Yes, this is main way that States Rights affected the Civil War: northern states ignoring federal law and federal court rulings about returning escaped slaves.
I can see several folks in this very discussion who might be surprised by this bit of history.
Edit: so far two different people think I am mischaracterizing what Southern states said at the time about their state's rights. I wasn't talking about that at all. I was talking about how I (and many modern historians) think about Southern states' reaction to Dred Scott and how Northern states ignored it. Please respond to what I said, instead of something I did not say.
This is also wrong. The Civil War was about slavery. There's a speech in which a defining characteristic of the confederacy is slavery. Keep playing revisionist history.
States rights wasn't good enough for them. Before the Civil War, many people in the South wanted to expand slavery to more places including new US territories and Nicaragua [1].
If they hadn't been so eager to have their way nationally, it's possible the Civil War could have been avoided.
greglindahl|7 years ago
I can see several folks in this very discussion who might be surprised by this bit of history.
Edit: so far two different people think I am mischaracterizing what Southern states said at the time about their state's rights. I wasn't talking about that at all. I was talking about how I (and many modern historians) think about Southern states' reaction to Dred Scott and how Northern states ignored it. Please respond to what I said, instead of something I did not say.
Delmania|7 years ago
mwfunk|7 years ago
skybrian|7 years ago
If they hadn't been so eager to have their way nationally, it's possible the Civil War could have been avoided.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)