by Rick Fontes

Created on: April 30, 2009   Last Updated: May 01, 2009

The so-called civil war solved nothing. I use the term "so-called" because a civil war, by definition, is a conflict between geographic or political factions of a government fighting for control of that government. The war between the states was fought for the purpose of establishing, or preventing the establishment of, a completely new government.

That the forces of the North prevailed proved only the obvious, a better financed, better armed force, will win over one that is lesser endowed. The question of the South's right to separate itself from the Union, under the constitution as it was then written, is still open for debate.

The United States had no claim over the individual citizens of the several states until after the passage of the fourteenth amendment. Prior to that time a person's citizenship was determined by the state in which he or she resided. The fourteenth amendment created the entity "United States Citizen" and gave the Federal Government the ability to insert itself into matters at the state level under the guise of protecting the rights of US citizens.

While a clever device, the fourteenth amendment still does not address the question of whether states rights are superior or inferior to federal rights.

The framers of the constitution listed what they thought were the ideal limits of Federal power. This list is to be found in the "Enumerated Powers" clause of the Constitution. Several of the original states, leery of the power over their affairs being granted to the federal government, sought assurances that these powers would not be exceeded. Checks on the usurpation of powers was codified in the first ten amendments, chiefly in the tenth.

To more fully understand the intended juxtaposition of power, one must read the word "state" with the meaning that it had during the early years of the nation. In the Declaration of Independence, we find the following: "These United Colonies are, and by right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connections between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved." A modern reading gives the alternate meaning of the word "state" as a subdivision of a larger political entity. At the time of the American Revolution it had no such meaning and so the intent of the framers of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution is crystal clear on that matter.

It is axiomatic that, in general,

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