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

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In living memory, "states' rights" is most notoriously associated with Southern resistance to desegregation and civil rights; in historical memory it's most notoriously associated with Southern secession and the Civil War. University of Alabama historian McDonald (Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origin of the Constitution and the American Presidency) offers a brief, pithy general survey of the issue's much richer, occasionally honorable history. States' rights was deeply intertwined with most major issues of America's first hundred years, from the very formation of government, to battles over the Bank of the United States, internal improvements (such as roads), the Louisiana Purchase, military policy tariffs and Reconstruction. This study is valuable simply for following a thread through such a diversity of subjects, and illuminating its main theme in such telling detail. It's also admirably honest in noting how frequently the doctrine was adopted or dropped, depending on the purposes served. Unfortunately, the book fails to adequately analyze other doctrines that competed with, intersected with or reinforced states' rights, and the fails to explore seriously the profound inconsistencies in how the doctrine came to be applied. Furthermore, while McDonald notes the rapid transformation of centuries-old contract law to accommodate the emergence of marketplace economics in the early 1800s, he ignores the notion of similar historical necessities transforming the decades-old doctrine of states' rights. The History Book Club, which will offer this largely informative and enjoyable book as a selection, could reach most of this book's limited audience among serious readers of American history. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Review

"A bold, independent thinker, he demolishes the shibboleths of the right as readily as those of the left. . . An indispensable history." -- Eugene Genovese, The Atlantic Monthly

"One could ask for no better introduction to this important and often complicated subject...." -- Times Literary Supplement
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 296 pages
  • Publisher: University Press of Kansas; 3rd otg edition (October 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0700610405
  • ISBN-13: 978-0700610402
  • Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #996,012 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book about the states' rights debate, January 20, 2001
By JasonM "mccreadj" (New Galilee, PA United States) - See all my reviews
Forrest McDonald has an encyclopedic knowledge of the United State's founding and early history, and excellent writing skills. These combine to make this book an amazing read. this book is an in depth, objective, study about how states' rights was an integral part of our founding, that the U.S. is a country made up of sovereign states, not of individual citizens, and how Lincoln, Jefferson, and many other presidents approached states' rights.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars States' Rights...then and today, June 8, 2003
By Nathan Schock (Sioux Falls, SD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Among their many failings, U.S. history textbooks have often portrayed national sovereignty as a largely settled question following the revolutionary war, which was resurrected years later by southern states who wanted to hold slaves. What University of Alabama Professor Forrest McDonald shows in "States' Rights and the Union", is that states' rights infused the national debate of most issues in the first 100 years of the republic.

One of those issues on which McDonald provides a particularly interesting read is the issue of "internal improvements" (modern-day supporters call them "earmarks"; detractors "pork-barrel projects"). What has become commonplace today was once looked at as an unconstitutional extension of federal power. As part of the ongoing debate, McDonald chronicles the 1825 passage of a resolution by the South Carolina legislature which condemned "the taxing of the citizens in one state 'to make roads and canals for the citizens of another state.' Virginia adopted a similar resolution early in 1827, as did Georgia late in the year." Where would today's politicians be if they couldn't deliver for their constituents road and canals? (and bridges and buildings and museums and subsidies).

The book is filled with Supreme Court cases, which serves to reinforce McDonald's contention of the Court's centrality in the states' rights debate. Although today the Supreme Court is looked at with an almost sacred awe, it wasn't always that way. Indeed, McDonald notes in the epilogue that it was with the dismissal of 20th century southern segregationist laws that "the Supreme Court gained an enormous fund of moral capital in the rest of the country" which it used to consolidate its power. But due to the constant shuffle of Supreme Court Justices, the Court has been a sometime friend and othertime foe of states' rights.

The jackets says the book was "written in an accessible style", but demands some familiarity with U.S. History (which should disqualify about 75 percent of the American public). However, what McDonald has done is to write a consistent narrative of one of the most important and unique features of American democracy. Although the narrative ends in 1876, it is instructive background for many current debates in U.S. politics and the epilogue sets the stage for a much-needed sequel. In light of the extensive research McDonald put into the first 100 years of the states' rights debate, it would be fascinating to see him focus that same energy on the last 125, and especially the Rhenquist court.

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Did States Rights' die with Antebellum America?, July 31, 2004
This review is from: States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 (American Political Thought) (Paperback)
~States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876~ is perhaps one of the best new contributions to the study of American constitutional history in recent years. Most history books portray the nature of sovereignty within the American body politic as being well-settled after 1787. In their mind, it was settled that the U.S. was to have a strong central government. This is reductionism at its best and history at its worst. The essence of a true federal regime has always been a diffusion of powers and a dual sovereignty, not a centralized unitary polity like France or the United Kingdom. The framers of the Constitution deliberatedly contemplated a general government with expressly enumerated powers. The contest over States Rights and the Union was almost inevitable, as the American polity was framed with an ingrained contradiction of dual sovereignty that was anathema to European conceptions of sovereignty. McDonald's book is fittingly subtitled Imperium in Imperio, which literally delineates supreme sovereignty within supreme sovereignty. Likewise, the Calvinist notion of man's innate depravity was more readily acceptable to framers who were weary and mistrustful of concentrated power. It was the springboard for fortifying Anglo-American traditions of bicameral legislatures, common law protections for the individual and adding more checks and balances. The framers rejected whimsical views about man's good nature espoused by Rousseau. "Free government is founded in jealousy," avowed Thomas Jefferson, "and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power..." Much to the chagrin of modern liberals, the crux of the American polity was the nature of its dual sovereignty coupled with its corporate liberty (i.e. institutions jealously guarding their prerogatives,) not its popular representation.

Forrest McDonald chronicles the political and constitutional history of the American polity in its first century from the time of the Constitutional Convention where the states in convention assented to the formation of the Union. All of the pivotal debates about the nature of the Union are addressed. McDonald pays special attention to contests that reached a groundswell during the administrations of Jefferson and Monroe over federal appropriations for internal improvements. The ensuing Congressional fights over the Bank of the United States, internal improvements, and tariffs would deepen the vexing question over the nature of sovereignty. James Madison brilliantly asserted that the Constitution gives the general government explicit "enumerated objects" of power, and Article I, Section 8 empowers Congress to finance "post roads," though no mention is made for subsidies to railroads or building canals. The original secessionist movement was lead by New England Federalists ironically, and McDonald chronicles the saga of the Hartford Convention. The High Federalists opposed the Louisiana Purchase, because it expanded the states and they argued that while the territory could be expanded that no new states should be added. Jefferson had serious reservations about the legality of the purchase in the absence of Constitutional Amendment, but found the deal too good to pass up. The controversies leading up to the War Between the States and southern secession are discussed. Moreover, the actions of the Supreme Court in shaping the debate over States' Rights and the Union are the subject of constant discussion for McDonald. Ultimately, the Clay-Webster-Lincoln conception of the Union would work to steadily supplant the conservative Madison-Calhoun-Hayne conception of the Union. The dictatorial Lincoln regime and Reconstruction regime could only serve to set the precedent for the New Deal exploits of FDR.

States' Rights is considered an archaic concept now and is often demeaned as a mere buzzword for segregationists. Nonetheless states' rights remains a monumental pillar of the American Republic that needs to be rediscovered and not forgotten. Madison's point is simple, the federal government has expressed powers and limitations, and if there are no limitations on what that government may do than the Tenth Amendment is turned on its nose and a relic of the horse and buggy era. Modern neoconservatives seem only to argue for a renewed commitment to federalism by shifting some powers back to the states on utilitarian grounds of efficiency rather than on constitutional grounds. If you like McDonald, I think books such as _Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom_ and _The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War_ are also worth considering. McDonald is more of a constitutional storyteller who withholds judgment; those books previously, however, tell it like it is.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fresh Look at a Maligned Subject
Talk "states' rights" in today's political climate, and you're likely to be labeled a crank or a racist... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Jason Carter

5.0 out of 5 stars Best read after bios of Washington through JQA
The other reviews have fairly well covered the ground, save for the notion that the more background you bring to this book, the more sense it makes. Read more
Published on February 13, 2005 by Ronald Davis

5.0 out of 5 stars States' Rights & the Union: Imperium in Imperio 1776-1876
States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio 1776-1876 written by Forrest McDonald is a very illuminating work on the vexing theme of States' Rights vs Union, a theme in... Read more
Published on September 28, 2002 by Joe Zika

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful, educational history with minor flaws
This book would be of interest if only for the fact that it serves as a lightening rod for the reader's preconceptions on the issues surrounding States' Rights. Read more
Published on June 2, 2002 by greg taylor

3.0 out of 5 stars States Rights and the Union
States Rights and the Union illustrates the struggle between federal and national government from the foundation through reconstruction. Read more
Published on June 2, 2001 by J. Lindner

5.0 out of 5 stars A stimulating Read
Forrest MacDonald never fails to give us a stimulating read and this book is no exception. In this book Professor Macdonald analyizes the concepts of union and states rights as... Read more
Published on April 28, 2001 by ewilliamsywam

5.0 out of 5 stars McDonald's State V. Federal Government
Forrest McDonald's study examines the conflicts that exist in America between a strong central government and the power of each state. Read more
Published on April 23, 2001 by Philip M. Montesano

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