Hello, Chad. Without for one minute defending race slavery or racism, I
would take issue with this phrase in your post:

You wrote: "Yep.  "States rights" is code for "racism"."

Here, you make an error of anachronism. I would agree that for many people
in the 1950's-`970', "states rights" was a code word for racist segregation.
However, that simply was not true in the 1800's. The question of the extent
of the rights of states under the Tenth Amendment was and is a legitimate
debate of law. Recall that the New England states were the birthing ground
of the theory of secession (in the War of 1812) and the struggle between
Hamiltonian federalism (with a strong central government) and Jeffersonian
federalism (with a weak central government) was a legitimate issue divorced
from racism. That Jeffersonian federalism lost is due to the forces of
history. In the last few years, the Supreme Court has revitalized this
debate by holding in favor of "states rights" in a number of contexts, not
least of which is holding that the federal government's employment laws
cannot bind state governments in many settings.

Thus, when you say " I firmly believe the founding fathers intended
federalism" you "beg the question" of what "federalism" meant to them. In
fact, it meant different things to different people then (and now) and a
disagreement over the power of the federal versus state governments is not,
by its nature, a dispute based in racism.

Even in the current day, the debate about "states rights" and federal
control is not always about race. Environmentalists have argued for states
rights in regulating the environment contrary to federal law, unions have
argued for "states rights" to enact pro-union laws contrary to federal law,
and Christians have argued "states rights" to protect what they perceive as
pro-Christian state policies from federal control.  Ultimately, Judge Roy
Moore's odd little fight over his Ten Commandments monument was about states
rights. He claimed that the federal government (through its courts) had no
right to order him (a state Chief Justice) in regard to decorating his
courthouse.

In the fight about integration, "states rights" was used as an emotional
rallying cry, an excuse for racists to hold onto their segregation, but
outside that historical context, it has never been a "codeword for racism."

James W. Allen
jallen@...