States' Rights

States' Rights.  I hear these terms quite often when listening to conservatives in today's political landscape.  It is a term that has been used by conservatives (democrats, dixiecrats, republicans) for centuries.  But when you really look at their pro-states' rights arguments they tend to have an unconstitutional tone.
 

Let’s take, for instance, Slavery.  Many southern conservative lawmakers felt that the slavery issue should not have been decided by the federal government but instead left up to the individual states.  If one did not agree with a state's decision to continue slavery, one could just move to another state.  Well that would work out pretty fine for a white person who was against slavery but not so much for a black person who was a slave.  Hence some refer to the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression”.

Let's skip ahead to public and state school desegregation.  Again many southern conservatives felt that school desegregation was overreach by the federal government and that the issue should be decided by the states.  Once again many of the southern conservative lawmakers were completely against school desegregation.  For a white person your school was just fine as it was but not so much for a black person going to a substandard "separate but equal school".

In both examples, had "states' rights' won slavery might still exist in some states or at the very least slavery would have had a longer lifespan in the United States and school segregation would probably still be the law of the land for public and state schools.

What is the lesson here?  We hear a lot of commentary about not trusting the federal government; however considering the track record of state governments vs. the federal government, some of us probably should look at our state governments with an even higher degree of suspicion.