According to "The History Buff's Guide to the Civil War" by Thomas R.

Flagel
(Cumberland House:2003), the rallying cry of "State's Rights" was one of those
slogans that tend to unite people, even though separated by class and economic
status. Such was the case in the South before the Civil War, and "States Rights"
became one of the major causes of the conflict that became our nation's four-year
Civil War.

The controversy over whether the federal government should be preeminent over the
individual states, who entered into the contract of federalism voluntarily, went
back to the beginnings of our constitution. The Federalists versus Antifederalist
contest culminated in the first major (albeit peaceful) change in American
government as John Adams ceded power to Thomas Jefferson.

In 1832 when Congress adopted a series of high import tariffs against the wishes
of the Southern states, the "states' rights card became a popular Southern
response to any unpopular national policy. The notion of "nullification" (a
state's right to refuse to obey a federal law deemed unconstitutional) was,
perhaps, the most radical application of the states' rights mantra. However,
advocates such as Jefferson Davis of Mississippi also tended to be "very selective
in application of the mantra:

"They demanded local supremacy over tariffs, slavery, and control of territories
but called for a strong national government to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law,
annex Texas, engage in a war with Mexico, and push for annexation of Cuba."

Up until after the Civil War, however, we had no strong national government. There
was no national bank; we had no national currency or income tax, and our army was
"minuscule." Our annual budget was a paltry $70 million. During the period before
the Civil War, we also had a series of weak, one-term presidents, who did not
prove equal to the task of coping with the crisis that would end with secession
and war.

Southerners, like Jefferson Davis, had at the basis of their views of states
rights the notion that any state who desired to do so could opt out of the Union.
In "The Approaching Fury, Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861," by Stephen B. Oates
(Harper Collins:1997), the author uses first-person narrative to give us an
insight of Davis' beliefs on the controversial issue of States' rights:

"You want to know what caused the war?" Jefferson asks, "...The Federal
Constitution, when it was ratified, represented a compact among independent
states. This fact was placed beyond any pretense of doubt when amendments were
added to the Constitution reserving to the states all their sovereign rights and
powers not expressly delegated to the United States." (427)

Jefferson complains of the northern states, who "gained preponderance in the

national congress" because of immigration "and other causes in a greater ratio
than the population of the South. The Southern states, then became the aggrieved
minority, and even Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address asserted "as an
axiom that in all cases the majority should govern. This, according to Davis was
the "lamentable and fundamental error on which rested the policy that culminated
in Lincoln's declaration of war against the Confederacy.

Lincoln, of course, had contrasting views on the matter. To him, the need to put
down the rebellion of Southern states transcended the petty interests of petulant
slave holders. Oates' narrative of Lincoln's views on the matter continues:

"... The contest presented to the whole family of man the question whether a
democracy a government of the people, by the same people can maintain its
territorial integrity against domestic foes. It presented the question whether
discontented individuals can always break up their government, and thus put an end
to free government upon the earth..." (430)

Each side had a point. The differences over states' rights and other issues (such
as the spread of slavery) were irreconcilable. The matter was settled only by four
years of war and bloodshed. In the end, the Civil War settled those differences.
The war gave us a Federal Government that would forever be preeminent over
individual states. We would have a national bank, a common currency, an income tax
and a national government that would account for 30 per cent of our gross national
product. Slavery, too, would be abolished, but even the Federal Government would
not be able to stamp out prejudice and discrimination.