself was a dissenter in the ''Raich'' case.{{citation needed|date=April 2020}}

==States' rights as code word==
Since the 1940s, the term "states' rights" has often been considered a [[loaded language|loaded term]] or [[Dog whistle (politics)|dog whistle]] because of its use in opposition to federally-mandated racial [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]]<ref>{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E6DF1E30F935A35753C1A9639C8B63 |work=The New York Times |first=Bob |last=Herbert |title=Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant |date=October 6, 2005}}</ref> and, more recently, [[Same-sex marriage in the United States|same-sex marriage]] and [[reproductive rights]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Craver|first=Jack|date=March 31, 2013|title=New GOP line on gay marriage: It's about states' rights|work=The Capital Times|url=https://madison.com/ct/news/local/writers/jack_craver/new-gop-line-on-gay-marriage-its-about-states-rights/article_9888b6fa-99a0-11e2-a45a-0019bb2963f4.html|access-date=November 9, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |magazine=Time | title=Here's How Conservatives Are Using Civil Rights Law to Restrict Abortion | first=Abigail |last=Abrams | date=January 1, 2020 |access-date=November 9, 2021 |url=https://time.com/5753300/heartbeat-bill-civil-rights-law/}}</ref>

During the heyday of the [[civil rights movement]], defenders of [[racial segregation in the United States|racial segregation]]<ref>{{cite web|title=States' Rights|url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2367|publisher=Encyclopedia of Alabama|last=White|first=D. Jonathan|year=2009|access-date=2010-09-09 }}</ref>{{efn|From ''Encyclopedia of Alabama'' - "After the Civil War and Reconstruction, Alabama, along with other southern states, used states' rights arguments to restore a system of [[white supremacy]] and [[racial segregation]]. ... The term still appears on occasion in political speech, in some cases as code language indicating support of discriminatory practices or outright [[racism]]; as a result, its use is often met with skepticism or suspicion by the public at large."}} used the term "states' rights" as a [[code word (figure of speech)|code word]] in what is now referred to as dog-whistle politics: political messaging that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different, or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup.<ref name="Lopez_2014">{{cite book |last=Haney López |first=Ian |date=2014 |title=Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=4 |isbn=978-0-19-996427-7}}</ref><ref>[https://billmoyers.com/episode/ian-haney-lopez-on-the-dog-whistle-politics-of-race/ Full Show: Ian Haney López on the Dog Whistle Politics of Race, Part I]. ''[[Moyers & Company]]'', February 28, 2014.</ref><ref name="bpr_berkeley_2015">{{cite web |url=https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2015/11/09/a-coded-political-mantra/ |title=A Coded Political Mantra |publisher=Berkeley Political Review: UC Berkeley's Only Nonpartisan Political Magazine |date=November 9, 2015 |access-date=February 5, 2016 |author=Yao, Kevin}}</ref> In 1948 it was the official name of the "[[Dixiecrat]]" party led by [[White supremacy|white supremacist]] presidential candidate [[Strom Thurmond]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lichtman |first1=Allan J. |title=White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement |url=https://archive.org/details/whiteprotestantn00lich |url-access=registration |year=2008 |publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-87113-984-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/whiteprotestantn00lich/page/165 165]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bass |first1=Jack |last2=Thompson |first2=Marilyn W. |author2-link=Marilyn W. Thompson |title=Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sTsjpEvyK7MC&pg=PA102 |year=2006 |publisher=PublicAffairs |location=New York |isbn=1-58648-392-7 |page=102}}</ref> Democratic Governor [[George Wallace]] of [[Alabama]], who famously declared in his inaugural address in 1963, "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" later remarked that he should have said, "States' rights now! States' rights tomorrow! States' rights forever!"<ref name=carter1>Carter, Dan T. ''From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963–1994''. p. 1.</ref> Wallace, however, claimed that segregation was but one issue symbolic of a larger struggle for states' rights. In that view, which some historians dispute, his replacement of ''segregation'' with ''states' rights'' would be more of a clarification than a [[euphemism]].<ref name=carter1/>

In 2010, some claimed that [[Texas]] Governor [[Rick Perry]]'s use of the expression "states' rights" was "reminiscent of an earlier era when it was a rallying cry against civil rights."<ref name="slater1">{{cite web |url=https://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-politics/2010/11/19/Analysis-Perry-s-states-7037 |title=Analysis: Perry's 'states' rights' battle cry evokes history that could damage his message |last=Slater |first=Wayne |date=November 19, 2010 |work=[[The Dallas Morning News]] |access-date=November 21, 2010}}</ref> During an interview with ''[[The Dallas Morning News]]'', Perry made it clear that he supports the end of segregation, including passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964|Civil Rights Act]]. The Texas president of the [[NAACP]], Gary Bledsoe, stated that he understood that Perry was not speaking of "states' rights" in a racial context, but others still claimed to feel offended by the term because of its past misuse.<ref name="slater1"/>

==See also==
{{Portal|American Civil War}}
* {{Annotated link|Bibliography of the United States Constitution}}
* {{Annotated link |Balkanization}}
* {{Annotated link |Bibliography of the American Civil War}}
* {{Annotated link |Compact theory}}
* {{Annotated link |Federalism in the United States}}
** {{Annotated link |New Federalism}}
** {{Annotated link |Anti-Federalism}}
* {{Annotated link |Local government}}
* {{Annotated link |Neo-feudalism}}
* {{Annotated link |Origins of the American Civil War}}
* {{Annotated link |Rule according to higher law}}
* {{Annotated link |States' Rights Party (disambiguation)}}
* {{Annotated link |Subsidiarity}}
* {{Annotated link |Subsidiarity (European Union)}} (The rights and responsibilities of EU member states.)

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin |indent=yes}}
* {{cite journal|last=Althouse|first=Anne|title=Why Talking About "States' Rights" Cannot Avoid the Need for Normative Federalism Analysis: A Response to Professors Baker and Young|journal=Duke Law Journal|date=October 2001|volume=51|issue=1|pages=363–376|url=https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1129&context=dlj|access-date=2 December 2011|doi=10.2307/1373236|jstor=1373236|url-access=subscription}}
* {{cite journal|last=Baker|first=Lynn A.|author2=Young, Ernest A. |title=Federalism and the Double Standard of Judicial Review|journal=Duke Law Journal|date=October 2001|volume=51|issue=1|url=http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1124&context=dlj|access-date=2 December 2011|page=75|doi=10.2307/1373231|jstor=1373231|url-access=subscription}}, which argues at 143–49: "To many, [the notion of states' rights] stands for an anachronistic (and immoral) preference for the race-based denial of essential individual rights....".
* {{cite journal |last=Farber |first=Daniel A.|title=States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776–1876 |journal=Constitutional Commentary |volume=18 |date=2001}}
* {{cite book |last=Kirk |first=Russell K. |title=Randolph of Roanoke: A Study in Conservative Thought| date=1951}} 
* {{cite book| last=Gutzman |first=Kevin R. C. |author-link=Kevin Gutzman |title=James Madison and the Making of America |publisher=St. Martin's Press |location=New York |year=2012 |isbn=9780312625009}}
* {{cite journal| last=Gutzman |first=Kevin R. C. |author-link=Kevin Gutzman |title=A troublesome legacy: James Madison and "The principles of '98' |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |date=1995 |volume= 15 |issue= 4 (Winter) |pages=569–89|doi=10.2307/3124014 |jstor=3124014 }}
* {{cite journal| last=Gutzman |first=Kevin R. C. |author-link=Kevin Gutzman  |title=The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions Reconsidered: 'An Appeal to the Real Laws of Our Country' |journal=Journal of Southern History |date=August 2000 |volume= 66 |issue=3 |pages=473–96|doi=10.2307/2587865 |jstor=2587865 }}
* {{cite journal |last=McDonald |first=Forrest |author-link=Forrest McDonald |title=States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776–1876 |journal=Constitutional Commentary |volume=18 |date=2001}}
* {{cite book |last=Murray |first=Robert Bruce |title=Legal Cases of the Civil War |date=2003 |publisher=Stackpole Books |isbn=0-8117-0059-3}}
* {{cite book |last= Risjord |first=Norman K. |author-link=Norman K. Risjord |title=The Old Republicans: Southern Conservatism in the Age of Jefferson |year=1965 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York}}
* {{cite journal |last=Sinha |first=Manisha |author-link=Manisha Sinha |title=Revolution or Counterrevolution?: The Political Ideology of Secession in Antebellum South Carolina |journal=Civil War History |volume=46 |date=2000|issue=3 |pages=205–226 |doi=10.1353/cwh.2000.0072 }} (in JSTOR)
* {{cite book |last=Sinha |first=Manisha |author-link=Manisha Sinha |title=The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina |year=2000 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=0-8078-2571-9 |page=362}}
* {{cite journal| last=Orbach |first=Barak Y. |others=et al. |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1696012 |title=Arming States' Rights: Federalism, Private Lawmakers, and the Battering Ram Strategy |journal=Arizona Law Review |volume=52 |year=2010|ssrn=1696012 }}

{{refend}}

==Further reading==
* Sotirios A. Barber, ''The Fallacies of States' Rights.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
* [[Jefferson Davis]], "[[s:The Doctrine of State Rights|The Doctrine of State Rights]]" (1890). ''The North American Review'', Vol. 150, No. 399, pp.&nbsp;205–219.
* Frederick D. Drake, ed. ''States' Rights and American Federalism: A Documentary History'' (1999)
* [[James J. Kilpatrick]]. [http://sovereignstates.org/books/The_Sovereign_States/SovereignStates.html ''The Sovereign States: Notes of a Citizen of Virginia''] Chicago: [[Henry Regnery Company]], 1957.

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/ Tenth Amendment Center] Federalism and States Rights in the U.S.
* [https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/States_Rights States' Rights] in ''Encyclopedia Virginia''
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070827012059/http://www.floridamemory.com/FloridaHighlights/collins/ A copy of transcript of Florida's 1957 Interposition Resolution, made available for public use by the State Archives of Florida]
* [http://www.missourisovereigntyproject.com Missouri Sovereignty Project] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190812070152/http://www.missourisovereigntyproject.com/ |date=2019-08-12 }} "Institutionalizing" the 10th Amendment into the populace and political fabrics of Missouri.

{{American Civil War}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:States' rights| ]]
[[Category:Federalism in the United States]]
[[Category:Legal history of the United States]]
[[Category:Political history of the United States]]
[[Category:Conservatism in the United States]]