-Caveat Lector-
Segregationists misuse Federalism.
There are no 'States' Rights".
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 25, 2002
The story behind Lott's blunder
Alan Reynolds
Most of what has been hashed and rehashed about Sen. Trent Lott's
infamous reference to Sen. Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential bid is of
only passing interest now that the Mississippian quit the Senate
leadership.
Some wanted a different Senate majority leader anyway and were
secretly thankful for any excuse. Before the coup, only a couple of
historical comments about the incident caught my attention. One was the
observation that half of Americans were not even alive in 1948, and
probably have no idea what Mr. Lott was talking about. The other was a
poignant column by publisher Ralph Eubanks, offering his personal
reflections on what it was like growing up black in Mississippi.
When he researched his family background, Mr. Eubanks "found the words
'states' rights' and 'illegal encroachment by the federal government' used
in place of 'segregation' and 'integration.'" That comment is quite
correct, yet it troubles me for two reasons. As a college student in the
early 1960s, I was passionately opposed to the military draft and just as
passionately in favor of the Rev. Martin Luther King's dream of treating
people as individuals, not as members of arbitrary categories. On the other
hand, I was and still am a big fan of decentralized government, otherwise
known as federalism or devolution.
The 1948 States' Rights Party campaign failed to derail the proper
extension of civil rights to all Americans. Yet the effort nonetheless
managed to hijack the vital concept of federalism, even today. By defending
segregation in terms of states' rights, Dixiecrats tainted one of the most
effective checks and balances the Founding Fathers created.
The label "states' rights" was nonsense. States have no rights; only
individuals have rights. The Constitution enumerated a deliberately narrow
list of what the federal government could legitimately do, essentially just
a common market with a common currency and army. The 10th Amendment added
that "powers not delegated to the United States Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people."
As Cato Institute scholar Roger Pilon points out, the states, too,
derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed." States never
had any right to provide unequal treatment under the law, regardless
whether that meant favoritism (affirmative action) or the opposite
(segregation).
Federalism encourages relatively efficient, innovative and responsive
government by creating competition among states and cities over the quality
and cost of government services. States that charge steep taxes for
mediocre services invariably repel talented citizens and promising
businesses. State politicians can easily be held accountable for results
that fail to measure up to other states.
Federalism diffuses political tensions by allowing for a wide variety
of local cultural and political tastes. Las Vegas and Salt Lake City are
geographically close, yet far apart when it comes to social mores. If you
cannot tolerate being near gambling and prostitution, don't live in Nevada.
The ease of voting with your feet makes federalism an excellent safety
valve for social intolerance. Abortion became such a nationally divisive
issue because the Supreme Court "made a federal case out of it," even
though murder cases are left to local jurisdictions.
The national prohibition of drinking likewise raised the stakes to an
intolerable level, though nobody worried much about dry counties that long
outlasted the federal law. State referendums wish to decriminalize the
medical use of marijuana, but federal drug czars, who have long been
intoxicated with unconstitutional powers, obstruct democracy, too.
The saddest legacy of the segregationists' perversion of federalist
arguments is that too many Americans have become dangerously sanguine about
"encroachment by the federal government."
Some of the recent federal bullying has been merely irksome, such as
the absurd experiment with a nationwide speed limit of 55 mph. The federal
government had no legitimate authority to meddle with speed limits. It did
it by threatening to withhold federal funds. It used the same trick to
impose an equally unenforceable requirement that college students reach the
age of 21 before tasting beer. A farce, of course, but now a federal farce.
All "internal revenue" is extracted from the citizens of states, but
Congress keeps threatening to make that flow of cash into a one-way street
unless the state conforms to more and more of these petty federal dictates
and mandates.
Federalism means the federal government should focus on its main
responsibilities and not meddle in matters best handled closer to home. A
focused federal government would never have allowed "homeland security" to
become a belated afterthought. And a focused federal government would never
allow state attorneys general to redesign national securities law (which
really is "interstate commerce") through backroom deals.
Washington's overreaching has become particularly ominous when it
comes to the federalization of crime and education. "The trend to
federalize crimes that traditionally have been handled in state courts,"
wrote Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, "threatens to change entirely the
nature of our federal system."
A 1999 American Bar Association task force chaired by former U.S.
Attorney General Ed Meese issued a rigorous critique of that trend, noting
that it diverts limited police, court and prison resources away from
violent crime toward assorted victimless offenses. Making matters worse,
Congress armed federal prosecutors with a long list of ill-defined crimes
that they often pile up to secure plea bargains - such as conspiracy, mail
fraud and racketeering. Meanwhile, the FBI keeps pushing for more powers to
snoop, and new anti-terrorist laws are scary in this respect.
As for education, the federal government provides only about 6 percent
of all funding for K-12 schooling. Yet the feds hope to leverage that minor
sum by bullying schools to conform to federal standards - a tactic other
countries have used to brainwash children with pro-government propaganda.
What Mr. Lott should have said, but his replacement as Senate majority
leader still could, is that the "states' rights" crowd set out to spoil an
extremely valuable principle - federalism - that made this country uniquely
tolerant, diverse and flexible. The younger generation needs to relearn the
value of federalism in order to understand that the states' rights crusade
was an illegitimate corruption of the idea. But the whole idea that
government-run schools might teach students that the federal government
should be limited in any way seems an unlikely dream if the federal
government keeps encroaching on what our children are taught and how.
Alan Reynolds is senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a nationally
syndicated columnist.
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