Understanding the Doctrine of States’ Rights
One hundred sixty years after the war for Southern independence, great confusion is still caused by the claim that the South fought for their independence and for “states’ rights.” What does the doctrine of “states’ rights” mean in this context? The dictionary definition is easily understood: “the rights and powers held by individual US states rather than by the federal government.”
However, confusion arises as to the substantive meaning of this doctrine, as the notion has now become entrenched that states only have such rights and powers as may be granted to them by the federal government in its mercy. That notion is entirely wrong-headed because the opposite is the case: the federal government only has such rights and powers as may be conferred upon it by the agreement of the people as delineated in the Constitution. As historian Clyde Wilson puts it, “The Constitution should be the instrument of society’s control of government, not vice versa.”
It is sometimes argued that the Constitution itself confers supremacy on the federal government to do whatever it considers appropriate in the discharge of its functions. Expressing that view, former President Barack Obama once said, “we have a supremacy clause in our constitution. When federal law is in conflict with state law, federal law wins out.” On the contrary, the doctrine of states’ rights, as explained by John C. Calhoun, holds federal law to be supreme only within the confines of its own sphere:
Calhoun pointed out that the [supremacy] clause itself stated that only laws “made in pursuance of the Constitution” were supreme. Thus, concluded Calhoun, federal and State laws were each supreme within their rightful spheres—a far cry from the claim that federal laws were categorically supreme over State laws.
The doctrine of states’ rights was widely understood in the nineteenth century as a constitutional doctrine denoting that sovereignty was vested in each state, as a means of resisting federal encroachment. States could exercise this sovereignty by, for example, the right of nullification or, ultimately, by the right to secede. The language of “rights” in this context means something done “rightfully” by the states under powers exercised as of right, rather than by the permission or grant of the federal authorities. Jefferson Davis wrote in the preface to T
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