state rights
Anti-centralization political doctrine
State rights (also states' rights) is the political principle that individual U.S. states should retain powers not explicitly granted to the federal government.
The doctrine has been invoked across American history to resist federal authority—sometimes defending local autonomy, sometimes defending slavery and segregation: He campaigned on a states' rights platform.
The term carries different weight depending on context and speaker.
- Tenth AmendmentStates retain unassigned powers
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- lost causeEndeavor certain to fail
- Confederate flagSecession-era Southern banner
- enumerated powersAuthorities explicitly granted by constitution
decentralization · Articles of Confederation · reserved powers · Jim Crow laws · secession · subsidiarity · interposition · sovereignty · limited government · localism · concurrent powers · libertarianism · self-determination · republicanism · autonomy · judicial review · constitutional convention · pluralism
- governancegovernance, government, democracy, vote, parliament
- Constitutionpreamble, articles, U.S. Constitution, Article I, First Amendment
- Early RepublicGeorge Washington, Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Constitutional Convention
- Jacksonian EraAndrew Jackson, Democratic Party, spoils system, Indian Removal Act, Trail of Tears
- Policyeconomic policy, public policy, energy policy, tax policy, domestic policy
- Reproductive Rightsabortion law, abortion ban, reproductive autonomy, bodily autonomy, Roe v. Wade
state rightsfederal power
National government's jurisdiction
centralized government · federal jurisdiction · central authority · federal control · federalism
state rightsnationalism
Devotion to one's country
centralism · big government · federal overreach · national unity · strong central government
state, rights, states, stated, stating, statement, statements, stately, statehood