Where State's Right's actually DID matter

jpeter

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Retired Moderator
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Location
Dallas, TX
In 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska Act

Stephen Douglas almost single-handedly did away with the Missouri Compromise. He put the issue of slavery into the hands of emerging territories. The political lines of slavery are now off the table. They are completely re-drawn. Any new state or territory can determine for itself if institutional slavery.

As it turned out, interest in slavery created chaos in the emerging territories. In hindsight, something as troublesome as slavery in the 1850's played out in two ways. It showed...

1. Slavery as a sectional issue under one flag was difficult
2. Slavery as a territorial\state issue was impossible

I think slavery as a state-issue might have had a more rational outcome before 1820 (although I'm not entirely sure of that). But emotions ran too high after that.

In the 1850's, Bleeding Kansas clearly suggested that something as large as slavery MUST be settled at the national level - not the state level.

It crossed my mind while reading about this again that this issue was the pre-eminent "state's right" in question during much of the 1850s.

I believe a state in isolation was not the appropriate source of power to have the final say of such a super-charged issue. Border issues would be too contentious.
 
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