Nathan, I completely agree that the Civil War was about slavery. But that doesn't mean it wasn't also about states' rights (which as a rule, I'm against.) Although this narrative might be politically effective, I think historiologically it's a bit skewed by starting in the 50s. I think to get the true picture you have to start at least with the compromise of 1820. Then you get a picture of the South from that point on desparately trying to stave off the inevitable: a majority of free states that would enforce a natural interpretation of the constitution that would make slavery unconstitutional. Their expansionism was driven for its own sake as well (and supported for its own sake -- this was a lot of what brought Northern states into the Democratic party, the gut support for manifest destiny) but foremost in their mind was the political fact that every free state above the parallel must be matched by a slave state below or they were doomed. And I think the 50s, the fugitive slave law, and the rantings of the Tawney court (which was itself a reaction to the very federalist Marshall Court that terrified Southerners) were all final reactions to the realization that this tit for tat strategy died in 1848 with the accession of California as a free state. I'm not a lawyer, but I thought the key fugitive slave law came out of the compromise that admitted California, and passed the Senate because Northerners thought the institution would still be doomed. The more and more fanatical attempts to enforce it, culminating in Dred Scott, were born in large part out of the fact that northern states didn't comply the vast majority of the time, and the south couldn't make them. So they decided the Northerners were right, that the compromise was only a stall, that eventually they'd lose in the Senate, and that the end was near.
So in other words, Southern states' rights proponents knew the fugitive slave law violated their principles. But they thought it was a time for desparate measures, since otherwise there was going to be a civil war. A position with which it is hard to argue. So I don't think they can be accused of hypocrisy, or contradictory thinking in this case. Simply of consciously ditching their principles (and trying to hide it) to save what they considered the greater good. Kind of like today's Supreme Court. The proponents come out looking slimy, but the principles are untouched; the proponents look slimy precisely because they didn't stick to them.
One could reasonably say based on this history that that the states' rights position, consistently maintained, wouldn't have been enough to defend slavery. But a modern day states' rights advocate like Gale Norton would agree with you completely. That in fact was pretty much her point, as I understood it -- that states' rights doctrine had to be separated from slavery if it was to be preserved.
But I repeat, I have absolutely no argument with your more substantial points that states' rights thinking in general is full of hypocrisy and contradictory thinking and that the civil war was about slavery.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com