The election of 1860 saw the continuation of slavery as an integral political issue. The election of Abraham Lincoln, who was anti-slavery, but notably not abolitionist, ignited these tensions so much that it was a major contributor to the South’s secession from the Union. Often, the mythos surrounding secession is that it was due to states rights, and that the federal government was infringing on their rights. This poses the question, does imposition by the federal government really equal less freedom?
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln spoke at the Cooper Union and gave a powerful and impactful speech which ultimately argued that the federal government had the constitutional right to control slavery in the states. This would mean that the power of the federal government would supersede the power of the states when it comes to issues regarding slavery. Many of the Southern slave states didn’t like this, so much so that they succeeded from the Union. In South Carolina’s declaration of succession, they claim that “the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the federal government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified the State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union.”
This shows that not only did states, in this instance South Carolina, think that the power of the federal government was overreach, they thought that it was so overreaching that it nullified the constitution. Looking towards the present to other issues regarding states rights, it becomes apparent that freedom for the states for the states to make their own decisions on issues doesn’t necessarily mean the freedom for people in the states. For exact, take the aftermath of Dobbs v. Jackson, which returned the issue of abortion back to the state by revoking the federal protection that came about from Roe v. Wade. However, despite the decisions being given back to the states, something that should have made it ‘freer’ as the federal government is no longer dictating what abortion bans states are or aren’t allowed to implement, most people who needed abortion as a civil liberty have actually seen less freedom for themselves with the bans.
The idea of state rights against the overreach of the federal government doesn’t ensure freedom for the people, it ensures freedom for the states to do what they want.
Additional Source:
Lincoln’s speech from the Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/lincoln/the-run-for-president.html) titled “Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address”
I never made this connection but it definitely seems true. When evaluating freedom looking at the state, federal government, and individual each portrays a different representation of freedom. There are all sorts of unique outcomes that turn seemingly democratic processes into unrepresentative ones. I wonder how a stronger federal government implemented under Hayes would have changed this.
This is very interesting! The civil war was sort of the opposite of Dobbs v. Jackson, where a federal policy was given over to the states, whereas in the civil war, a state policy was made unilaterally by the federal government. Other examples I can think of, like the civil war, are gay marriage and school segregation, but I can’t think of another case where something federal went state.