States' rights

In Americanpolitical discourse, states' rights are political powers held by the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the Tenth Amendment. The enumerated powers that are listed in the Constitution include exclusive federal powers, as well as concurrent powers that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are contrasted with the reserved powers—also called states' rights—that only the states possess.

The doctrine of reserved powers was central to the Anti-Federalist critique of the proposed Constitution. They criticized the lack of a bill of rights, articulated the fears of that the new government would be too large and prone to mainintaining a standing army; in spite of the writings being intended for a small audience, these ideas were disseminated in pamphlets, papers, or manuscripts through various channels and found their way into broader American discourse of the time. In response to these and other objections, the Federalists agreed to recommend a bill of rights—including the Tenth Amendment—as conditions for ratification. The debates created the historical grounding wherein the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798-99 first formally stated the compact theory of Union, arguing that the federal government is a creature of the states, that the states are parties to the Constitution, that the federal government has only delegated powers and the states are arbiters when judging federal infractions. The Resolutions, authored by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in clandestine collaboration, were written in response to the which were passed by the Federalists; in the Kentucky Resolution Jefferson argued that nullification (though he used interpose, his stance would evolve into Calhoun's nullification) was the remedy and that any federal law exceeding powers not delegated was void ab initio and of no force. However, in the Virginia Resolution, Madison's stance was more moderate and he did not call for a single state to unilaterally void federal law. He instead argued in favor of interposition—that the states had a moral duty to arrest the progress of evil, but they should do so by appealing to other states and moral suasion.