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States Rights” in the context of the Civil War were about the issue of slavery, period. It was about the slave owners’ “rights” to own slaves AND to extend that right into the new territories like Kansas & Missouri involving the Maine compromise, etc.
I have to disagree, to a point, with you on this one Frumius. Slavery was just one of the (although a major one ) issues involved in “States Rights”. The southern states felt that if they had the right to join the Union, well then they had the right to leave the Union if they wanted to leave.
Lincoln him self said that if he could end the war with out freeing a slave, he would, if he could stop it by freeing some of them and leaving others in slavery, he would do that also. Although it was an underlying issue with Mr Lincoln, restoring the Union was the most importent one to him.
So, although slavery pushed it over the edge, it was the believe that the States had the Right to live as they wanted to , with-in the framework of the Constitution, without others telling the how to do it. That the states where main government with in the state, with loose ties to the fed government. And you have to remember that slavery was legal at that time under the constitution
I didn’t mean to hijack the tread, my point was mean that for the first 80 some odd years, the fed gov had little impact in peoples everyday live’s, where now it touches almost every aspect of our lives. And I don’t feel that it needs to get any “bigger”.
