A nice bit of political analysis from Politico’s History Department by Columbia professor Eric Foner related to his new book about the Underground Railway Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad:
When it came to enforcing and maintaining the peculiar institution [an Old South nickname for slavery – Ed.] against an increasingly anti-slavery North, the Old South was all too happy to forget its fear of federal power—a little-remembered fact in our modern retellings of the conflict.
The slavery exception to otherwise robust support for states’ rights was a recurring feature of antebellum Southern politics. Southerners wrote into the Constitution a clause requiring the return of slaves who escaped from one state to another, and in 1793, only four years after George Washington assumed the presidency, they persuaded Congress to enact a law putting that clause into effect. Ironically, when it came to runaway slaves, the white South, usually vocal in defense of local rights, favored robust national action, while some northern states engaged in the nullification of federal law, enacting “personal liberty” laws that barred local officials from cooperating in the capture and return of fugitives. …
The most striking example was the South’s embrace of national power to capture and return fugitive slaves, especially as implemented in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This law was the most robust expansion of federal authority over the states, and over individual Americans, of the antebellum era.In the 1840s, as increasing numbers of slaves pursued freedom by running away to the North and a network of local groups, collectively known as the underground railroad, came into existence to assist them, southerners demanded national action. As part of the Compromise of 1850, which abolished the slave trade in the nation’s capital and allowed territories recently acquired from Mexico to decide whether or not to allow slavery, Congress enacted the new, draconian fugitive slave law. The measure created a new category of federal officeholder, U.S. commissioners, authorized to hear cases of accused fugitives and issue certificates of removal, documents that could not be challenged in any court. The fugitive could neither claim a writ of habeas corpus nor testify at the hearing, whose sole purpose was to establish his or her identity. Federal marshals could deputize individuals to execute a commissioner’s orders and, if necessary, call on the assistance of local officials and even bystanders.
Christopher says
These days it tends to be southern states that decry federal spending, yet are generally net recipients of federal aid.
fenway49 says
Hypocrite of the first order since at least 1787.
Christopher says
…a British MP said something like, “Why do we hear the loudest cries for liberty from the drivers of human chattel?”
scott12mass says
We are a republic and states rights have always been very important in the governing of this vast country. It has been used by both sides, liberals and conservatives when it suits them. Legal pot and gay marriage wouldn’t be where they are if it weren’t for states rights. Whine when it’s used against you, applaud when you get your way but don’t change things if at all possible. If we are going down the paralyzing road of a national democracy (as opposed to a republic of democratic states) the first thing that will have to change is we will have to disband the structure of congress where we have the Senate which inherently reflects states rights.