States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 (American Political Thought)

States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 (American Political Thought) by McDonald, Forrest. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780700612277.

Forrest McDonald has long been recognized as one of our most respected and provocative intellectual historians. With this new book, he once again delivers an illuminating meditation on a major theme in American history and politics. Elegantly and accessibly written for a broad readership, McDonalds book provides an insightful look at states rights-an issue that continues to stir debate nationwide. From constitutional scholars to Supreme Court justices to an electorate thats grown increasingly wary of federal power, the concept of states rights has become a touchstone for a host of political and legal controversies. But, as McDonald shows, that concept has deep roots that need to be examined if were to understand its implications for current and future debates. McDonalds study revolves around the concept of imperium in imperio—literally "sovereignty within sovereignty" or the division of power within a single jurisdiction. With this broad principle in hand, he traces the states rights idea from the Declaration of Independence to the end of Reconstruction and illuminates the constitutional, political, and economic contexts in which it evolved. Although the Constitution, McDonald shows, gave the central government expansive powers, it also legitimated the doctrine of states rights. The result was an uneasy tension and uncertainty about the nature of the central governments relationship to the states. At times the issue bubbled silently and unseen beneath the surface of public awareness, but at other times it exploded. McDonald follows this episodic rise and fall of federal-state relations from the Hamilton-Jefferson rivalry to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, New Englands resistance to Jeffersons foreign policy and the War of 1812, the Nullification Controversy, Andrew Jacksons war against the Bank of the United States, and finally the vitriolic public debates that led to secession and civil war. Other scholars have touched upon these events individually, but McDonald is the first to integrate all of them from the perspective of states rights into one synthetic and magisterial vision. The result is another brilliant study from a masterful historian writing on a subject of great import for Americans.