I’m just going to sprint through an argument I’ve made here and there for twenty years, and add a bit to the end. but the bit at the end is that I support States’ Rights in the current border fiasco, despite being a staunch Union man regarding the OG Civil War.
The federal government is a creature of, that is literally a thing created by, “the several States.” The tool used to create the federal government is a document which literally constitutes (that’s a transitive verb) that body, and the document is called The United States Constitution. Said Constitution implements a structure in which to secure to ourselves and our posterity the benefits and station envisioned in the Declaration of Independence, and this Declaratiion is the light which illuminates the whole thing.
The Civil War proper was the other shoe finally dropping on a foundational question from 100 years earlier, which had festered into an unsustainable division.
The States’ righters were correct in their argument concerning States’ rights. The abolitionists were correct in their arguments about freedom. The economics of both sides had an influence in the adoption and support of those views by either side.
But where the rubber hits the road is when a leader like Lincoln decides that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, that a States’ nominal right to secede must be trumped by the Union’s right to exist and that some dishes are going to get broken along the way.
It is not at all hypocritical now for States’ righters to argue that Lincoln was 100% correct back then. Only a fool substitutes a position for a principle.
Our Constitution is designed to protect the rights of individuals–not groups. Where States’ rights protect individual rights, they may trump the Feds. But where the USG is in a better position regarding individual rights than the State, then IT is more closely hewing to the intent of the Constitution.
Being a “States’ Rights Man” is well and good, and a fine default position for a limited-government conservative. But when the States are wrong and the Feds are right, then it’s just ignorant to stand on States’ rights. Again, look to the Declaration to see which side has the right of things.
Now several States are joining Texas in opposing a tyrannical and suicidal federal policy of allowing, even facilitating, unrestricted illegal immigration. There’s a lot going on in that Marxist assult, and it gets worse the further you dig. Suffice it to say that even at the very surface, it is patently unsustainable and flatly illegal. The Federal government has neither the right, nor the power, nor the justification to impose upon our states and cities an army of unassimilating immigrants.
War may come. It probably will not. Yet at times such as this, it is important to review the moral case before you and decide what you would do if pushed. And are we not pushed already? Well, not enough, perhaps. Then again, looking at what Texas is doing, some have clearly been pushed.
I will stand with Texas, and if civil war should come, I will not feel that I have done wrong. It’s more accurate to say that the civil war has been here for some time. I applaud TXGov’s efforts using State power to peacefully resist this illegal invasion loosed upon us from the Imperial Capitol. Let us hope that his initiative succeeds without violence. And let us be prepared in any case.
