I disagree here. The Nazi reference is interesting in that they eliminated the traditional role of the Länder and made the state a unified state. The Bundesrepublik after the war revered the Länder to a federated state. I would not say that the Federal Gov't in the US, even at its strongest, ever eliminated the existence of the state governments.
The Reconstruction Congress did everything possible to reduce the State Governments in the South to puppets for an over-riding totalitarian vision of what American Societies should conform to. It is very much analogous to the Hitlerian concept of one Germany, with one Will (his). The America of the Founding Fathers was something very different. South Carolina and Massachusetts could both adhere, because it was premised on an understanding of what values were common and what were not.
We were not, by reason thereof, a House Divided Against itself, because we understood that we were not a single House but a friendly neighborhood; one which allowed each Household to manage their own affairs in all the vast areas, where our values were not common. The South seceded, because for the first time, a Government was elected with only the perceived values of some of the people in one Section. That was a situation that George Washington, the one American who clearly defined the common values, specifically warned against.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
[Where the resources include not only several essays directly relevant to these questions, as they pertain to the present era, but also addresses by such luminaries of the earlier era as Webster and Calhoun, to help put these issues in a truer perspective.]
If states suceeded every time they didn't get their way in national elections, we wouldn't have a country left.
Come on, "everything"? I forget reading about the mass slaughter of former reb politicians and soldiers, and the concentration camps where all the little reb children were put to death... An "over-riding totalitarian vision"?? The South had to suck it up for a dozen years or so, and then they were left alone to oppress their blacks for another 80 years. Big deal. How this is over-riding totalitarianism is beyond me.
The America of the Founding Fathers was something very different. South Carolina and Massachusetts could both adhere, because it was premised on an understanding of what values were common and what were not.
We were not, by reason thereof, a House Divided Against itself, because we understood that we were not a single House but a friendly neighborhood; one which allowed each Household to manage their own affairs in all the vast areas, where our values were not common. The South seceded, because for the first time, a Government was elected with only the perceived values of some of the people in one Section. That was a situation that George Washington, the one American who clearly defined the common values, specifically warned against.
There were differences between the states, for sure. However, that does not mean that the Constitution created a neighborhood or a social club or a contract or anything else. It created a state. By ratifying the Constitution, the states granted the Federal Government powers only inherent in fully sovereign states, such as the power to declare war, carry on foreign relations, etc. Since, for example, Virginia did not have the powers of a fully sovereign state, it was not a fully sovereign state. But the document did provide a way for the states to change the manner in which sovereign power was distributed - that of the amendment process. Had the southern states been able to pass an amendment to the Constitution reverting to themselves their full sovereign powers they gave up upon ratification of the Constitution, then they would have been free to go. They did not, however, have the right to declare themselves in a state of rebellion and expect it to be respected by the other states or the Federal Government.