What does state rights mean and how did this topic in the constitution cause a conflict between the North and the South?

Answer 1

When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787 the delegates represented thirteen little independent nations, each a former British colony. They were loosely bound together by the Articles of Confederation, which had proved to be unsatisfactory in the type of central government authority it created. The delegates were to create a new governmental system for these thirteen independent nation-states. All governmental power rested in the capitals of the thirteen little nations, except that to loosely coordinate a national military policy.

But the delegates were jealous of the governmental power that each of their little nations had, and leery of surrendering any more of that power to the new central government they were trying to create than was absolutely necessary. They worried that a central government might favor one section over another, or help one section at the expense of another. They wanted a new central government that would be strong enough to be effective, but no stronger. They wanted the new government to have enough power to do the things which were best handled collectively for all the thirteen nation-states, but no more power than that. Things like defend them all together from foreign attacks, to make treaties with other nations on behalf of all of them deliver the mail.

The delegates created the US Constitution we still use today. In it, they spell out specifically what powers the new national government they were creating was to have. In order for this new Constitution to take effect, it had to be approved by each of the thirteen little nation-states. Some members of state governments were concerned about thing that were not in the new Constitution, so they insisted that these principals be added before they would ratify the new Constitution, so the "Bill of Rights", the first ten Amendments to the text of the Constitution was added. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments say that the Federal Government had ONLY those powers specifically given to it by the new Constitution, and no more, not one bit more, and that any powers not SPECIFICALLY given to the new government by the Constitution were still in the hands of the states. These Amendments are still right there, in the Bill of Rights. They just have not meant much since 1865, when the Union won the Civil War. Before the Civil War the Federal government was small, with few employees, and rarely a factor in the life of most people. Most people never saw any sign of the Federal government's existence beyond their local postmaster. The Civil War marked a massive shift of government power in the US, from the state capitals to Washington DC. The Federal government, since the war, is the predominant one, and its power has grown continuously since, until today the people think nothing of the Federal government having its nose in every aspect of their lives. The Constitution still says this is not how things are supposed to be, and this was the reason those Amendments were in the Bill of Rights to start with - to prevent to growth of an all-smothering central government. But the forces of a strong central government won the Civil War. They try to distract the people by claiming the war was all about slavery, but that was only a peripheral issue. The real issue was immediately, keeping people and their territory in a nation where they no longer wanted to be, and the shifting of power from a decentralized, local arrangement to the central government. This was something nobody had agreed to, and which in fact our Constitution says, to this day, is not supposed to be.