Did John Wilkes Booth believe in states rights?

Answer 1

He did. He had an excellent reason for believing in state's rights: The 10th Amendment to the Unites States Constitution. The amendment says:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The powers which WERE delegated to the United States (the Federal Government) were delegated BY the states. When the Constitution was drafted what the framers who wrote it had in mind was a central government of LIMITED POWERS. The states had all governmental power, and if they wished to surrender only a limited, specific amount of that power to the new central government, they were certainly entitled to do that, and that is in fact what they did. They were replacing the Articles of Confederation, which had allowed for a central government so weak as to be ineffective. They wished to strengthen the Federal Government some, but retain most governmental power at the state level.

The 10th Amendment is part of the original Bill of Rights. The proponents of the new Constitution had a hard job convincing people to support the new Constitution, and several states would not even consider ratifying the new Constitution until the Bill of Rights was attached to it. Thus this language was part of the Constitution from the start.

So Booth was far from alone in believing in "state's rights". "State's rights" was, in fact, the law of the land from the beginning. The Federal Government had only limited, specific functions. All other governmental power remained with the states.

The sad thing is, its STILL the law of the land. The 10th Amendment has never been repealed - its still right there in the Bill of Rights of which we are so proud. It just means absolutely nothing today. It was effectively nullified by the Civil War, without the agreement of the people. This is one result of the Civil War - though the nation started with a central government of limited powers, and people had to be persuaded to even agree to those limited powers, the Civil War, among other things, was a massive power shift from the state capitals to Washington. Governments LIKE power, so don't expect Washington DC to ever give back the primacy it obtained at gunpoint in the Civil War. What you can expect to see instead is continued growth of the Federal Government, and continued encroachment into every facet of the lives of every citizen of every state. This has been the long term trend since the Civil War ended. Its some of the worst hypocricy of American life that we continue to revere the Bill of Rights but nobody ever wants to mention little facts like these. You're supposed to believe the war was about nothing but slavery and evil southerners and you're not supposed to notice that somehow in there, we went from having a central government of limited powers to the monolithic colossus poking its nose into everything and everybody's business we have today, which is something that nobody agreed to, and which seldom serves the interests of the average person.