States Claiming Sovereignty and States Rights

States claiming sovereignty and states' rights was a dividing issue in American history up to and including the Civil War. States rights is supported by the US Constitution as well as the Tenth Amendment, a part of the Bill of Rights.

The Tenth Amendment allows for states to have powers not delegated to the national government. The Tenth Amendment itself is seldom used to declare laws unconstitutional, but it still is an important Amendment in regards to states' rights. The powers of states, however, have traditionally been usurped by the national government when the Supremacy clause of Article VI in the Constitution is invoked. This describes federal law as the "supreme Law of the Land" in regards to any powers given to the government via the Constitution.

Never was there more contention over states claiming sovereignty and states' rights than the period leading up to the Civil War and during the Civil War itself. Southern states in the first half of the 19th century advocated seceding from the United States due to a federal demand for a ban on slavery. Since the Constitution did not prohibit slavery outright, any law that banned slavery was thought to be an infringement on states' rights. South Carolina was the first state to secede, declaring that Northern states had not followed through with the Fugitive Slave Act and that the election of Abraham Lincoln would lead to the abolishment of slavery. It believed that secession from the United States was implicitly provided in the U.S. Constitution. Eventually, a total of 11 states seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America.

Since the end of the Civil War, no state has seceded from the United States of America, and no serious attempts have been truly made. In addition, states' rights have gradually been diminished due to the increased power of the President, the Fourteenth Amendment (which applies the Bill of Rights to state laws), and Congress's ability to cut off key highway finances if certain laws or regulations are not applied to any given state (such as making the legal drinking age 21). Current states' rights issues include gay marriage and the medicinal use of marijuana.