Jump to content

The Truth About States’ Rights


Draggingtree

Recommended Posts

ADAM FREEDMAN

The Truth About States’ Rights

 

It was federal power, championed by the South, that protected slavery.

 

Autumn 2014

On March 24, 1859, a leading statesman who would soon find himself fighting in the Civil War gave a speech titled “State Rights.” In it, he warned of federal “usurpation” of state sovereignty on the issue of slavery, and he urged states to nullify national laws that threatened their autonomy. Urging his listeners to stand firm against an overbearing Washington, he declared: “Here is the battlefield, every man to his gun!”

 

The speaker was not Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, or some other Confederate statesman, but Carl Schurz, a leading abolitionist of the nineteenth century. Schurz would go on to serve as a Union officer during the Civil War, after which he enjoyed a distinguished career as a journalist, U.S. senator, and secretary of the interior. Manhattan’s Upper East Side is home to a park named after him.

 

The fact that Schurz was passionately devoted to both abolition and states’ rights flies in the face of most everything we’re taught about the causes of the Civil War. According to the standard version of history, states’ rights was a doctrine invented by Southern politicians to perpetuate slavery. One high school textbook, for example, describes the term “states’ rights” as an antebellum euphemism for “the right of the states to maintain slavery and the right of individuals to hold property in slaves.” Scissors-32x32.png

http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_4_states-rights.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • 1711620616
×
×
  • Create New...